Meet The Team

As the Executive Director of Rolling Ridge, Rev. Dr. Larry Jay works in partnership with the staff to ensure that the guest experience at the Ridge is top quality.  He also partners with retreat leaders to provide excellent programming at the Ridge, and is available to speak about the ongoing ministry and historic mission of Rolling Ridge as a place of rest, retreat, and transformation.  A trained spiritual director and ordained American Baptist pastor, Larry (as he is known by friends) is a graduate of UCLA, Golden Gate Seminary, Franciscan School of Theology, American Baptist Seminary of the West, and the Gateways to God Missional Spiritual Direction Program.  Eco-spirituality is his passion (and was his doctoral dissertation), encouraging everyone to live into the fullness of our connection with nature, God, and all people.  

Rev. Dr. John Kiemele is a wellbeing educator and spiritual director who currently companions individuals, teaches various seminars and lifestyle classes, leads contemplative retreats, and also serves as Program Director at Rolling Ridge Retreat Center.  With a focus on contemplative soul care, John gratefully walks alongside individuals, small groups, classrooms and congregations.  Recognizing how intentional pausing and listening unlocks life, John strives to engage the whole person – body, mind, soul – in the lifelong process of living well.  John received his PhD in education/spirituality, with post-doctoral emphases in Spiritual Direction, Mindful Self-Compassion, the Enneagram Spectrum, and Wellness Coaching.

Rev. Beth Garnaas-Holmes is an ordained Elder in the United Methodist Church.  She has served  congregations in Montana, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, with a focus on deepening people's connection to God, themselves and the world through spiritual practice, small group ministry and outreach into communities.  She has also offered spiritual direction to individuals for 30 years, and was trained through the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Bethesda, Maryland.  She has worked in program ministry at Rolling Ridge for 20 years, and is currently the program director and a small group supervisor with the Gateways to God program.  She lives in Wells, Maine with her husband and the many trees and animals that surround their home.  Together they have a wonderful family of sons and daughters by marriage, grandchildren and grand-pets.  

Rev. Jackie is founder and president of Paraclete Place, a nonprofit that provides spiritual companionship, emotional and meditative sacred space, education awareness, and short-term residency to Breast Cancer and other cancer survivors and their families as they journey through treatment and recovery. As retired clergy from the New England Conference of The United Methodist Church, Jackie received her training as a Spiritual Director/Companion from Gateways at Rolling Ridge and Boston University and is a member of Spiritual Directors International. Jackie attended Howard University, Boston University, Hood Theological Seminary (MDiv, DMin). Currently Jackie resides at Paraclete Place on beautiful Lake Gaston in North Carolina. 

Gayle Kerr has been involved in Spiritual Direction and Retreat Ministry since 1990. She is a graduate of Trenton (NJ) State College and Chestnut Hill College (PA) and holds degrees in education and Holistic Spirituality and Certificates in Spiritual Direction and the Supervision of Spiritual Directors.  She has worked as a teacher, a Director of Christian Education and as a Spiritual Director at theMiddleton Center for Pastoral Care and Counseling at the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr, PA. From 2000-2007 she worked at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ with a team of Spiritual Directors who were invited to help create a program for Spiritual Formation at the Seminary. Gayle and her husband moved to Cape Cod, MA in 2007 where she continues to provide individual and group Spiritual Direction as well as Retreat Leadership from her home on the Cape. She also serves as a small group supervisor in the Gateways to God Program, and supervises Peer Supervision Groups at Rolling Ridge. 

With more than 20 years in academic and non-profit settings, Heidi A Miller, Ph.D., serves as Associate Professor of Spirituality and Christian Ministry at Mercer University in Atlanta. Her areas of teaching, research, and writing focus on transformative leadership, spirituality, transition and trauma, justice, and worship. Heidi designs and facilitates curriculum in spiritual direction and soul tending in one-on-one, small group, community, congregational, and organizational contexts. 

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A gathering of kindred hearts connecting with God, the Source of Life, ourselves and all creation.

As a professional organization, we enrich the art and skills of deep listening, share practices, stories, and resources...

...and feel the warmth of peer-led support and encouragement in the life-giving vocation of soul companioning.