Who We Are
We, Anne Blackwood and Charlene Epp, have over 60 years (combined) in vocational calls to serve people and creation, across secular and spiritual settings. Our contexts for living our calls have included family, spiritual community, neighborhoods, employment in healthcare settings, teaching, group facilitation, and organizational consulting.
Our experiences have located us on the East and West coasts, in the Midwest, in urban and rural, underserved and affluent settings. Our differences in cultural and racial backgrounds serve as a storehouse of resources to share, grounded in an ever-deepening 30+ year friendship.
Anne Blackwood
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Anne is a physician, trained as a medical oncologist, who has worked in academic medicine, patient care, and cancer drug development for 30 years. Beginning in 2015, Anne pursued discernment at Mercy Center (Burlingame, CA), and then received training in the art of spiritual direction at San Francisco Theological Seminary (San Anselmo, CA). She received supervision training through Spiritual Directors International, and Eastern Mennonite University (Harrisonburg, VA). Anne has also served on the steering committees of Community Peacemaker Teams and Health in Harmony, a trailblazing Planetary Health organization. She is currently a steering group member of Mennonite Spiritual Directors Network. Through her spiritual direction and supervision practices, the teaching of spiritual direction (at both of her seminaries), and her work with peacemaking and creation care organizations, Anne lives out her call to support others in identifying and pursuing their visions.
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My work in spiritual direction and supervision seeks to accompany others, especially those called to the work of compassion, peace, and justice, in exploring their deepest beliefs and experiences, as balm for difficult times and as a window into the paths to which they feel called, and the steps they can take on their journey toward spiritual freedom, authenticity, and connection.
Charlene Epp
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I am a Spiritual Practitioner with experience as a trained Spiritual Director, Interim Pastor, Board Certified Chaplain, Regional Conference Minister, District Pastor, and teacher. In Spiritual Direction, I co-facilitate groups and accompany companion individuals in their spiritual walk. Through deep listening presence, I encourage Directees to reflect on what is Sacred in their being, how the Divine may be beckoning them, and honoring their pace and choice in response. Hosting space in which to clarify how the Holy is present in their experience of belonging, forgiveness, grief, hope, and meaning or purpose is central to my spiritual accompaniment. My Chaplain care covers acute care, hospice, and religious settings. This includes hospital campus coverage, serving as a member of Palliative Care teams, working in in- and out-patient specialized units, and providing staff support based on trauma-informed models. I earned my Master of Divinity degree from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary and am ordained in Mennonite Church USA.
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Through deep listening presence, I gently ask questions encouraging Directees to reflect on what is Sacred in the midst of their life experience, how the Divine may be beckoning them, and honoring their readiness, pace, and choice of response. Clarifying how belonging, forgiveness, grief, hope, and meaning or purpose interact in the context of their experience of the Holy is part of our journey together.