Dr. Lois Sprague works to make life better for others every day
Dr. Lois Sprague
As president of The Guibord Center – Religion Inside Out, Dr. Lois Sprague works to unite people of all faiths and to help bridge division among people everywhere.
She learned the art of working with others growing up in Hancock Park.
Almost immediately after moving into their new family home on Hudson Avenue and Fourth Street in the late 1950s, her parents opened the home’s tennis court to the community.
“All the kids were invited to come and get tennis lessons for free,” said Dr. Lo, as she likes to be called.
Her community-minded parents also threw parties for Dr. Lo’s Marlborough School classmates and for those of her brother Bill at Black-Foxe Military Institute (now closed and replaced with condos on both sides of Wilcox Avenue, next to the Los Angeles Tennis Club).
These were not your typical low-key kids’ parties of the time, but lavish affairs with dinner and dancing.
“To this day, classmates say that was the best day at Marlborough,” Dr. Lo hears from former classmates.
Another memory from her youth was driving down Vermont Avenue. She saw a forlorn-looking girl standing in front of a ramshackle house with a broken lawnmower in sweltering heat.
The young Dr. Lo wondered why this little girl lived on this busy, dusty street while she lived on idyllic Hudson. “I really questioned as a little kid, why did I get the winning ticket? What is life asking of me?”
She knew also, from then on, “My job was to get to know [that little girl] and do something about the injustice.”
She did go on to help people like that little girl. She taught teens to read in Willowbrook, near Watts, and worked at the country’s poorest Indian reservation, Pine Ridge in South Dakota.
“Those of us born into good circumstances have a responsibility to get to know and reach out and share opportunities,” says Dr. Lo, who turns 76 in September.
“I don’t know what retirement means — as long as I can do something for a greater good. We can all do something that makes life a little better for someone every day.”
As a young woman, she attended UCLA, where she majored in psychology, minored in sociology and went on to get a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. She retired from her Jungian-oriented psychotherapy practice to join The Guibord Center at its inception, more than 20 years ago.
The Center partners with a host of faith and spiritual communities and holds events at synagogues, mosques and churches.
It was founded by Dr. Lo’s spiritual and life partner, the late Rev. Dr. Gwynne Guibord, a retired Episcopal priest.
During their 40-year relationship, Dr. Lo and Guibord opened their Beachwood Avenue home in Windsor Square to friends for weddings and held fundraisers for rescue animals and other causes.
Dr. Lo continues in that mission. She was recently honored with the Lord Houghton Award — one of the U.K.’s highest accolades for animal rights — for her work with Animal Defenders International (ADI). She spent a month this past spring in South Africa at The ADI Wildlife Sanctuary, where the Jean Warner Sprague Educational Center is named after her mother.
The group rescues lions and a host of other animals and is working to eliminate bull fighting in Colombia and other animal abuses.
She also works closely with educators, and she shares a short film she produced, “Anima: Animals. Faith. Compassion,” accessible at the Guibord Center’s website, theguibordcenter.org.
Sprague believes having a spiritual base is important at any time, but especially now. “These are dark times, and there is a lot of violence out there, but there are also thousands of people working for peace in spite of the risks and danger.
“We now know unequivocally that when you help people get in touch with their spiritual core… not necessarily religion… they have a kind of optimism that is a kind of natural resistance to despair and addiction. This is especially true in children and young people.”
A devout Christian grandmother taught Dr. Lo Jesus’ teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. The discourses in the Gospel of Matthew “shaped my life,” she said.
“As a little kid I really liked this guy [Jesus], and I still do, because of his kindness, because of his love, because of the world he would try to create for us to care for one another.”
Talks with an older brother who studied Hinduism and Gandhi would further cement her spiritual side, which is in full swing at the Center.
“It’s been crazy busy” preparing the fall program, she told us.
A recent program held at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral in Los Angeles drew 20 faith leaders. The event, “Every Child’s Life is Sacred,” was held to show support for the people of both sides in the conflict in the Middle East.
“We wanted to do something healing between Jewish and Muslim communities,” said Dr. Lo.
At the event, she told attendees, “When we’re asked to say which child should live and which shouldn’t, which child deserves medication and which doesn’t…
“The question needs to be: What do we have to do so there’s enough, so children can be safe?”
The Center’s next interfaith program, “Healing our Hearts Through Indigenous Wisdom, Music and Story-telling,” will take place on Sat., Sept. 28 from 7 to 9 p.m. at St. John’s Cathedral.
A weekly online program, “Spiritual Conversations from the Heart,” to help viewers with the stress of the November election, will begin on Mon., Sept 9.
Events are free and open to everyone, just like The Guibord Center.
Category: People