Diane Pendola has been a contemplative presence in county jails and prisons since 1986 when she completed her Masters degree in theology. She was deeply influenced by feminist and liberation theologies, with their emphasis on giving voice to the voiceless and bringing the disenfranchised in from the margins to the very center of authentic spiritual life. She also had the great good fortune of being the student of the pre-eminent inter-cultural philosopher, Raimon Panikkar. Through Panikkar she became grounded in a deep respect for dialogue as an open and engaged listening as a path to spiritual maturity.
She has worked as a pastoral minister among incarcerated women for many years and is the creator of an in-prison transformational program based on her book The Lioness Tale. She has sought her own transformation through prayer and meditation, Gestalt Awareness Practice and the Enneagram, all of which she now teaches and practices in her life and work.
Diane knows all things are possible through the Love that resides at the center of our expanding universe and at the center of our human hearts.
Teresa Hahn spent 26 years in a Carmelite Monastery and has lived an intentional spiritual life and practice for over fifty years, embodying a way of life informed by the Christian mystical tradition. In her work of hands and heart she continues to live a contemplative life here at Skyline, a monastery without walls and without institutional boundaries. Teresa is our spirit gardener, soul groundskeeper, reservoir holder of joy. She is also the wood maven, mower of lawns, and steadier of faint hearts; the one who knows that love is the whole and more than all.