Founding of the Peace Spiritual Center
The Peace Spiritual Center was founded in February 2011 by Richard "Rick" Cook, who moved to Roanoke with his wife Karen in 2010.
Richard is a lifelong spiritual seeker with many years of training in meditation and spiritual counseling.
Karen has been a spiritual seeker since childhood. She is a former elementary school teacher who currently works for the Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital as a patient companion.
Richard is also a carpenter, a gardener, an author, a teacher, and a public speaker. He formerly worked for several federal government agencies, including the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department.
Today Richard is an ordained minister with the Sanctuary of the Beloved and the Order of Melchizedek, an international healing and teaching order.(www.sanctuaryofthebeloved.com). He is also a Lifestream Practitioner at the Lifestream Center in Roanoke and also studied for twelve years with the Forthway Center for Advanced Studies in Washington, D.C. He is a past board member of the Shivabalayogi Charitable Trust in Durham, N.C. and is also affiliated with AGEAC, an international spiritual society headquartered in Spain.
Ordination
In January 2010, Richard and Karen were ordained as ministers within the Sanctuary of the Beloved and the Order of Melchizedek. Its home is in upstate New York, and it has an affiliated location at the Indian Valley Retreat Center in Floyd, VA.
After forty years of personal practice and study of the world's spiritual teachings, Richard was inspired to seek ordination during a two-week personal meditation retreat at Indian Valley in January 2009. Richard and Karen were married on a mountaintop there in April of that year (following a family service in Maryland) with Rev. Tom Williams officiating. Both Richard and Karen had raised families prior to their meeting and making the decision to share their lives.
Move to Roanoke
After a search through Southwest Virginia, Richard and Karen moved to Roanoke from their previous home in Maryland to seek the "high places," both in the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains and within their own hearts and spirits.
Richard and Karen now offer to share the fruits of that search with others through their Roanoke-based teaching, including weekly discussion and meditation meetings and monthly seminars at Lifestream.
Spiritual Counseling
Richard also conducts private counseling sessions. These may be scheduled at a mutually convenient time, though early mornings or late afternoons or evenings are best. The purpose of counseling is to encourage the seeker to open to the Spirit within himself or herself and allow it to shine through love in joy and service to the world. Paramount to Richard's approach is to accord complete respect to the seeker's own free will in choosing a course while being available to listen and make suggestions.
Weddings and End-of-Life Transition
Richard also conducts weddings and offers his "End-of-Life Transition" program to individuals preparing to pass on to the next world.
