Faces of Faith
Friday, November 8, 2024 • 7 Cheshvan 5785
6:00 PM - 7:00 PMCBSThe Rev. Wakoh Shannon Hickey, PhD, BCC, is a hospice chaplain, a scholar of religion, an educator, a priest of Sōtō Zen Buddhism, an Aspirant to the Unitarian Universalist ministry, a Board Certified interfaith chaplain, a local interfaith leader, and a Certified Leader of InterPlay®, a creative practice grounded in improvisation and play.
Wakoh grew up in the Napa Valley and graduated from Napa High. Her parents both worked for the county and were active in the community. Wakoh earned a Bachelor’s degree in political science at U.C. Berkeley, then worked as a journalist covering politics and law around the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1992, she helped to found NLGJA, the National Association of LGBTQ Journalists, which helped to transform mainstream media coverage of LGBTQ lives and issues and to advance civil rights. She also co-founded the LGBTQ employee association at Wells Fargo Bank; helped to lead Faith Communities of Baltimore with Pride, a coalition of welcoming congregations; and served for several years on the Coordinating Team of Queer Dharma, an affinity group of San Francisco Zen Center.
Wakoh earned a Master's degree in Buddhism and Christianity and a Master of Divinity from the Pacific School of Religion and the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley. She also completed clinical training as a professional chaplain and received ordination as a Zen priest. She then earned a PhD in religion and modernity at Duke University, where she also served as its first Buddhist chaplain. She taught for a decade at two East Coast universities and several seminaries, earning the rank of Associate Professor, and served for several years as the Buddhist Campus Minister to Johns Hopkins University. She returned to Napa in 2018 and since then has worked full-time serving hospice patients and their loved ones across the county. As a professional interfaith chaplain, Wakoh provides spiritual support to people from all walks of life, of any faith or none. Her contemplative training, her academic background in American religious history, and her experience teaching biblical studies and world religions add uncommon breadth and depth to her work as a spiritual counselor and religious leader. Wakoh is active in Napa’s Interfaith Leaders Council, as well as a Board member of the Jack L. Davies Napa Valley Agricultural Land Preservation Fund (JLD Ag Fund).
Wakoh is the author of multiple book chapters and articles in peer-reviewed academic journals. Her book, Mind Cure: How Meditation Became Medicine (Oxford University Press, 2019), is a religious history of mind-body medicine. It highlights the contributions of women, Black people, and members of religious minorities in the development of mind-body healing during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also offers an analysis of the contemporary “mindfulness" industry. Wakoh is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Academy of Religion, the Association of Professional Chaplains, the Spiritual Care Association, and the InterPlay Leaders Circle.
“Wakoh” (which rhymes with “taco”) is a Japanese Buddhist name meaning something like “Harmony/Reconciliation, Happiness/Fortune/Blessing.” She has practiced Sōtō Zen Buddhism for more than 40 years and received that name when she was ordained in 2003. She is affiliated with both San Francisco Zen Center and the Unitarian Universalists of Petaluma. She cares for two cats, seven fish, myriad wild birds, and a wide-ranging posse of friends and chosen family.
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Sat, November 9 2024
8 Cheshvan 5785
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