When I signed up for the Ignatian Creators Summit, I had not anticipated finding myself, less than an hour after it began, standing in a dew-covered field, taking what I hoped would be an artistic photo of a lamppost (in the foreground) and two award-winning writers (in the background), one staring avidly into the woods and one appearing to take a picture of a pile of rocks. I probably should have planned for something very much like this, though, since this is what attending the summit is all about: putting ourselves in unusual situations with remarkable people and seeing what happens.
Twenty-nine of us gathered in late August at a retreat center in Marriottsville, Md., for the fourth annual Ignatian Creators Summit, a three-day gathering of Catholic “creators” — poets, essayists, bloggers, journalists, filmmakers, photographers, teachers, editors, actors, singers, songwriters and visual artists — organized by the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.
The summit is the brainchild of Mike Jordan Laskey, director of communications for the Jesuit Conference and founder of the Jesuit Media Lab. The mission of the Media Lab is to “gather, form, and unleash” all sorts of artistic creators “whose lives and work have been shaped by encounters with God through Ignatian spirituality.” Most of the work of the initiative is virtual; they offer a variety of online courses, writing workshops and webinars and publish a wide range of creative work — personal essays, poetry, meditations on scripture, interviews, visual art, book and movie reviews, along with podcasts and other audio content.
Read the rest of the article at America magazine.
Thirty creatives gathered for the fourth annual Ignatian Creators Summit in Maryland this August.