Attention! Attention, please! Lake Fellowship member Marnie Karger will present an interactive program today around this month's theme: Attention. We'll explore our perceptions of what it means to pay attention, we'll practice being attentive to the present moment, and we'll attend to some poetry by Ted Kooser. All are invited to attend!
Today we welcome Dr. Jeff Anderson, Professor of Peace Studies at St. John’s University, and brother to our own Terry Anderson. Today he will be speaking about Global Health. Global Health is an innovative academic field. Combining medical knowledge, new technologies, social science insights, social justice commitments, and creative partnerships, practitioners pursue real solutions to daunting problems. This interactive presentation will present some of the major efforts, highlight successes and shortcomings, and chart a path forward.
Join us for a special program during which Lake Fellowship member Sharon Dana will interview fellow member Beatriz Aguerrevere about her native Venezuela and her thoughts about what has happened to her country since she emigrated decades ago.
Today we welcome Dr. Ellen Kennedy as our guest speaker. Ellen J. Kennedy, Ph.D., Executive Director of World Without Genocide and adjunct professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, will speak about the rise in hate crimes against Jews, Muslims, members of the LGBTQ community, immigrants and refugees, blacks, and other minority groups. She will discuss conditions that influence the increase in hate speech, violence, and membership in alt-right and other hate groups; and the distinction between incitement and free speech.
Many of us come from other religious traditions, yet we live in sometimes intimate kinship with both our community and the rest of the world. What does it mean to "belong" to the Lake Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists? Does everyone who visits belong, or do we place limits on what it means to belong? Are we the "welcoming congregation" we aspire to be? These are the kinds of questions we will explore in this program led by Lake Fellowship member Matthew Tift.
Today, Marnie Karger will lead a program exploring this month's theme of Belonging through a look at our history with slavery. We'll listen to an episode from the 1619 Project and discuss the points author Nikole Hannah-Jones presents about our identity as Americans and our efforts to support democracy.
Today, Terry Anderson will continue our conversation around the theme of Expectation.
Today, Lake Fellowship member Marnie Karger will lead a program exploring our monthly theme of what it means to be a people of Expectation. We'll explore what expectations can help us accomplish, what they may keep us from doing, and just how easy it is to forget how much we expect from one another, until something doesn't work out well.
Today, we welcome Bruce MacKenzie from Better Angels. Bruce, a member of Better Angels, will be speaking about the polarization we are experiencing in our country, its causes, the concerns it creates, and some steps we can take to be part of a solution. Better Angels is a non-profit, bipartisan organization that is working to address polarization in the U.S.
As has been our tradition for more than a decade, we will start our new season of programs with a Water Ceremony. The Water Ceremony is a great way to reconvene after summer break. For those who may not be familiar with this annual tradition, members and friends bring to the service a small amount of water that represents something of significance for them. One by one the water is poured into a larger bowl. This is more than a “what I did this summer” report, and represents a re-gathering of our community.