The Center for Spiritual Imagination exists to deepen and enrich human relationships with God, self and neighbor in new and ancient ways.
Our work is rooted in a spiritual ecology that has an ancient rhythm, is committed to nurturing community and is focused on doing justice in the world. We are engaging practices that help us embrace our full humanity and express the love of God by living justly. Our practice exists at the margins of the church (or at its heart) where communion with God and each other eclipses religious affiliations — where the spiritual needs of seekers, doubters and religious practitioners converge. Our experiences, programs and services are open to all. We acknowledge particularly the gifts present in those who identify as Spiritual But Not Religious: a dynamic segment of the human community open to practices at the depths of the Christian tradition who often find official aspects of religion averse to spiritual growth. In an age marked by the institutional decline of Christianity in America, we are reimagining how the church will gather and grow now and in the future. The Center for Spiritual Imagination is operated by the Community of the Incarnation.
© Fred Greco
The Rev. Adam Bucko
Co-Founder and Director
The Rev. Adam Bucko is a co-founder and Director of the Center for Spiritual Imagination and is an Episcopal priest serving at the Cathedral of the Incarnation. Adam has been a committed voice in the movement for the renewal of Christian Contemplative Spirituality and the growing New Monastic movement. He has taught engaged contemplative spirituality in Europe and the US and co-authored two books: Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation and The New Monasticism: An Interspiritual Manifesto for Contemplative Living. His latest book, published in 2022, is Let Your Heartbreak Be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation. Committed to an integration of contemplation and just practice, he co-founded an award winning non-profit, the Reciprocity Foundation, where he spent 15 years working with homeless youth living on the streets of New York City, providing spiritual care, developing programs to end youth homelessness and articulating a vision for spiritual mentoring in a post-religious world.
© Fred Greco
Kristin Vieira Coleman
Co-founder / Program Director
Kristin Vieira Coleman is a co-founder and Program Director at the Center for Spiritual Imagination, assisting in developing the Community of the Incarnation's formation program and envisioning our public programs. Kris has been an active lay minister for over a decade, leading small groups and teaching classes on contemplation, 12-step spirituality, and Scripture. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband Jeremy and their cat Benedict.
© Fred Greco
Meli Schneider
Organizational Development Manager and Novitiate Associate
Meli Schneider is the Organizational Development Manager and Novitiate Associate for the Center for Spiritual Imagination, contributing to the strategic vision and implementation of the development of the Community of the Incarnation. With a Master’s in Psychology from Columbia University’s Spirit Mind Body Institute, and intensive training as an Integral Coach and entrepreneur, she looks to help people in spiritual communities take a “both, and” perspective. In 2023, Meli was a youth speaker at the United Nations World Interfaith Harmony Week. Having grown up in a multicultural, multireligious family and environment, Meli has a deep love and respect for the mystical heart of all faith traditions. She travels between the Washington DC metro area, and Cali, Colombia with her partner, Santiago.
© Fred Greco
Guesnerth Josué Perea
Director of Black Lives & Contemplation
Guesnerth Josué Perea is a vowed member of the Community of the Incarnation. He also serves as Associate Pastor at Metro Hope Church, Executive Director of the afrolatin@ forum, Co-Curator of the AfroLatine Theology Project, Executive Producer of the documentary "Faith in Blackness: An Exploration of AfroLatine Spirituality”, and Co-Host of the podcast Majestad Prieta. His perspectives on AfroLatinidad & Blackness have been part of various publications including the New York Times, the New Yorker, and Sojourners & his writings are a part of Let Spirit Speak! Cultural Journeys through the African Diaspora, the Revista de Estudios Colombianos, and Engaging Religion among others.
© Fred Greco
The Rev. Morgan Mercer Ladd
Co-Founder
The Rev. Morgan Mercer Ladd is co-founder of the Center for Spiritual Imagination and a priest in the Episcopal Church. As our first Director of Formation, Morgan was responsible for designing and leading the spiritual formation program for our new monastic community. She also created programming and curriculum for many of our public offerings. She specializes in spiritual practices for people of all ages and cultivating intergenerational spiritual communities. She currently lives with her family and their beloved dog in Texas.
© Fred Greco
The Very Rev. Dr. Michael Sniffen
Co-Founder
The Very Rev. Dr. Michael Sniffen is a co-founder of the Center for Spiritual Imagination and serves concurrently as Dean of the Cathedral of the Incarnation and Dean of the Mercer School of Theology. An expert in ritual theory and the role of pilgrimage in spiritual life, he teaches worship, preaching and the arts in several graduate programs. He has served as a fellow of the Center for Christianity in Global Contexts at Drew University and as a founding member of the Racial Justice Advisory Council of the Brooklyn Community Foundation. Michael was a lead organizer in the Occupy Sandy mutual aid movement. He was commissioned in 2021 as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy Chaplain Corps. Michael has a particular interest in building community among those who consider themselves 'spiritual but not religious.'
What People Are Saying About The Center For Spiritual Imagination
"The Center for Spiritual Imagination responds to my deepest longing for transformation and invigoration of faith at the heart of diocesan life. Just actions motivated by prayer form the core of the church’s life and work. The Center for Spiritual Imagination encourages and teaches people in our diocese, the wider church and the broader public ways to live and pray justly. Deep prayer and deep friendship with Jesus Christ move us to act with healing in a hurting world. I joyfully support this work as a bishop of the church and episcopal visitor of the Community of the Incarnation.”
— The Rt. Rev. Lawrence Provenzano, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island
“The Center for Spiritual Imagination is re-envisioning an inclusive and engaged spirituality for the 21st century, where the gifts of monastic spirituality are translated into a form that can be practiced in everyday life and where one’s commitment to contemplative practice leads to justice-making.”
— Richard Rohr, author of Universal Christ and Founder of Center for Action and Contemplation
“I am profoundly moved by the emerging work of The Center or Spiritual Imagination. We find ourselves in a time of great uncertainty in which many of the structures we have taken for granted are beginning to collapse. The Center is a space of calm and courage, a community rising to meet the challenges of our global crisis with vast generosity — embodying the unconditional mercy and justice Christ represents, without ever asking its members or those they so joyfully serve to adhere to any particular belief system. This is wisdom in action, the sacred pouring into the ordinary, love wildly blossoming in the most broken of spaces.”
— Mirabai Starr, bestselling author of Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation and, an acclaimed translator and contemporary interpreter of the works of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila.
“For those thirsting for community, contemplative spirituality, and justice, the Center for Spiritual Imagination is a deep and powerful well from which to draw from ancient wisdom waters. In addition to offering a spiritual home, the Center expands our collective imagination around how community can form and serve in these times. I look forward to learning alongside this bold, loving, and necessary experiment.”
— Adam Horowitz, co-founder of Nuns and Nones
"The work of the Centre for Spiritual Imagination is exactly what is needed in these times. Rooted in the nourishment and depth of ancient rhythms, this is work that can lead us back to the source. The Centre offers a call for all of us — no matter what our background — to play a part in regenerating our world from a place of Divine love. There is food for the soul here in abundance. It links our personal journeys with the collective need for transformation, which all true spirituality at this time must do. At St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace in London, we share in this Great Work and hold you all in our hearts at this time of change."
— Justine Huxley, CEO of St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, author of Generation Y, Spirituality and Social Change.
“The Center for Spiritual Imagination provides much-needed resources and supports for living the Christian contemplative life of prayer, service and community in new and meaningful ways. Our rapidly changing world desperately needs the depths of contemplative wisdom preserved and translated for those outside the cloister, including young seekers, SBNR’s (spiritual but not religious), social justice and environmental activists. The Center is an invaluable gift for those who hunger for meaning and connection."
— David Frenette, author of The Path of Centering Prayer
“The Center for Spiritual Imagination is serving a deep and wide need in our contemporary world, re-imagining, re-membering, and celebrating the sacred in our everyday lives. The Center's radical hospitality offers pathways for any one to enter safely into the Spirit. This invitation reminds us that we are both unique and interconnected. May the Center reach all who long to respond to such a call.”
— Mirabai Bush, founder and senior fellow of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, co-author (with Ram Dass) of Compassion in Action and Walking Each Other Home, (and with Daniel Barbezat) Contemplative Practices in Higher Education.
“Most Western post-industrial societies are shifting from enlightenment / modernity to post-secular cultures associated with a marked weakening of the Christian Church and faith. It is essential now to remember that there has never been a renewal of the Church in history without a corresponding renewal of contemplative prayer and religious life. I utterly affirm the work of the Center for Spiritual Imagination. They have a key role to play in the process of supporting new religious communities and movements at this crucial time of major cultural change.”
— The Rev’d Ian Mobsby, author of A New Monastic Handbook: From Vision to Practice, co-editor of Ancient Faith, Future Mission: New Monasticism as Fresh Expressions of Church, Guardian of the New Monastic Society of the Holy Trinity and the Assistant Dean for Fresh Expressions in the Diocese of Southwark Church of England.