Laurie Cassidy, Ph.D. is a theologian, anti-racist activist and spiritual director.  She currently teaches in the Christian Spirituality Program at Creighton University and was associate professor in the religious studies department at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania. An award-winning author and editor her latest book, Desire, Darkness and Hope: Theology in a Time of Impasse is edited with M. Shawn Copeland.  Her forthcoming book is entitled Praying for Freedom: Racism and Ignatian Spirituality in America. Over the past thirty years Cassidy has been engaged in ministry that facilitates the intersection of personal and social transformation.  Raised in Massachusetts she now makes her home in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, traditional homeland of the Ute in Colorado.