Dear Subscriber First Name,

Four months ago, ICN marked 5 years since our “sprouting” on January 6th, 2019. We began as a new community, yet our roots already ran deep. For me, and even more so for Paul, years of learning, longing, and previous endeavors stretched into and through the nurturing soil that would become ICN. We had both spent decades preparing the ground for this new tree.

Your life too has no doubt included a vast network of sacred roots nourishing your spiritual becoming. The ICN community continues to grow because of each of you and all you bring into our midst.

The glory of our 5-year anniversary was intermingled with the grief of Paul’s terminal cancer diagnosis. When he passed a month later, he had invited us as a community into the grief and the glory through Lent, into participation with the spiritual process of death and resurrection.

In the months leading up to Paul’s death, I received a reoccurring vision much like this tree image below. Interlacing, Paul and I founded ICN in relationship, as a community that could draw from many roots and form with the strength of a braided core. From our shared foundation we wove a trunk energized with mystical communion and the spirit’s call to keep evolving together.

But there were never only two strands. We are interwoven with much more, with the divine spirit of numerous co-creators like you, coming together to lift up and become this beloved community.

In the vision, as the trunk rises, I see multiplying branches spreading and becoming a glorious crown. Blooms and blossoms, leaves and fruits, breathing life into the earth, offering sweet fragrance and shade below, and giving sustenance to the spiritually hungry. Paul’s energetic strand continues as a founding ancestor, with a new capacity to transmit, energize, and strengthen throughout all of the branches.

As Paul continues to give strength to ICN, so do each of you. “WeCreating” the loving evolution of Christianity and the world so deeply needed today. You are weaving the ongoing co-creation of ICN roots and branches—as well as those of other Mother Trees around the globe, making up the forest of divine becoming in our day and age.

Following our Founding Stage, we’re calling this new season of ICN the “Co-Creating Stage.” We are doing this together. You and me. Paul and numerous other guides and ancestors. The mantle has been passed to us all to branch forth and grow into our higher calling, into our divine participation in the body of Christ, the mystical life of love and sacred becoming.

In this new stage, we want to call forth even more the co-creative power in our community—as well as intentionally honoring the many ways people are already giving of their time, talents, and resources that make this all possible. As you feel the call to greater co-creation in your life and in ICN, you are invited to interweave and blossom in our midst, together in the field of our communion, this forest of spirit. We are here to grow together and support one another in this calling. Together we will nurture the call in our own lives and our world.

We will be inviting and connecting relationally with those who wish to step into this “WeCreating” in new ways. Please let us know if you have interest in new collaborative opportunities and creative participation in the work of ICN.

Financial contributions are also essential to this blooming. Twice a year, in place of an article coming to you on Saturday, we ask for your consideration to offer support. We are grateful for all those who have given and continue to give regularly to ICN. We exist because people who find value in our work give graciously and generously. If you would feel so drawn to become one of our co-creators through offering financial support, we invite you to consider contributing a one-time or recurring donation to ICN.

This year, we also established the Paul Smith Legacy Fund. In the last months of his life, Paul spoke with me of his desire to continue to be a benefactor to ICN by establishing a fund that would help ICN continue the work Paul loved – contributing to the loving evolution of Christianity and the world. In my talks with Paul, he told me he wanted donations in his name not to be used simply as a memorial to him, but to enrich the lives of others. Paul’s gift to ICN, and yours, will be used to continue offering our mystical practices to all for years to come, regardless of anyone’s ability to pay. You can choose to make a contribution to The Paul Smith Legacy Fund here.

Thank you so much for your care and support!

In wholeness and love,
Luke Healy
ICN Co-Founder

We have created a Paul Smith memorial card as a keepsake for anyone who would like to receive one.

If you are able to donate and provide your mailing address, we’ll send it to you! If you have already donated to ICN or are unable to give financially at this time and would like us to send you a memorial card, please respond to this email with your mailing address.

We deeply appreciate your contributions and offerings as WeCreate the future of ICN together!