The Spiritual Life Center in West Hartford presented Hartford Seminary with its 2014 Living Spirit Award on May 1.

According to the Center, “the Living Spirit Award is presented yearly to an individual whose words and actions serve to heal and transform people and communities, and to an organization whose mission and actions work for social justice, environmental justice, inter-faith bridging and/or peace making in our community and the world.”

“Hartford Seminary is just such an organization and one we are proud to honor,” Melina Rudman, Executive Director & Pastoral Discernment Leader, said.

In her remarks, President Heidi Hadsell talked about how Hartford Seminary’s mission aligns with that of the Spiritual Life Center.

“The Spiritual Life Center ‘recognizes the richness of the diversity in religious traditions,’ and that has for generations been the orienting perspective of Hartford Seminary.  From our Protestant Christian beginnings, we are now a faculty and student body that is fully ecumenical in our Christianity, and fully interfaith in our embrace of not only the Abrahamic traditions—Judisam, Islam and Christianity—but increasingly those who are also Buddhist, Hindu, Quaker, Sikh, and Jain.  A third of our current student body is Muslim, and scholars and students come from around the world to study Islam and Christian-Muslim relations.  As you all do, we too celebrate religious difference, believing God has powerfully spoken, and continues to speak, to people in different ways that need to be affirmed.  At Hartford Seminary we are bold to be our fully faithful selves in all that diversity, and we accept the cost and joy of living in a culture and a world that is of many faiths—and so requires awareness, and humility, and understanding.”

Also receiving the award on May 1 was Fr. David Cinquegrani.