December's monthly program theme is abundance. Coming out of November / Thanksgiving and into December and the Christmas season, abundance is a topic on many minds. Others may take it for granted and perhaps don’t or rarely think about it. Do we have too much? How has abundance shaped our personalities and view of the world? LFUU member Dan Larson will be presenting and exploring ideas and questions around abundance.
Today we celebrate with our annual Thanksgiving potluck. Before we eat we will spend some time sharing what makes each of us thankful. Please watch for a sign-up sheet for bringing food to share.
Today's program will continue the Fellowship's exploration of courage. The first half of the program will be a discussion on the questions on courage that most resonate with individual Fellowship members. The second half will be a discussion about expressing our religious views with other people in our lives. Does it make a difference for other people to know that our religious views are different than theirs? And why does it seem it takes courage to tell others that we do not believe what they believe?
Courageous people change the world. Leaders such as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. who challenged the cultural and political structures of their time. We rightly honor such giants. The problem is that most of us aren't that tall. Or are we? The reality of a sickness of one's self or of a loved one, or the loss of a special person can be a challenge that has to be met with courage.
Lake Fellowship is excited to welcome Stan Tekiela today!
From his website: Naturalist, wildlife photographer and writer Stan Tekiela is the originator of the popular state-specific field guides such as Birds of (state name) Field Guide, Wildflowers of (state name), and Trees of (state name). Over the past three decades Stan has authored more than 130 field guides, nature appreciation books and wildlife audio CDs for nearly every state in the nation, presenting many species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, trees, wildflowers and cacti.
This is Part 2 of a two-part program. For those who can, Marnie has asked everyone attending today to do a little homework before coming. Assignments will be given on the 15th, and posted here as well later that day. Today, we'll share our homework results and hold a discussion about transformation in our lives.
Keeping with our monthly theme of Transformation, Lake Fellowship member Marnie Karger will present a stimulating program about what transformation means to you. From butterflies to barren landscapes, we hope this program inspires you to appreciate the transformation that lead you here as well as that which is yet to come.
This is Part 1 of a two-part program. For those who can, Marnie asks everyone attending today and next week to do a little homework in between programs. Assignments will be given on the 15th, and posted here as well later that day.
Today, we welcome regional author, Connie Claire Szarke. Incorporating period music and engaging the audience, Connie will discuss key elements of fiction as they apply to literary/historical works, and to what readers sense as they enjoy good books. Presentation topics include environment, humanities, impact on lives, and the topic of transformation: how novel characters transform along their arcs, how good books can affect and transform readers, and how authors are able to transform ideas, memories, and “seeds” into cohesive story lines, resulting in successful novels.
October's theme is Transformation. Lake Fellowship member Marnie Karger will introduce the theme through a variety of topics and set the stage for the next few weeks of exploration and introspection. We'll be looking to ways we transform, why we transform, why we sometimes resist transformation, and how we've transformed already. Come prepared to dig into your own history as well as look toward your future.
Please join us as Lake Fellowship welcomes Shawn Otto. Shawn Otto was the screenwriter and co-producer of the film “House of Sand and Fog” which garnered three Academy Award Nominations. He is author of “Sins of Our Fathers”, “Fool Me Twice: Fighting The Assault On Science In America” and “The War on Science: Who’s Waging It, Why It Matters and What We Can Do about It” (Milkweed Editions, 2016). He gives an astonishingly broad range of facts, trends and history to make the case that scientific advances in public health, biology and the environment are being resisted or rolled back.