Karen Skalitzky is a speaker, writer, and spiritual director. A former educator, she has over twenty years of experience transforming underperforming schools into the kind of schools all children deserve. She believes we can find the sacred in everything and everyone, in any moment and any place. Her first book, A Recipe for Hope: Stories of Transformation by People Experiencing Homelessness, was featured on WGN-TV. Her essays have appeared in U.S.Catholic, Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers, and Northwestern Magazine. A graduate of Northwestern University, Karen lives in Chicago with her son. Her monthly column, GodisBig Reflections, is read across the country. Read more
“You are an excellent presenter: lively, engaging, gentle and authentic.”
Chicago Area Spiritual Directors
Speaking
Stories are my currency. My flow. My way of bringing the sacred into the light. As a speaker, nothing is more energizing (and awe-inspiring) than talking about how we can find the sacred in our everyday lives. I customize each program to meet the needs of the audience. My most popular topics include:
- God Is Big: How to See the Sacred in All Things
- God Is Big: The Theology of Rest and Self-Care
- Hide and Seek: The Art of Knowing God
- God Is Big: The Art of Letting Go
GodisBig Reflections
“You make me laugh out loud, then cry. Your words open my heart.”
“In a desperate bid to catch up on the emails that have been whipping past me all day, I came upon yours—and felt a moment of peace.”
The Wisdom of Loneliness: Rediscovering a well of compassion
I kill plants. I don’t set out to do this. I doubt anyone does. But still they die. To my surprise, this summer my son and I decided to turn a patch of weeds in front of our building into a garden. I let him pick flowers to honor his birth-mama and his birth-papa.
Continue Reading The Wisdom of Loneliness: Rediscovering a well of compassion
Back to Me: Accepting the invitation to be still
I am running hard down the sidewalk. Street after street after street. Desperately searching for my car so much so that my heart is pounding when I wake up. In my dream, I am running away. From what I do not know. I have a plan, but it gets foiled somehow. I understand, in only…
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Fertile Ground: Finding forgiveness in ourselves
Once as I was listening to a homeless woman tell me her story, I felt the walls start to close in on me. We were sitting in a tiny windowless office at the social service agency where I volunteered to serve breakfast. Claire washed dishes for them. She was petite, not more than five feet…
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