Beliefnet.org’s article that explores the meaning of suffering in different faiths.

David J. Wolpe is senior rabbi of Temple Sinai, a Conservative congregation in Los Angeles. A well-known speaker and writer, he has written several books, among them The Healer of Shattered Hearts: A Jewish View of God (Henry Holt & Co., 1990) and (with Mitch Albom) Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times (Riverhead Trade, 2000).

Dean Hamer is a geneticist and director of the Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md. He is the author of The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired Into Our Genes. His hypothesis, criticized by some other scientists, is that some people inherit a gene that predisposes them toward faith in […]

Silver Sage Village in Boulder, Colo., broke ground in August 2006 and is Colorado’s first cohousing development for seniors. With a spiritual core, the ecofriendly community has a common meditation room.

The Center for Inquiry works to foster a secular society devoted to humanist values and freedom of inquiry. Its public education programs focus on paranormal and fringe science claims; religion, ethics and society; and medicine and health. The center is based in Amherst, New York, and has branches throughout the U.S. and the world. Robyn […]

The Retirement Research Foundation in Chicago promotes elder-friendly communities. It funded a project to replicate the ElderSpirit Community in Abingdon, Va., in other areas and provided some development money for the community. Marilyn Hennessy is president.

Stephen Golant is a geographer at the University of Florida-Gainesville who specializes in gerontology and housing arrangements for senior citizens. He has written or edited more than 100 papers or books on the subject.

Chris ScottHanson is a development consultant with Cohousing Resources, a cohousing consulting firm in Langley, Wash. The firm is working on projects in Massachusetts and Oakland, Calif., and has recently completed consulting for projects in Kansas and Vermont.

Rick Mockler is vice president of CoHousing Partners, a cohousing development firm in Davis, Calif. He has a master’s degree in liberation theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He lives in Muir Commons, the first new-construction cohousing community in the U.S.