Our Stories
Paul Smith (1937 - 2024) is the co-founder of Integral Christian Network. As a Christian mystic and author, he was widely known for his books Integral Christianity and Is Your God Big Enough? Close Enough? You Enough?
Paul Smith lived his life with a passion for the ongoing evolution of Christianity and the world. He was uniquely attuned to what he heard as “the Spirit’s Call to evolve” in his personal life, in the communities he was part of, and in our world. He was always seeking “the more” from Jesus—and sharing what he discovered.
When Paul brought his gifts and lifelong learning to the founding of ICN, he infused this loving, radiating energy into the foundations of our community. Paul has now transitioned from being a founding elder to a founding ancestor.
His presence and energy of loving evolution continue from the other side. He shared shortly before his passing about carrying on his spiritual work:
“How marvelous this community is! ICN is becoming a powerful factor in the healing of the world. I couldn’t have imagined a community so open to evolving and being a beautiful part of transforming Christianity and the world. We have a great mission. And I plan to still be able to be a present guide and cheerleader from the spirit side. I’m excited to start practicing whole, bodyless mystical awakening!”
With grief and glory, I transmit all of Jesus that I know so dearly, and all the knowing that comes from spirit to each of you personally with my eternal love.”
Luke Healy is the co-founder of Integral Christian Network and is a Christian mystic, gatherer, and spiritual pioneer. Here is his story:
My first powerful mystical experience came at a young age and from then on, I knew that God’s love could never be separated from me. As I grew up, I always had that inner connection of love that carried me through all of life’s circumstances. While the religious forms I grew up in provided structure and community, I always longed for more and better ways to live out this life-defining love, to express deeper devotion, and to cultivate meaningful growth.
Outwardly, I explored new forms and structures for spiritual life such as Lifegroups and house churches, until eventually starting a new monastic intentional community where I lived for five years. I came to the end of forms as the answer, and went out into “the desert” for a spiritual ego death.
Inwardly, for many years I read and searched for deeper expression and understanding among the mystics and philosophers. An inner space emerged that metaphorically represented my mystical journey through emptiness and an 8-year dark night. I came to the end of my mind as the answer.
Then resurrection. Awakened to new energy, new love, new ways of being.
The Integral framework has provided the map. The Christian mystics are pointing the way. My heart is alive with “the deep surge of love” as Teilhard de Chardin calls it.
I am passionate about pioneering pathways ahead for the Christianity of tomorrow. I am deeply compelled to gather, to bring together the scattered mystics and evolutionaries. I am profoundly grateful to be able to do this work of loving evolution, of meaningful connecting, of helping foster participatory and creative mysticism to bring about greater consciousness, freedom, and love.
Connie Wilson is a member of Integral Christian Network serving on its Board of Directors.
Connie is passionate about journeying with people who want to deepen their faith and commitment to Christ, with 20 years of leadership experience in the church and community. She has experience gathering and equipping teams, creating formational experiences through practice and space for integration. As a mystic, she thrives in environments where no two days are the same. Perpetual learning is a high priory, always seeking to synthesize across disciplines. Transformation, especially in times of uncertainty and transition, is a primary focus. She loves serving individuals and communities of practice as together WE “midwife” new expressions of spirituality for the future.
Rev. Dr. Connie Wilson is the director of Companions - on The Journey, offering spiritual direction, supervision, Internal Family Systems coaching/counseling and WE Space leadership/formation/facilitation. She is a retired elder in the United Methodist Church. She served on the faculty of SoulJourners at Sophia Center where she is also a Benedictine Oblate.
David C.P. is a member of the ICN network, is a producer of its podcasts, and serves as a member of its Board. He is an ordained minister, spiritual director, and musician. He has an MA from Portland Seminary at George Fox.
I was born into a traditionalist Christian family. My parents were ministers and I learned about American Christianity, the Bible and fundamentalist theories about God from an early age. I began to sense God’s love as God’s primary form of self-communication at age 20. Around age 29, I began having a series of mystical experiences that rearranged (and still does!) the way I identify as a self/Self. Yet I found that walking this path was quite solitary until I discovered the work of the CAC and then more directly the work of Paul Smith – I found a home and a network of kin-folk.
My primary calling is to partner with Spirit and with those heading in the same trajectory in the recovery and restoration of the mystical contemplative Source that Jesus inaugurated (while also collaborating with folks from all the perennial traditions), working towards the Sacred World to Come. I passionately believe that ICN is helping form new grooves in this Kosmos and am privileged to be part of that!
Robert Martin is a member of Integral Christian Network serving on its Board of Directors.
After retiring from 30 years of being a seminary professor and ordained clergy, my spirit has been yearning for an expansive, contemplative fellowship. My seminary teaching always incorporated a contemplative dimension, but it wasn’t received all that well among my students. That future religious leaders couldn’t appreciate the spiritual grounding that meditation offers was a profound disappointment. My engagement with ICN these past 2 years has been a healing balm and blessing for my weary soul. My WeSpace group has been a gracious gift along my spiritual journey. I was raised in the conservative South, relocated to the NorthEast for 20 years, and settled in Kansas City, MO to teach and raise our family. With the birth of our first grandchild and a new residency in New Hampshire, we’re entering a whole new era of delight and joy as our family expands.
Previous Board Members
Eilen deVerteuil is a member of the Integral Christian Network, previously serving as founding member of the ICN Board of Directors. Her practice and work are rooted in contemplative and mystical Christianity, as well as strongly influenced by evolutionary/integral/interspiritual movements and practices.
I remember vividly a childhood experience that left a powerful imprint on my life. I was playing by myself in the backyard when I was suddenly swept into a profound and overwhelming sense of love and joy, and everything around me seemed to sparkle with a shimmering light. I knew I was not alone, and I remember quietly saying “thank you” in total assurance that some invisible Presence was there with me, and delighted to receive those words. Through the consciousness of early childhood that moment seemed utterly ‘magical.’ Yet some intuitive, inner knowing recognized the significant and sacred nature of that intimate, personal encounter.
My family heritage was rooted in Catholicism, but I stopped attending church in my teens, renouncing religion of any kind. Later in adulthood I found some spiritual nourishment in communal Earth-based rituals and women’s circles, and also received some basic training in Buddhist meditation. I found all those practices supportive, and yet I yearned for more prayerful, relational expressions—but I had no idea how or where to find that.
As grace would have it I was directed to a Centering Prayer introductory session. It was there that I re-discovered Christianity through the Wisdom path and contemplative teachings of Cynthia Bourgeault, Thomas Keating, and other contemporary mystics and writers. I also found inspiration through the complementary approaches of evolutionary spirituality, Integral philosophy, and the social justice, eco-spiritualism of the New Monastic movement.
What I found when I discovered the Integral Christian Network was a community where I could explore and express my deepest spiritual longings and illuminations, re-integrated with my Christian roots. I’m so grateful for the opportunities we are cultivating together to share in mystical, devotional, collective practices to fulfill and expand our relationship with the Divine among us, beside us, and through us.
George Worley is a member of the Integral Christian Network, previously serving as founding member of the ICN Board of Directors. He is a Christian mystic, hypnotherapist, and a conduit for spiritual healing.
Before discovering the Integral Christian Network, I had moved out of traditional religion and had settled into the spiritual but not religious crowd. I grew up in a traditional Christian household with all of the dissonances that can come with this environment, especially in the 60s and 70s. My separation from organized spirituality occurred while I served as an officer in the Air Force, living a very traditional existence. I tried many times to find a spiritual home but could not find one where I felt welcome with my “knowing” of what I had come to understand at some internal level, not of the mind.
I now understand it was this inconsistency found within traditional religion that propelled my journey onward, and I am grateful. These are the necessary motivations for growth, but we need to listen.
Paul Smith’s book Integral Christianity: The Spirit’s Call to Evolve illuminated my path back to Christianity. Before reading this book for a spiritual direction class, I was moving into the integral space completing an MA of Transpersonal Psychology at Atlantic University. Of note, Edgar Cayce who founded Atlantic University was a devout Christian and quite integral for his day. He was also a very accomplished mystic. I feel his spirit aiding this movement.
I am excited to be home but still very much on a journey inward as I explore this new relationship with Jesus. I am inspired to help others find their inner Divine and grateful for this new way of being.
*If you are interested in receiving hypnosis therapy from George, you can visit his website: heartcentrichypnosis.com
Marcia Cope Fleischman is a member of Integral Christian Network and previously served on the Board. Marcia is a retired Baptist pastor and school counselor. She has a BA from DePaul University, M.Ed from Missouri University and an M.Div from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Here is her story:
My journey toward finding God started early as I was attending church and wondering what Christianity was all about when I had Miss Eva Saunders as my 5th grade Vacation Bible school teacher. She talked about God as if she knew God. That was a revelation to me. In college I released my life to Jesus and began a personal, experiential relationship with God.
My husband, Ken, found Broadway Baptist Church, where we attended for over 40 years. Paul Smith was the pastor/ teacher. Eventually, I became a minister there gaining my M.Div. From Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Through Paul’s teaching, I started on the mystical path, hearing the Spirit speak through words, pictures, altered states of consciousness and holy laughter. My greatest ministry Joy was in praying for healing for people and seeing the transformational effects of God’s love on people.
I also got a fatal disease from taking a deadly medicine, was sick for 5.5 years, received a death-defying double lung transplant and have survived going on 18 years. In rehab from surgery, I began painting with an emphasis on painting visions of angels. I am the author of 3 books and am working on my 4th book: Finding the Face of God. I am an artist and have illustrated my books. I invented and patented the most comfortable bra in the world, but that’s another story.
Gene Vilain is a member of Integral Christian Network who previously served on the Board.
As a small group participant and leader for over thirty years in personal growth, Christian church, and contemplative communities, Gene knows well the mountaintop moments, joys and challenges, and limitations in our attempts at life in the “We”. Even as small groups have been life-giving, Gene always had a vague, nagging sense that something was still missing, that there was yet more. Since joining ICN in November 2019 and being part of a number of WeSpace groups, Gene has felt a hope and a calling to see how our intentional presence and mystical embracing in WeSpace groups can indeed transform us, our homes, our wider communities and perhaps even have an impact on Christianity.
Gene is married to his college sweetheart, Grace - they have two grown and married children and now two wonderful young grandchildren. Not raised in any religious tradition, as young adults Gene and Grace relied on rational thinking and the scientific method to understand and make their way in the world. In their late twenties and early thirties, they unexpectedly received from God transformative, mystical experiences and there's been no going back. They have been grateful members of church communities over the years, have grown from many retreats, and are still discovering new ways to live out the inner unfoldings that were released when they were younger. Gene undertook in his thirties a formal program of personal growth that led him deeper within, into an ongoing conversation with God, and to living as a contemplative in the midst of family, all the activities and a full working life. That program included a model of the person that overlaps substantially with the Four Centers of ICN, and a practice of written self-examination. He continues to grow with it, it is a beautiful complement to our WeSpace practices. Gene has recently retired from his technical career, and is pursuing a new vocation to help young adults find their path.