Online Zoom Forum: Contemplation and Action: Balancing Interiority and Exteriority for Effective Action in the World.
Date: Wednesday 7 October 2026.
Time: 7pm-9pm (UK time).
Event Description:
Format: There will be six talks, each of 12 minutes, followed by discussion among the speakers and the chair, followed by Q & A.
Chair:
The Revd Bonnie Evans-Hills:
Bio: Bonnie Evans-Hills is a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church and has considerable experience in inter-religious dialogue, working with organisations such as the EU Commission on Foreign Affairs & Security, the World Council of Churches, Churches Together in Britain & Ireland, the Anglican Communion, and the Anglican Mission organisation USPG (United Society for Partners in the Gospel). Bonnie has been involved in contributing to the UN Office for the Prevention of Genocide’s Global Plan of Action for Religious Leaders & Actors. She was recently awarded the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Speakers:
Fr. Michael Holleran:
Title: Contemplation as Action.
Description: While there are many aspects to the dynamic interplay of action and contemplation, I would like to highlight contemplation itself as a form of action.
Bio: Fr. Michael K Holleran is a retired priest of the Archdiocese of New York. He was a Jesuit for five years, then a Carthusian monk for 22 years. He is also a Roshi in the White Plum Asanga of the Zen tradition. He leads Centering Prayer groups and seeks multiple paths to spread the riches of contemplation.
Dr Christopher Ives:
Title: Religion and Sustainability Transitions: Making Sense of Inner-outer Harmony and Dissonance.
Description: There is increasing appreciation of the need for integrated inner-outer perspectives on change for sustainability that unite effective action and deeper shifts in values, beliefs and worldviews. Religious institutions therefore have been proposed by some environmentalists to be powerful sites for mobilising sustainability action. However, empirical evidence has shown that religious expression is highly complex, at times mobilising while at others inhibiting sustainability transitions. By engaging with current sustainability science scholarship, this talk offers a framework to make sense of this complexity and provide some provocations for how religious and non-religious actors may work for inner-outer change.
Bio: Christopher Ives is Associate Professor in the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham. Having completed his PhD at Macquarie University, Sydney, he held postdoctoral positions at the University of Melbourne, RMIT University, and Leuphana University Lüneburg before moving to the UK in 2016. An interdisciplinary sustainability scientist, his research focuses on values for nature, the role of religion in sustainability transformations, and how inner transitions in beliefs and worldviews can drive change toward a sustainable future. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Society for Social-Ecological Systems.
Chris Booth:
Title: Quaker Practice and the Work That Reconnects: Resourcing Sacred Activism in a Time of Global Crises.
Description: This talk will explore how the inner and outer dimensions of spiritual experience are inherently connected, drawing on both Quaker practice and the Buddhist-based practices of Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects. I will describe how Quaker experience of sitting in silent meeting for worship with others can often give rise to loving action in the world. Similarly, the Buddhist bodhisattva path of compassion sees our inner spiritual practice both resourcing and motivating our outward action. The Work That Reconnects draws on these insights to provide a structured approach to build resilience as we face the emotional and spiritual challenges of the world we now live in. Rooted in gratitude, we take time to honour our pain for the world, see our situation with new eyes, and go forth into the world with active hope.
Bio: Chris Booth is an Interfaith minister ordained by the OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation. A lifelong peace and environmental activist, he is passionate about addressing the causes of conflict, injustice, suffering, and environmental damage, and building radical communities to sustain us in this work. He is a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and currently serves as an elder. As a facilitator of the Work That Reconnects he supports activists and others to find a spiritually resourced response to the environmental crisis.
Prof Guro Hansen Helskog:
Title: Philosophising the Dialogos Way Towards Wisdom in Education.
Description: I will talk shortly about my Dialogos approach to philosophising, and describe a two-three projects with students and teachers, with a special focus on balancing interiority and exteriority in pedagogical philosophical practice.
Bio: Guro Hansen Helskog is professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway. She has developed the Dialogos approach to pedagogical philosophical practice, and is the author of several teaching resources, research articles, and books, amongst them Philosophising the Dialogos Way towards Wisdom in Education – between critical thinking and spiritual contemplation (Routledge 2019). Recently, she edited three anthologies, including “The Humanising Power of Philosophical Practice in Education and Counselling (LIT Verlag forthcoming 2026). She is also co-host in the pod cast ResponsAbility – Dialogues on Practical knowledge and Bildung in Professional studies together with Michael Noah Weiss. Explore her work at www.dialogosway.com (in Norwegian and English).
Dr Marilyn Hamilton:
Title: Gaia’s Code of Care: From Inner Listening to Regenerative Action.
Description: How do we translate contemplation into effective action in a world of increasing complexity? Drawing on the Integral City framework and the living laboratory of Findhorn, Marilyn Hamilton explores a Gaia Code of Care that connects the inner and outer dimensions of change. An Integral City attends simultaneously to consciousness and culture, action and systems — the four interdependent dimensions through which individual insight becomes collective capacity. From Deep Inner Listening to the “Seeds of Light” we each carry, this talk asks how attending to our inner knowing can enable us to become conscious participants in the regenerative intelligence of the larger living systems to which we belong.
Bio: Marilyn Hamilton, PhD, is founder of Integral City Meshworks and co-founder of Living Cities Earth. She is author of the Integral City book series and Tales of the CROFT Regenerators graphic novellas. She works with cities and communities as living human systems, integrating consciousness, culture, action and systems to support regenerative change. Marilyn is associate faculty of global leadership studies in California Institute of Integral Studies and Royal Roads University. Based in Findhorn, Scotland, she currently serves as Chair of the Findhorn Foundation SCIO, stewarding Findhorn’s Educational Impulse and its practices of Deep Inner Listening, Love in Action and Co-creation with the Intelligences of Nature. Her current work explores the power of story, aliveness and “Seeds of Light” to awaken our capacities as regenerators of the human hive. www.integralcity.com , www.livingcities.earth
Prof Teresa Messias:
Title: Contemplation To Attain Love: An Ignatian Praying Attitude for Effective Action in the World.
Bio: Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Theology, UCP.
She was awarded her doctoral degree in Spiritual Theology by the Faculty of Theology of Universidad Pontificia Comillas, Madrid, with her thesis entitled El seguimiento de Jesús como transformación del deseo en Sebastian Moore, published in Portuguese by Paulus.
She lectures on the subjects of Spiritual Theology and Systematic Theology.
She also teaches Christianism and Culture in the Faculty of Law and in the Faculty of Human Sciences of UCP.
She has also taught at the University of Saint Joseph – Macau.
She has provided spiritual support to persons and groups, practicing the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius and running colloquiums on themes interrelating with Christian Spirituality since 2001.
She has published various books and delivered papers on the fields to which she dedicates her research.
She has collaborated with the Patriarch of Lisbon on training projects and taught at the School for Lay People, a project designed to offer theological education and training particularly to Lay People. She also collaborates with Saint Thomas Aquinas Institute of the Portuguese Province of the Order of Preachers.
An archive recording will be made for the EICSP archive.
NB: There will be no refund if you cancel your booking.
Cost: By Paypal or Bank Transfer:
Contact: Neill Walker, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Here are the bank transfer details:
Account Name: Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace
Bank: Bank of Scotland
Bank Address: Edinburgh Royal Mile Branch
Account Number: 06131159
Sort Code: 802000
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The IBAN number:
GB70 BOFS 8020 0006 1311 59
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