UPCOMING EVENTS: Spring 2020
Event details can also be found on our Meetup page
Due to the COVID-19 public health issue, all ECSSV gatherings are currently “virtual events,” usually via Zoom videoconferencing. Please go to our Meetup page to sign up as an attendee and obtain the meeting link.
Ethical Action Sunday: Reclaim Our Vote
Sunday May 31st, 11am to 12:30pm
Doing good while staying home pushes us in new directions. In April, we decided that reaching out to members and friends was our best action. In early May, we decided we would continue that action and continue to financially support the shelter at Grace Church. We started a practice of having a “Virtual Soap Box” during our meetings for individual to express their passion for their favorite cause.
At this online meeting we will be discussing the call to action from the American Ethical Union, our parent organization, to support the Reclaim Our Vote campaign. This non-partisan action is in response to “voters of color being purged from voter rolls at a much higher rate than whites.” It is a postcard campaign that people can participate in while continuing to shelter in place.
Please join this digital meeting to learn about the action, and to participate in the discussion about whether to recommend to the ECSSV board that ECSSV should join the campaign and step up to make a difference in this crucial election year.
Here is the website for the Reclaim Our Vote campaign. http://centerforcommonground.org/main/index.php/campaigns/reclaim-our-vote.
The meeting link shows up when you RSVP on Meetup.
Poetry Matters
Monday June 1st, 6:30pm to 7:30pm
Our thoughtful and talented members and friends will share original works, personal favorites, and meaningful observations. All are invited to bring a poem (or two) or a short piece of prose to read and offer a few words about how this selection touches, moves or connects to them. Valerie moderates. RSVP on Meetup or to Valerie to receive the Zoom invitation.
Friday Morning Ethics Discussion
Friday June 5th, 10am to noon
Using situations in life and from the news of the week, we’ll explore ethical issues of the day. The topic will change every month. Bring issues from your life or the news to share.
The meeting link shows up when you RSVP on Meetup.
Creating Alternative Futures Through An Abundance Mindset
Sunday June 7th, 11am to 12:30pm
Our sense of scarcity has complex roots, yet when we realize that we are already whole and interconnected we open space to new possibilities for getting everyone’s needs met – physically and philosophically. We’ll ground ourselves with some ancient and ancestral wisdom before opening ourselves up to how we can take advantage of the present moment to create a future of abundance for everyone.
Speaker, Sarah Tielemans, is a Leader in Training in the Ethical Culture Movement and a member of the New York Society. Throughout her wanderings in life – including while cycling across 20 countries in Africa – she has nurtured her curiosity about alternative ways to perceive our shared experience. She believes that Joy is our birthright and Love is the perfect realization of our interconnectedness.
RSVP via Meetup to obtain the online meeting link.
Juneteenth: Thank Goodness, I Am Free At Last (special spotlight program)
Sunday June 14th, 11am to 12:30pm
Freedom Day, or Juneteenth, was founded on June 19th 1865. It was the final day that all states within the United States of America afforded all slaves the rights of emancipation. This day would not have been possible if not for the radical work of Black Freethinkers both ‘schooled’ and ‘marginalized’ — from the honorable Fredrick Douglas to a skeptical slave named James Hay, who pursued their inherited worth on a daily basis. This national holiday is often honored and celebrated in many African American religious congregations, where the impact of Black Freethought and its cultural curators go unnoticed. This platform presentation is a reminder that Freedom Day is a national collective effort of Black Goodness that extends beyond an American God.
Jé Exodus Hooper is a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Arts at Ohio University and a clergy leader in the Ethical Culture Movement. Based in the Mid-Atlantic region, his work as creative-clergy and performance-scholar is focused in decolonizing Humanism, in homiletics, and in Black Intellectual Thought. His love for performative rhetoric involves a decolonized aesthetic of Black homiletic folk-talk, one of imagination as responsive reasoning. His word-working emphasizes human freedom and interconnectedness through embodiment, intuition, creativity, and improvisation. His folk-talk emerges into a love language that aids the congregational practice of culture care for empowering community life.
Jé’s most recent Facebook Live and IGTV production, Keep Liv’n, emphasizes the importance of cultural care and self care. His film, “Humanitas: A Conscious Coloring of Kindness,” based on the relationship of W.E.B. DuBois and Felix Adler, was sponsored and funded by American Ethical Union’s Mossler Fellowship and debuted with approximately 400 attendees. Jé’s other works include “Moving Upon the Face of the Deep,” featuring Dr. Cornel West; “The Black Sacred Communion;” and a collaboration with his life partner, storäe michele, entitled “[the listening heart],” whose premiere drew over 300 people.
These kinds of transdisciplinary theory as practice console and agitate communities in re-imagining and reclaiming narratives that honor the inherent worth and dignity within all people — a love-work that Jé is committed to!
RSVP via Meetup to obtain the online meeting link.
Friday Morning Ethics Discussion
Friday June 19th, 10am to noon
Using situations in life and from the news of the week, we’ll explore ethical issues of the day. The topic will change every month. Bring issues from your life or the news to share.
The meeting link shows up when you RSVP on Meetup.