The SDI Board of Directors is the governing body of Spiritual Directors International. With the role comes fiduciary, visionary, strategic planning, and personnel oversight responsibilities. Board members serve three-year terms, and new members are appointed as members of the board complete their terms of office.
Board Nominations Now Open!
The SDI Board of Directors is now accepting applications! If you would like to join us, please fill out the nomination form linked below.
Chair
Eric Massanari, M. Div.
Bellingham, WA (USA)
Eric (he/him) is an ordained pastor in the Mennonite tradition, living in northern Washington state where he serves as the Executive Conference Minister for the Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference of Mennonite Church USA. He also maintains a private practice in spiritual direction. Eric has served on the SDI Board of Directors since 2018 and brings a passion for inter-faith and inter-spiritual connections, community formation, peace and justice building, and companioning people who are at diverse places on the spiritual journey. An avid poet and essayist, Eric is a contributing author of An Open Place: The Ministry of Group Spiritual Direction.
In his own words: “I celebrate how spiritual companioning takes so many vital forms across time, place, traditions and cultures. In its myriad expressions it’s a practice that our world needs now more than ever, as together we seek the paths that make for enduring peace.”
Vice-Chair
Myriam Klotz
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Rabbi Myriam Klotz is a spiritual director and supervisor in Jewish seminaries and in private practice since 1999. Myriam consulted with several rabbinical schools to introduce spiritual direction to their students and faculty. She coordinated the spiritual direction program at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion from 2010-2020, and has been the director of the Bekhol Levavkha Spiritual Director Training program since 2014. Myriam is also a Senior Program Director with the Institute for Jewish Spirituality where she teaches somatics and embodied practices from a perspective of deep listening and honoring of our bodies’ sacred wisdom. Myriam lives in Philadelphia, PA with her spouse Rabbi Margot Stein. She is the proud mom and step mom of two sons.
Secretary
Bernadette Miles, PhD
Victoria, Australia
Bernadette (she/her) is co-director of Kardia Formation P/L, where she offers companionship of empowerment for women and men through spiritual direction, Spiritual Exercises, supervision, and various programs for personal and leadership development. Before establishing Kardia, Bernie worked with the Australian Jesuits where she held various roles including Director of Campion Centre of Ignatian Spirituality and Coursework Coordinator for Sentir Graduate College of Spiritual Formation, (University of Divinity). Her work included the development and delivery of the Master of Arts in Spiritual Direction and graduate studies in leadership and organizational development.
Leslie Keener, CDP
Melbourne, Kentucky
Sister Leslie Keener is a Sister of Divine Providence of Kentucky who directs a ministry called God Space, which fosters community and spirituality through small groups, social events, and service. A campus minister for twelve years, she now serves as the vocation director for her community, meets with people for spiritual direction, and offers preached and directed retreats. She has a Masters in Ministry and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University. Leslie is a native of Cincinnati, and she enjoys spicy food, arts and crafts, and dancing.
Sean Murphy
New Mexico, USA
Sean has had nearly three decades of formal Zen meditation training, including extended periods of monastic retreat.
He’s the author of the American Zen chronicle One Bird, One Stone, which won a 2014 International Book Award. He serves as adjunct professor for University of New Mexico-Taos and is founder of the Sage Institute Meditation Leader Training Program in Taos, New Mexico.
He presents widely on matters of meditation, mindfulness, and creativity.
Jennie Isbell Shinn, M.A., M.Div
West Tisbury, Massachusetts, USA
Jennie Isbell Shinn, M.A., M.Div., has been in private practice as a spiritual director since 2008. She has more than two decades of experience in non-profits as an employee, board member, volunteer, and consultant. While in seminary, during a discernment exercise in class, a friend noted, “You’re always talking about Jesus, but you’re really a lot more like Paul!” And so began her long, discerning path of seeking the balance between gifts for spiritual care and gifts for administration.
Along the way, she has worked (part time) as a massage therapist (since 2001), a certified yoga therapist working with fibromyalgia patients, a director of outreach for a seminary, a cat sitter, a manager of advancement services (for a women’s college), a writer, and a yoga mat cleaner. She became a mother for the first time in her early 40s, and currently lives and works on an island off the coast of Massachusetts with her partner and their child. She is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).
Agnes Hermans
Agnes Hermans (she/her) is a spiritual companion, supervisor, and serves as a hospice spiritual care coordinator. She is one of the founding coordinators of the Contemplative Network Aotearoa New Zealand.
Agnes has a background in social work, community development, health service management as well as governance roles in community organisations. Across these roles she has worked to improve equity of access to services and outcomes for Māori and raise awareness of the effects of colonisation. She has compiled two books with stories about her community.
Agnes lives on the Whangārei harbour in the north of Aotearoa New Zealand, with her husband Peter. They have three children and three grandchildren.
