About Jack Cuffari

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I am a Minister, ordained by the United Church of Christ, as well as by One Spirit Interfaith Seminary. Born into a family of devout but progressive Catholics, I was ordained as an Elder in the Presbyterian Church USA in 1995, and entered the Quaker community in 2001, where I was active in the areas of Conflict Transformation and Compassionate Listening (Spiritual Counseling).  In 2014 I joined the United Church of Christ, where my role as a lifelong social justice activist meets my spiritual life – allowing me to manifest what our teacher Andrew Harvey calls Sacred Activism. The intentional focus on tolerance, radical inclusion, and social justice truly fits my beliefs and temperament.

 

Currently, I serve as Pastor with First Congregational United Church of Christ in Haworth, NJ. I am also Spiritual Director in Residence at the First Congregational Church of Montclair, NJ,  and have recently served as President of the Montclair, NJ Clergy Association. I am proud to be a member of Spiritual Directors International, and the Order of Universal Interfaith (OUnI). I am a hospice volunteer and a certified Disaster Relief Chaplain.

 

My path focuses on the mystic traditions of the three Abrahamic faiths. I continue my decades-long study of comparative religion, and some of the practices I was exposed to have settled in to remain in my life as integral: Sufi prayer, lectio divina practice, an acknowledgement of my own likely Jewish ancestry manifested in study of Kabbalah and the Talmud, a self-generated study of Christian mysticism and Sufi thought – these have fit in with a comfort that clearly positions me as a child of the Abrahamic traditions.

 

As an Interspiritual Christian my worldview, while centered upon the teachings of Yeshua ben Yusef of Nazareth - both canonical and extra-canonical - is also very much at home in Judaism, readily connected to Islam and gratefully informed by Buddhism, Jungian Gnosticism, the stunning beauty of Sufi teachings and Hindu scriptures, Earth-based Indigenous and pagan wisdom, the 12 Step traditions, Shamanic teachings and Reiki – and I remain open to teachings from all paths.

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Working with me

I work with clients in a series of one-on-one sessions, or in a facilitated group, where we spend time as a large gathering and also break out into smaller work groups to journey through the queries utilizing discussion, creative work, prayer or meditation and then come back together for interactive sessions. 

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