Are you hoping to deepen your faith or looking for wholeness? At The Well you can find your path at your own pace. You can be yourself, a core need for all of us.
Welcome to The Well!
“If you want to go quickly go alone. If you want to go far, go together”– African Proverb
We live in a unique moment in time; a time when old ways that are no longer serving life are crumbling. New ways of understanding God, relating to one another, and living in mutually enhancing ways are on the rise. This time invites contemplation, self-reflection, and empowered engagement in social and ecological justice. The Well offers a safe environment where all are welcome and all are free to ask our questions and find our way into the future that together we are creating.
Please take a few moments to explore our website. We invite you to participate in our many wonderful offerings because we trust that we can go farther together.
Our Mission
The Well Spirituality Center is a community that fosters an awakening to our Unity with the Divine, One Another, and all Creation. Recognizing that all is one, we provide opportunities to grow a deeper understanding of ourselves, a spiritual community of belonging and action, and an appreciation for our place and our part as agents of healing in the unfolding Universe Story.
The Well Spirituality Center is a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph Mission Network.
As a community we believe:
“As I continue to ‘live into’ what I learn at The Well, I grow in my self-understanding, in my embrace of a different world-view and in responding at this crucial time.” – Pauline
The Story of The Well
The Well, a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph Mission Network, began in March 2000 through the initiative of Marlene Schemmel, CSJ, and Judy Maher. What was initially named The Women’s Well offered its first program in May 2000. Programming invited participants to recognize and affirm our communion with God and all creation.
The Well broadened its mission to include programs in Sacred Universe theology. Pat Bergen, CSJ, shaped The Well’s commitment to the New Story until she was called into Congregational leadership in 2007. Her efforts were resumed by Bridget Sperduto in 2009. Bridget, having been mentored into the consciousness of the New Story by Pat, continued The Well’s commitment through teaching and increased programming.
The Universe Story
The Well invites people into the unfolding and ongoing story of creation and the role of the human in it.
The Sacred Universe Story is the scientific story of our 13.7 billion year unfolding told with its spiritual music. Priest and Cultural Historian, Thomas Berry and Mathematical Cosmologist, Brian Swimme, authors of The Universe Story, tell us that in this one story every people, religion, culture and being finds its place and purpose. We are the first generation of people to know this great story. For the first time in history scientists and mystics are telling us the same thing, “We are all One”.
We are all ONE with the Source of Life and with each other. We all evolved from a single energetic event that science refers to as the big bang. We share the same chemical compositions and similar genetic makeup with all of life. Relationship is foundational. The entire universe is a web of inter-relatedness. Nothing exists outside of relationship.
This new awareness has the capacity to change how we have come to understand what Thomas Berry calls the three great relationships: Human-Divine, Human-Human, Human-Earth. People, animals, plants and Earth can no longer be seen as objects for our use. Rather all is seen and known as sacred and connected.
To participate in an evolutionary universe, one must be willing to stand on the edge of the “new that is [always] arriving out of the silence” (Rilke) – ears attentive, spirit alert, sleeves rolled up. This is what it means to be one with the evolutionary impulse, to breathe as one with the ONE who is always breathing new life into being, to participate in a future that is yet to come. It is the time of a great turning. Will you join us?
Check out all of our resources!