EthicalStL.org

For those who are traditionally religious, hope is derived from belief in a Divine Being who promises that all will work out for the best in the end. But for humanists, who doubt the existence of such a being, what are the sources of hope, especially when we are challenged by life's misfortunes and tragedies? lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Dr. Chuman has been the leader of the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, NJ, for 30 years. He has a doctorate in religion from Columbia University where he teaches seminars in religion and human rights for master’s and doctoral students. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Dr. Chuman also teaches at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Hunter College, and has taught at the United Nations University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica. He has published numerous articles in the Bergen Record and has also had articles published in The New York Times, The Humanist, Free Inquiry, Humanistic Judaism, and other periodicals. His articles on Ethical Culture and religion have appeared in several encyclopedias. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; As an activist, Dr. Chuman has worked on many progressive causes, notably on behalf of human rights and civil liberties and in opposition to the death penalty. He has recently initiated a sanctuary program for asylum seekers detained at the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, NJ. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; "I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings." - Elie Wiesel

No matter a person's beliefs, December in America is inescapably Holiday Time. In our hemisphere, the days are shortening and growing colder, and people draw together for warmth and cheer, as they have for millennia. Yet on top of this natural desire for closeness, our economic culture has overlaid expansive and expensive dreams of extraordinary gifts, decor, food, entertainment-all in the name of peace, family, and friends. With all these conflicting needs and messages, it’s no wonder so many of us feel confused and emotionally exhausted at this time of year. What can we do to reclaim the Solstice season? First, we can stop and listen-to ourselves and to our loved ones. What are our true deep needs and desires for others and for ourselves? How can we authentically act to express and fulfill these needs?

Where do you go in sleep? The nature of yourself, and of consciousness, is thrown into sharp relief when we consider sleep and the process of "waking up." When we do come up from sleep, is there a fixed degree of awareness that we normally reach—a “plateau” of consciousness where we customarily stop? It will be mused that a per-son’s state of consciousness can be raised beyond the plateau one currently reaches, however normal or adult or elevated it seems to be. We can hardly know today what a higher level of awareness might be like for us tomorrow, but we can confidently say that it will mean an expanded scope of ethical understanding, an increased desire to mount an integrity of self, and a deeper satisfaction from doing so. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Bob Greenwell is Leader of Ethical Society Mid Rivers, a satellite of our Society. lt;a href="http://www.ethicallife.org/" target="_blank"gt;Mid Riverslt;/agt; began accepting members in January, 2004, and its membership now stands at 51. Bob has a M.Ed. in counseling, is married to Kathleen, and is the proud grandfather of four. He says that at age 61 he sleeps more now than he used to (taking naps), which gives him more opportunities to rise to higher waking states. Sometimes it happens.

If you know anything about Galileo, it's probably that he challenged the prevailing belief of his time that the Earth was the center of the universe; that he was indicted by the Catholic Church for his beliefs; and that he backed down. That was pretty much all I knew until a few weeks ago. But in finding out more about this classic confrontation between science and orthodoxy, I found that there are many ethical lessons we can take from Galileo's life. Please note: almost all Italian words are pronounced incorrectly (sorry).

Ethical Culture founder Felix Adler described societies as religious communities "dedicated to moral striving." Their purpose was to help people move toward goodness, without any common formula or creed, but with a common need and desire to find better ways of living. How is this possible? By living among others: trying and making mistakes, listening and learning; then trying again. In this way we discover new truths about ourselves and our world. Leader Anne Klaeysen examines the process of moral striving as the core of ethical religion. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Anne Klaeysen has been Leader of the Long Island Society since 2002. She is a graduate and current co-mentor of the Humanist Institute and earned a doctorate in ministry from Hebrew Union College. She also holds master's degrees in business administration from New York University and in German from the State University of NY at Albany. Anne was raised Catholic and her husband Glenn Newman was raised Jewish, so it was only natural that they would find Ethical Culture, where their children Andrew and Emily have been raised.

One of the greatest challenges faced by those who are concerned about an ethical problem in the world, whether that problem is war, global warming, or genocide in Darfur, is how to make other people care about it. In the past, perhaps, this was primarily a problem of getting and disseminating information. These days, graphic pictures and lists of grim statistics get swept aside a week later by a new avalanche of information. When the average person is numbed by "compassion fatigue," how can people's consciences be awakened, and kept awake? One way is through a more creative and vital use of language. This Sunday we'll look at how our use of language can motivate and inspire and hear some words that will move us to tears, hope, and action.

This Sunday we will celebrate our second annual Day of Deeds. Ethical Societies were founded on the principle of "Deed Rather Than Creed," to quote the title of an 1879 New York Times article on the early Ethical Movement. What are some of the deeds currently underway at the Society? Find out about a few of them at this intergenerational platform, which will also feature special music by the Ethical Voices chorus. Speakers from the Sunday School, Coming of Age class, and Senior Connections project will share what inspired them to commit to their causes, and in turn inspire us to help and/or spread the word.

Kathy Kelly, a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (VCNV) spent four months of 2007 living among Iraqis who fled violence in their country. She believes that one way to prevent a "next" war is to continue to tell the truth about this war. Using anecdote and analysis, Kelly helps amplify the voices of people who've borne excruciatingly harsh consequences of a U.S. "war of choice." Kelly, who has visited Iraq twenty-six times since 1991, lived in Baghdad during the 2003 “Shock and Awe” attack and invasion. VCNV urges U.S. lawmakers to end funding for the illegal and immoral war in Iraq. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;Kathy Kelly co-coordinated Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign to end U.N./U.S. economic sanctions against Iraq. The U.S. government fined the group $20,000 for openly violating the sanctions. Rather than pay the fine, the group ended its ten-year campaign. However, with Voices for Creative Nonviolence, they continue working to end the war in Iraq and the Global War on Terror. Kelly has served time in U.S. prisons and jails for nonviolently challenging U.S. militarism. (She was sentenced to one year in maximum security prison for planting corn on a nuclear missile silo site.) She has taught in Chicago high schools and colleges for 16 years. As a war tax refuser, she has, since 1981, refused payment of all forms of federal income tax.

What is "horizontal religion"? Well, it's not religion that you practice while lying down, but otherwise you'll have to come out to the Ethical Society this Sunday to find out. As part of the answer to this question, we'll continue our 2007-08 theme of Ethical Communication. Over the last two Sundays, we've heard about communicating with our unconscious and communicating with the wider culture in which we live. This Sunday we'll try to define ethical interpersonal communication and explore how we can practice our ethical values in our everyday interactions. Buddhism has a concept of "right speech"-what does Ethical Humanism have to say about how we should speak and listen to each other?

What do we want our public face to be towards our culture, and how will our choices be demonstrated? We could function as weather vanes, swaying with the trends, affirming and accommodating our culture. We could be like steeples, fixed, unbending and pointing to something beyond. Or we could take trees as our model, being alive, rooted deep in the earth, the present and the real, flexible yet necessary. In the past these choices were seen as either to accommodate, oppose or transform. What differences will result by our choices? lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Don Robert Johnson is a Leader Emeritus of this Society, having served here as Leader from 2002 to 2005. He was a trained and practicing minister for twenty years, a college chaplain and then Senior Leader at the N.Y. Society for Ethical Culture for twelve years. Don and his wife Beverly Collier currently live in southwest Virginia near the Blue Ridge mountains. Don recently served as sabbatical minister for the New River Valley Unitarian- Universalist congregation in Blacksburg, Virginia.