Daniel O. Snyder

The vocational thread of my life took me first into a deep study of nonviolent processes of social transformation. Then, seeing that I needed more spiritual ballast, I dove into monastic spirituality. Then, the thinking and reasoning parts of me started clamoring for attention. I needed to find language to serve as a container for experience, so I burrowed deep into theology. Seminary was a feast, but it just whetted my appetite for more. Still hungry, I finished a PhD in Clinical Psychology with a deep dive into Jungian psychology, Internal Family Systems, and various other approaches to healing. As you can see, all of my metaphors are about diving and burrowing and deepening. Praying in the dark is how I find my way home. Now in my eighth decade, I’ve found correspondences among all of these interests, and have discovered that processes of personal and political transformation have remarkably similar dynamics. What heals the psyche heals the world. What heals the world heals the psyche. We need nonviolence for the world and nonviolence for the soul. I’m a Quaker pastoral psychotherapist and spiritual director and I care about transformational practices and conversations. That’s why I wrote this book. I want it to be a conversation starter. I want us to go deep into personal and social transformation so that a new world that works for everyone can finally come to birth.