Rev. Kelly Isola, MDiv., is passionate about supporting people and organizations to live and love more authentically – to move toward a better version of themselves so they can make their mark on the world. She is masterful at relating concepts across her various life experiences, which allows her to connect with and support audiences from all walks of life.
Rev. Kelly Isola is a one-of-a-kind force of nature, a genius with words, a brilliant thinker, and a professional excavator of individual and collective souls. She also masquerades as a consultant, teacher, author and transformative mentor.
She shares her passion for living the two-fold path of an engaged spiritual life – embracing the inner path of wisdom, as well as demonstrating the outer path of compassionate service in order to experience healing and transformation through the wholeness of the human experience.
Kelly’s has spent a lifetime dedicated to interfaith healing. Kelly grew up all over the world, being exposed to other cultures and religions at a young age. This showed her the need for greater understanding between faiths, and their inherent oneness. As Kelly is often heard saying, “If you go to the heart of your own religion, you will go to the heart of every religion.” Her commitment to interfaith understanding is extraordinary and has a global impact.
Rev. Kelly embodies interfaith ideals. She’s one person, yet her commitment to interfaith work helped create a system of governance for global peace efforts. Through the GKCIC Table of Faiths event, she invites people of all faiths to break bread together and find belonging with each other, while celebrating the differences and the sacredness of another’s faith. Through exceptional commitment, leadership, courage and capacity for inspiring others to embrace vulnerability and compassion, Kelly provides a personal interfaith touch with a global reach.
In 2009, Kelly facilitated the creation of an organized governing body and governing system for the Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace. Through Nonviolent Communication, Appreciative Inquiry, and other interfaith strategies, she facilitated leaders from across the globe, having different languages, cultures, and religious backgrounds, in creating the structures that support their work to this day, with representatives in 25 countries.
Through “Seva Journeys,” Kelly coordinates affordable trips around the world. Participants not only tour their destination but serve the local community and explore the variety of religious perspectives among group members and the religion of the country in which they travel. She courageously brought one of the first tour groups through Egypt after the revolution, exploring Islam and Egyptian theology.
Of course, interfaith work is pervasive through every life experience, just as individual religious experiences are in the makeup of who every individual is. One area of life where this is demonstrated is in disaster relief. In a disaster, the Jewish home is destroyed right along with the Muslim, Hindu, and Christian home. Disaster relief work is interfaith work. This became abundantly clear to Kelly when she was aiding in disaster relief after Katrina and, more recently, devastating tornados in Joplin, Missouri. As a spiritual leader, she worked with all faiths impacted. It takes courage to walk into the devastation of a tornado or hurricane. It takes great courage to cross the religious divide and provide spiritual support in such difficult times to those of many faiths.
She has written numerous articles for Unity magazine, various booklets, and a number of online magazines. She is also the co-author of the bestselling book, “Who Have You Come Here To Be: 101 Possibilities for Contemplation.” Read more about Kelly at www.kellyisola.com