minister & friends
REV. BONNIE TARWATER
Minister of the new Church for our Common Home, a Home/ Internet/Radio church. Ordained in 1999 she has served both Unitarian Universalist and United Church of Christ Churches, and has a M. Div. from Claremont School of Theology, a M.F.A. from the American Conservatory Theater in S.F., a B.A. in Visual Art from U.C.S.D. and a certificate as a dream worker, from the Marin Institute for Projective Dream. She is the co-chair of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, San Diego Group and currently leads therapy groups with her husband Dr. Walter Rutherford.
Rev. Bonnie www.revbonnietarwater.com(currently under construction) is available as a Spiritual Director, Pastoral Counselor, dream worker and for guest preaching, teaching and workshops, weddings, funerals and other rituals - click text here to learn more. In June of 2015 Rev. Bonnie worked on the “Seizing and Alternative” ecology conference with Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. the conferences architect about the ecologic crisis and she committed to furthering her ministry for the care of our common home. She wrote a chapter in the book, For Our Common Home, edited by Cobb and Castuera that was responses to Pope Francis’s radical environmental teaching “Laudato Si.” Every crisis is an invitation for spiritual growth and Bonnie and her husband Walt Rutherford are dedicated to creating a new experimental home church at this time of crisis for all life on earth dedicated to spiritual growth and the raising of human consciousness. Rev. Bonnie is the mother of two grown sons, Ben married to Ariel and David soon to be married to Jessica.
WALT RUTHERFORD, PH.D
Bio Walt Rutherford, Ph.D. has been involved in the fields of counseling, consulting, and academic instruction for over forty years. After serving as a combat platoon leader in the Viet Nam war, he returned home and joined Vietnam Veterans against the War where he first started working for peace. Later he began working clinically with veterans and other survivors of violence and abuse including those addicted and suffering from trauma. In 1979 Walt was named the Director of one of the first Vet Centers in the nation while in Vermont where he began his study of the phenomena later to be known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. To this day he is known as a pioneer in the research and treatment of this issue. He has counseled more than three thousand veterans and their families. In the late 1980’s Walt began an intense study of Tibetan Buddhism and its medical approach. Since this time he has taught these principles and has created programs in Tibetan Buddhist Psychology in several universities. As a Transpersonal Psychologist he espouses the need to treat the whole person – mind, body, and spirit.
ADVISORY BOARD - Dr. John B. Cobb Jr
An American theologian, philosopher and environmentalist, and the preeminent scholar in process thought. He taught at the Claremont School of Theology from 1958-1990. Together with David Griffith he organized the Center for Process Studies which has growth to include centers in China and many other countries. The author of more than 50 books he was the guiding force behind the 2015 “Seizing and Alternative” conference on the contribution of a Whiteheadean worldview to the issues of climate change.