Santa Clara University

Carol & Tim Flinders

Carol Lee Flinders received a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, specializing in medieval studies. She then spent fifteen years writing about natural foods, co-authoring the popular Laurel's Kitchen cookbooks and posting a weekly syndicated newspaper column. In 1990 she returned to her field of study and wrote Enduring Grace: Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics. Subsequent books include At the Root of this Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst and, most recently, Rebalancing the World (HarperSanFrancisco, 2003) in which she argues that there is a gender knot at the heart of the crises we face today, which can be untied only in concert – women and men reclaiming balance and wholeness together. Dr. Flinders has taught courses in mystical literature at UC, Berkeley, and at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.

Tim Flinders graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkeley where he studied English and Sanskrit literature. An educator and writer, he has worked with gifted children for two decades, and has written on gifted education, Gandhian nonviolence, and health and spirituality. His writings on nonviolence appear in Gandhi the Man and Nonviolent Soldier of Islam. During the Nineties, Mr. Flinders was director of the RISE Institute, which provided a spiritually based treatment program to thousands of people coping with HIV/AIDS and other life threatening illnesses. He is coauthor of The RISE Response: Illness, Wellness and Spirituality.

For the past twenty years, Carol and Tim have taught courses and retreats to thousands of people on the Eight Point Program of meditation teacher and writer, Sri Eknath Easwaran. They are co-authors of The Making of a Teacher, an oral history of Sri Easwaran.

Carol and Tim Flinders on their current interests:

Carol: There is a continuing need to reestablish spiritual "motherlines" across traditions and make them accessible to modern seekers. My current book, Enduring Lives: An Informal Gathering of Women Mystics, Teachers, and Spiritual Activists profiles contemporary women who live and work in the "spiritual mother-line" of women like Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Catherine of Genoa. It will be published by Putnam/Tarcher in Spring, 2006. I’m also intrigued with how spiritual modeling has been formulated and used historically and across traditions. My recent study of Tenzin Palmo, for instance, has revealed a powerful Tibetan spiritual modeling practice.

Tim: I’m developing a course manual for the Spiritual Modelling course we recently piloted with Santa Clara undergraduates to help them cope with the stresses of undergraduate life. It will allow the course to be disseminated to other campuses that have expressed interest. Carol and I are also working together on a book that explores the idea of vocation (Sanskrit: svadharma) as a vehicle to provide spiritual meaning and purpose across the life stages of western seekers. Our entry point is the Hindu/Vedantan model of the four ashramas (student, householder, retiree, renunciate) which we are adapting to a nonsectarian schema that better addresses western needs and sensibilities.