Gail Collins-Ranadive

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Rev. Gail Collins-Ranadive, MA (Peace Studies), MFA (Creative Writing), MDiv, is the author of five books plus workshops, poems, essays, and pieces of literary non-fiction. An ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, she has retired from a career in Interim Ministry and has returned to her primary passion of writing.  Her interfaith interest began when she was 19 and, as a student nurse, she met an intern from India. Upon marrying him, she began studying world religions as presented by Huston Smith in The Religions of Man (1958), in particular the Hinduism of her in-laws in India.  Her own religious path has been deeply informed by the insights of Joseph Campbell in Myths to Live By (1972), especially with his references to the psychology of Carl Jung.  Her spirituality is grounded in the natural world, as reflected in the writings of the Unitarian transcendentalists, especially Emerson.  In 1995, she heard Father Thomas Berry say “Put the Bible on the shelf and study Nature.” Since then, her life/work has been a conscious response to that challenge. She and her partner spend summers in Denver and winters in Las Vegas, where she connects with the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada.