The Kirkridge Board of Directors is excited to announce that Lydia Wylie-Kellermann will be our new Executive Director. Lydia has deep roots in the history and values of Kirkridge and an imaginative vision for our future. Her selection is an honoring of the sacred ground on which we stand and the call to reach out to new generations and communities with spiritual sustenance and commitment to social justice.
Lydia Wylie-Kellerman describes her work as “a tapestry woven of community-building, story-gathering, hospitality, activism and sacred listening.” Her communications gifts and wide community networks will offer Kirkridge transformative opportunities for outreach and engagement, and abundant possibilities for new life on the mountain. She is currently the editor of Geez Magazine, which, under her creative leadership, now thrives as “a prophetic and provocative voice to the institutional church and a pastoral presence to those laboring at the front lines of social change.” Prior to that, she spent a decade as an organizer and facilitator of retreats, workshops and mentoring opportunities with Word and World, an innovative people’s school designed to bridge the gap between seminary, the sanctuary, and the streets.
She holds a degree in Theology and Women and Gender Studies with minors in Peace Studies, Sociology and Creative Ministry from Loyola University; and is engaged in the Spiritual Direction and Social Transformation Program at the Center for Prophetic Imagination and Minnesota Center for Contemplation and Healing.
She is a writer and editor of numerous publications, most recently The Sandbox Revolution: Raising Kids for a Just World (Broadleaf Books, 2021). Her essays have been published in Bury the Dead: Stories of Death and Dying, Resistance and Discipleship; Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregional Faith and Practice, and elsewhere, and her writings have appeared in Sojourners Magazine, The Catholic Worker, The Mennonite and RadicalDiscipleship.net and more.
Lydia Wylie-Kellermann is experienced in nurturing teams with leadership that is collaborative and non-hierarchical and holds a profound commitment to place and land. She first came to Kirkridge as a child with her parents, Jeanie and Bill Wylie-Kellermann, who were a strong spiritual presence in the Kirkridge community and who, as she says, “raised her with a faith that can never be separated from justice.” A native of Detroit, she brings to Kirkridge a deep spiritual foundation and lived experience in building intentional community, organizing for racial and social justice, local economy and urban agriculture, and activism for water and other human rights.
Lydia will be moving to Kirkridge this summer with her partner Erinn Fahey, and two children, Isaac (9), and Cedar (6).
A Note from Out-Going Executive Director, Jean Richardson:
We call it Kairos time, when the stars and the planets, Divine grace and our hearts collide. Such is this time with the gift of Lydia Wylie-Kellermann accepting the invitation to be the next Executive Director of Kirkridge. Lydia’s proven conviction to aligning her inner call with work in the world will surely be an inspiration to us all and rekindle the light we offer our hurting world.
Welcome Lydia, Erinn, Issac and Cedar. We are blessed to call you family.
A Note from Incoming Executive Director, Lydia Wylie-Kellermann:
It is with deep gratitude that I step into the role of Kirkridge’s next Executive Director. As a child, I wandered this mountain knowing I was on sacred ground that had long been a home for community to gather and justice to be embodied. With great joy and curiosity, our family is
tenderly pulling up our roots in Detroit ready to lay them down on the rocks of this mountain.
May this be a season to listen to stories, fall in love with the land, and dream the next part of Kirkridge’s story. I look forward to doing this holy work with each of you.