ChIME Faculty & Staff
ChIME faculty members and staff bring gifts and experience from a broad spectrum of traditions, disciplines, and arts. Highlighted below are some of our staff, key faculty and some of the guest instructors and speakers who teach our classes and workshops.
Rev. Lisa Steele-Maley
Dean
email: lisa@chimeofmaine.org
In both work and personal life, Lisa has always sought opportunities to help individuals and organizations cultivate healthy, responsible relationships in both human and natural communities. So far, her life’s journey has spanned the continent and included program and development work at nonprofits, parenting, caregiving, writing, and participation in ChIME’s program. Ordained as an Interfaith Minister in 2019, Lisa continues to attend to and nurture the fierce and tender connections between self, spirit, land, and community. Lisa lives in an aging farmhouse in coastal Maine with her husband, two teenage sons and a handful of animals.
Beth Thompson
Director of Marketing & Operations
email: beth@chimeofmaine.org
Beth is a recent MDiv graduate from Lancaster Theological Seminary, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Her focus of study included Narrative Pastoral Care, Trauma informed Care, and chaplaincy training. Over the past ten years she left her secular finance position to enter into a more mission based arena. Her deep belief in Chaplaincy education for individuals who need to personally heal, or wish to serve their community with interfaith ministry, came from her years in Seminary, and her Field Education & CPE training. She is honored to take this role and excited to help more people discover the life giving education of ChIME and the compassion of the ChIME community.
Rev. Myra Robinson
Faculty Advisor and
Community Programs Coordinator
email: myra@chimeofmaine.org
Rev. Myra Robinson graduated from ChIME in 2016 and has been serving her community in large and small ways ever since: from offering respite hospice caregiving, to singing to those at end-of-life, to being Minister-of-the-Week at Ferry Beach Conference Center.
Rev. Myra’s personal Mission Statement is “to be a channel for Grace and to make a difference.” She currently offers guest clergy Sunday services in local churches, as well as pastoral care and bereavement support as needed. With gratitude and excitement she looks forward to being enfolded - once more - into the loving arms of ChIME!
Rev. Craig Werth
Faculty Advisor and Academic Coordinator
email: craig@chimeofmaine.org
Craig Werth has rejoined the ChIME professional team as Faculty-Advisor and Academic Coordinator. Craig is an interfaith chaplain (ChIME, 2017) and pastor at Nottingham Community Church (UU) in Nottingham, New Hampshire. Having toured internationally as a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer for many years, Craig has learned that music is his first language of spirit. Craig is passionate about kayaking, biking, writing, story-telling, improv theater, photography, all plants and animals, and anything that makes sound waves. He shares this challenging, wondrous and wild ride with his wife-and-best-pal, Liz, their therapy dog, Sadie, and their warmly extroverted cat, Mika.
Rev. Cathy Grigsby MDiv
Instructor and Arts Minister
Cathy was ordained in 1999 by the Interfaith Theological Seminary in Tucson, Arizona. She has worked with her spiritual teacher, Dr. Beverly Lanzetta, for over 45 years and completed an M. Div. and monastic studies program with Dr. Lanzetta. She has been a member of the Community of a New Monastic Way since 2008. She is also an artist and retired public school art teacher of 29 years. She has performed many life ceremonies including, weddings, memorials and naming ceremonies. In addition, she provides spiritual direction services and was instrumental in founding the Interfaith Ministers of New England.
Rev. Abby Hall Luca
Instructor
Rev. Abby Hall Luca (she/her) is an Ordained Interfaith Chaplain, midwife, writer, and educator whose private practice, The Hearth Chaplain, offers spiritual listening and companioning. Though Abby works with all people, she specializes in chaplaincy and spiritual care through infertility, pregnancy, birth, and parenting. Her background in healthcare and training in issues of moral injury also help her to companion healthcare workers working through burnout and compassion fatigue, and her spacious and affirming approach make her an ideal companion for the "spiritual but not religious" seeker. Abby was ordained in the ChIME class of 2022 and currently crafts classes and retreats for ChIME's Asynchronous Workshop Experience (AWE) option..
Rev. Jody Breton
Instructor
Rev. Jody Breton was ordained by ChIME in 2011 and has supported ChIME students as a Spiritual Companion for 8 years. Her ministry is centered around bringing as much light and love into the world as possible. Jody has a full practice officiating all life events, is a frequent service leader at the Islands Community Church on Bailey Island and serves on their Worship Committee. Jody is a Shamanic Practitioner and Teacher and enjoys mentoring those that are seekers and mystics.
Susannah Crolius, M. Div.
Instructor
Susannah Crolius, M. Div. (she/hers) is a spiritual director, artist, writer, and retreat leader. She is the founder of the art + soul community which is currently expanding into The Center for Spiritual Imagination. She is a member of Spiritual Directors International, the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association, and is completing an 18-month certification as a Spiritual Literacy Facilitator through Spirituality & Practice.
An ordained minister in the United Church of Christ for over 25 years serving suburban and urban congregations as well as Hospice Chaplain and Bereavement Coordinator, Susannah chose to step away from denominational identity and institutional ministry to explore more generative forms of spiritual identity and community.
Rev. Joanne Arnold
Instructor
Joanne Arnold graduated from Maine College of Art 1979 with a BFA in Painting. Her practice is to photograph at dawn every day, without exception, year round. Her work as a photographer introduced her to those that inhabit this early morning landscape: the fishing community, the dock workers, the homeless, the recovery population. Her work as an Interfaith Chaplain (ChIME 2013) deeply informs her work and how she moves throughout this landscape. Joanne is a frequent presenter at PechaKucha events in Portland, Kennebunk and Belfast and has presented at TedXDirigo 2018 and TedXYouth 2018.
Rev. Patricia Ellen
Instructor
Patricia Ellen was ordained in 1996 by the New Seminary, the first Interfaith Seminary. She is recently RE-FIRED (Matthew Fox’s alternative to retire) from ChIME, where she served as Abbess working with students at all levels. In addition she worked for the Center for Grieving Children for 15 years supporting families, schools, camps and businesses during times of grief and loss. Both experiences brought home to her the power of listening and ritual, and the richness of spiritual paths of all kinds. She considers herself a “teach-learner” as she and those who attend her classes share wisdom and creativity. As a clown and originator of the “bubble blessing” at ChIME, she enjoys bringing laughter and lightness to the spiritual journey. In reFIREment she practices savoring the moment and serving where “called.”
Rev. Jake Fahey
Instructor
Jake Fahey (he/him) is an interfaith chaplain and antiracism organizer living on Abenaki land (now known as Portland, ME). He is interested in building local structures for a spiritual and cultural transformation that address systems of oppression, and seed systems of liberation. He graduated from the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine (ChIME) in 2018 and has completed two units of Clinical Pastoral Training of Southern Maine. He is organizing with Community Change Inc. (CCI) and the Racial Equity Institute (REI).
Rev. Joel Grossman, MEd
Instructor
Joel was ordained as an Interfaith Minister by the Chaplaincy Institute for the Arts and Interfaith Ministries in 2000. He has worked in Massachusetts as an Interfaith Chaplain with Hospice of the North Shore and is presently Director of Spiritual Care/Volunteer Coordinator with Constellation Hospice. He has also provided chaplaincy services at Beverly Hospital, Essex County Correctional Facility, and Danvers Detox and Rehabilitation Services. He has had a private practice as a psychotherapist for over thirty years, was a teacher of the “Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program,” and was Coordinator of Health Promotion at the University of Massachusetts–Boston.
Deborah Pfeffer
Instructor
Deborah Pfeffer is certified by the Marin Institute for Projective Dream Work and has a B.A. in Philosophy. She offers dream work for individuals, groups, workshops, courses, and retreats. In her course, Storytelling From the Dreamtime she uses active dreaming, poetry, and ritual to help people access their mythological voices and tell their sacred stories.
Deborah is an award-winning poet and essayist whose writing is inspired by travel to remote and inaccessible places. Currently, she is finishing Mates, a story of a four-year journey aboard her sailboat Piper.
Rev. Sarah Shepley
Instructor
Rev. Sarah Shepley is an ordained interfaith minister and professional artist. In May 2020 Sarah completed a 3 year training program on The Family Constellation Approach which looks at how trauma affects families over generations. Sarah has a private practice helping individuals and families explore such issues.
Dana Sawyer
Instructor
Dana Sawyer is professor emeritus of philosophy and world religions at the Maine College of Art & Design and author of biographies of both Aldous Huxley and Huston Smith. His primary expertise is in Hinduism and Buddhism but for more than twenty years, his work has focused on comparative mysticism, theories of the "perennial philosophy," and the value of psychedelic experiences in the study of mysticism. Most recently, he has published an assessment of Aldous Huxley's theory of psychedelic mysticism for the Centre of Aldous Huxley Studies (2019) and an essay in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology (2021) on four common errors in scholarly critiques of the perennial philosophy, including assessments of how psychedelic studies may help clarify such issues. He is currently writing a book on the Transcendental Meditation Movement for Cambridge University Press.
Guan Dojo MA, ABD
Instructor
Guan (aka Joan Uraneck) entered ChIME as a student in 2009, and as a member of the Core Faculty in 2013. She says, “At ChIME I embarked on an incredible journey that changed my life forever….I see myself as a contemplative mystic serving my community and the world.” Guan’s calling as an Interfaith Minister came after many years teaching students at the Maine College of Art. Her call led her to form a hands-on ministry to help those who have suffered the loss of a loved one - “learning to start lawn mowers, cleaning out stuff, and sitting in companionship with those in grief.” She has also been a Statement Gatherer for the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission.