In keeping with Commonweal’s commitment to interfaith conversation about religion and spirituality in the contemporary world, executive director Ellen B. Koneck was invited to attend the twenty-eighth annual Festival of Faiths held in Louisville, KY from November 13-16. The conference, sponsored by the Center for Interfaith Relations, themed this year around “Sacred Imagining,” featured conversations, lectures, and spiritual exercises from across traditions and backgrounds about a number of topics including the neuroscience of compassion, art and spirituality, faith in the future, yoga and meditation, spiritual poetry, and more.

Koneck appreciated the opportunity to represent Commonweal at the conference and to forge new connections with thinkers and practitioners at the forefront of interfaith dialogue today. The conference brought together conversations around art, justice, spirituality, and religion in ways that were at once anchored in a sense of community and tradition, while simultaneously bold in their hopes about what might be possible with collective action. “There was a warmth, a joy, and a sense of camaraderie in Louisville” Koneck said after attending, “that can only be explained by noting how hard the conference planners and speakers worked to create an environment that stimulates the mind, celebrates the human spirit, and offers sufficient space to process with honesty what we might do as individuals and communities in the face of injustice.”