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SDI BIPOC Gathering – November 2025
November 19 @ 9:30 am – 11:00 am PST
Work–Rest–Play–Pray Rhythm
A reflective, experiential practice for cultivating emotional resilience and sacred balance.
With the fall season picking up—project deadlines, work schedules, family obligations, and holiday preparations—it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. This session invites participants to explore their personal rhythms of work, rest, play, and prayer as pathways to emotional resilience and spiritual renewal. This session is for those who identify as Black, Indigenous or a Person of Color who would like to connect with other BIPOC spiritual directors and spiritual companions.
Our Guiding Equation: Stress + Rest = Resilience
Our Purpose: To cultivate an integrated rhythm of life that sustains one’s call to deep listening, compassionate presence, and inner renewal.
Participants will:
- Attend to their own physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
- Create a personalized Work–Rest–Play–Pray flow that fits their lifestyle and vocation.
- Learn their rhythms of rest and play through guided reflection and interactive assessments.
- Explore how rest and play nourish discernment, empathy, and availability to the Holy in others.
Resources for our time together.
Take the Rest Quiz to discover your unique rest needs:
restquiz.com/quiz/rest-quiz-test/#quiz
Take the Play Personality Quiz:
nifplay.org/what-is-play/play-personalities/
Angela R. Hooks is the content creator and spiritual director of Heartbeat Formation, LLC. She serves as a group facilitator with Shalem and The Center for Contemplative Leadership at Princeton Theological Seminary. Angela earned her PhD in English Literature from St. John’s University, an MFA in Creative Writing from Manhattanville College, an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and is a graduate of Oasis Ministries for Spiritual Development. As an ordained minister, she is an itinerate preacher for American Baptist Connecticut Churches and an associate minister at Antioch Baptist Church in Bedford Hills, New York.
Angela served as one of the hosts for the 2025 Spiritual Wanderlust Summit and offered a live practice: Sacred Writing. She has presented webinars and workshops for Shalem’s Group Spiritual Direction, Spiritual Directors of Ohio, the National Association of Catholic Chaplains, the American Baptist Churches of the USA, and Metro New York.
Angela has published in a range of genres from non-fiction books, literary anthologies, to magazines and academic journals such as Spiritus: Journal of Christian Spirituality (2024) and Christian Century (2024), Make it Happen: A Journal to Identify and Actualize Your Goals (2021), Diary as Literature: Through the Lens of Multiculturalism in America (2020), and The Other Side of Motherhood, Mercy on the Journey (2004).
As a former adjunct professor, she has taught first-year writing and literature at Dutchess Community College, Culinary Arts Institute, St. John’s University, and Ramapo College.
Angela delights in the Holy foolishness of grace, where laughter meets longing, & mystery dances with the mundane. Her approach to soul companioning includes “scriptio divina” sacred writing, literary and visual arts, contemplative practices, and play. Her practice is steeped in Jesus’ Spirituality, cloaked with African American Spirituality, and peppered with Quakerism and Ignatian Spirituality. Angela is currently training to be a Club Pilates instructor to incorporate into her spiritual direction and soul care. Angela hosts Today’s Heart Matters, a weekly live stream on Substack @heartbeatformation.
