Ethically Speaking

Newsletter of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture

Winter Issue 2012-2013

www.BSEC.org

Leader Message
Many of us have been talking about the future of our Ethical Society lately, and our potential as a community is so very exciting. Welcome, newcomers, Catherine Bordeau membership, growth, pledges are words that come up in board meetings, but the responsibility for our growth rests with each and every one of us. I encourage all of you to think of yourselves as nurturers of growth, as caretakers of the future of our community. In order to accomplish this, I want to invite you to do three things: Be invitational: When you see someone visiting on a Sunday, go introduce yourself and help him or her find the coffee. Have a conversation, this welcome will help them connect to us. Next step: think about why you attend Ethical, and tell your friends what this place means to you. Then invite them to visit. Introduce their family to our Ethical Education programs. Be visionary: Think about what you need at Ethical, and tell your leader and your board about programs you would love to see. We want to offer programs here that will help you clarify your own beliefs, make good ethical decisions, better understand Ethical Culture, embrace diversity, and become an effective social justice agent. Tell us what you need; help us make it happen. Be generous: Our operating budget depends on income from a variety of sources including annual pledges and rental donations. The more pledges we have, the more flexibility we have to offer abundant programs. Your pledge will not only help maintain our programs for this year, but they will help us grow our membership and ensure the future of our Ethical Society. Its an investment in Ethical Culture that is well worth the return.

Greetings from the Board

This season the Board of Trustees has been doing several things that aim to strengthen our society for the long run. Our inaugural Pledge Dinner gave us time to celebrate our community. Currently our passion and capacity outstrip our performance. Our shared pledging gave us the opportunity to honor our strength and potential together. As a member-driven society we know it is each other that makes things hum and sing. We also acknowledge that our finances, as our backbone, need to be tuned up to meet our capacity. With this in mind we engaged ourselves in a process to examine our giving to our community that celebrates and honors our potential. We want to thank everyone for taking part in this new approach to respecting our collective presence and power. Our strategic planning has been active within our three programmatic committees. This season we launched our Ethical Living Committee with ideas and mission to support our community in ways that can be personally fulfilling and enriching. You can look for activities and events forthcoming! The Ethical Education Committee has spent time strengthening the CSA and effectively engaging teachers, parents and adult members to the benefit of our children. Ethical Action serves as a standard bearer of an effective member-led committee that offers much in the way of best practices. Each committee is currently exploring their mission and priorities; how they support members and can attract new membership and how they can engage with fundraising. On February 3rd, Bart Worden, the new AEU Executive Director, will visit our society and give the platform. We encourage members to plan to stay afterwards to talk with him some more.

Save the Date: Upcoming Special Events

CSA Sleepover -Sat. Dec. 1: We need parents and BSEC members to help out. Winter Solstice Festival: Sun Dec. 2: 11AM Join us for a family-friendly celebration that includes singing, readings, re>lection and ceremony. Restorative Circles: Sun Dec. 2: 1-3PM CSA Cooperative Committee Meeting: Sun. Dec. 9 and Jan. 13 (1-3PM). All parents and BSEC members interested in getting involved with the Childrens Sunday Assembly are welcome. Baghdad Monologes: Fri. Dec. 14 & Sat. Dec. 15: 7:30PM Ethical Living Committee Meeting: Dec. 10, 7:30-9:30PM Membership Meeting: Sun. Jan. 13 11AM

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Ethical Action: Writer Bill McKibben's Call to Arms After

Sandy
We woke up this morning with a deep sense of sadness. Hurricane Sandy has brought serious hardship to many of the people we love and places we treasure. Large parts of the Northeast are underwater, millions are still without power, and tens of thousands have been evacuated from their homes. Last night the floodwaters were swirling around the bottom floor of our Brooklyn offices. Right now, the most important thing we can do is come together as a community and support the relief efforts that are already underwayBut we're not going to simply mourn our losses. The images coming out of the Atlantic seaboard, and from the refugee camps in Haiti, made us not just sad but angry. This was a literally unprecedented storm. It had lower barometric pressure, higher storm surge, and greater size than the region had ever seen before. It's as out of kilter as the melting Arctic or the acidifying ocean. And if there was any poetic justice, it would be named Hurricane Chevron or Hurricane Exxon, not Hurricane Sandy. These fossil fuel corporations are
Eddie Ellis at the Charley Horowitz Memorial Platform Photo Credit: Ben Halberstam The Ethical Action Committee meets on the third Sunday of the month at 1PM in the library. Join us Dec. 16!

Starting Over
By GabriellaM. Belfiglio

driving the climate crisis and spending millions to block solutions. Instead of buying climate silence, the fossil fuel industry should be funding climate relief At the same time as we recover, we also have another important task to do: connecting the dots between Hurricane Sandy, climate change, and the fossil fuel industry that is helping cause this crisis Sandy is what happens when the temperature goes up one degree.The scientists who predicted this kind of megastorm have issued another stark warning: if we stay on our current path, our children will live on a superheated planet that's four or five degrees warmer than it is right now. We can't let that happen, so let's get to work. 350.org, October 30, 2012 By Bill McKibben

The first sun for days: I walk into it like it will save me. In the mail theres a check from my mom, her paycheck signed over to me. It will be the first time in over a decade someone else helps pay my rent. For lunch today I have a bag of chips the only thing left thats portable from my shelf in the cabinet full of cans. Heavy cans push into gaps between my books and clothes transported last minute: mushrooms, crushed tomatoes, mini cans with thick paste inside, cream of broccoli soup, and one of mandarin oranges, that I cant bear to eat: their promise of something sweet and bright waiting for me. The first sun for days: I walk into it like it will save me.
The Brooklyn Society Writers Circle includes writers of all levels and disciplines dedicated to promoting the art and craft of writing. The Brooklyn Society Writers circle meets Sunday 1-3PM: Dec. 9 and Dec. 23. The Brooklyn Society Writers Circle will lead platform Dec. 16. To receive additional information or to receive reminder announcements, location changes or cancellations contact Kim Brandon atkimdarniece@optonline.net. Members and non-members of BSEC are welcome.

Message from the Sunday Committee

The Sunday Committee has always been committed to ensuring a diversity of speakers, musicians and perspectives. We want to recognize that for the first time in many years, our committee is not racially diverse. This is a fact that we are very conscious of and that we have worked to change. Since we are quite conscious of our lack of racial diversity, we ask for our whole BSEC communitys continued communication for proposals for speakers and musicians of all racial backgrounds. We are dedicated to diversity, and we ask for your patience and continued participation as we cultivate new membership to broaden and deepen our committees representation. If you have an idea for a speaker or a musician, please contact Catherine or Donna with their name, contact information and some brief information about their area of focus and background.
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Contacts
Lucy: lucymcnair@verizon.net Alva: msrogerz@gmail.com Otis: itsotiscotton@gmail.com Simba: lionnessp21@yahoo.com

Ethical Education
Update from the RE Conference Simba, Ellen & I got back safe and sound Sunday afternoon - and with enough gas to make the trip; however; it seemed that poor Henri, our driver, might have had to spend a couple hours in some gas line in Brooklyn in order to get back to his home in NJ. The weekend was nice on every level: nice people, good sessions and sleeping arrangements. The main thrust of the Saturday morning session was classroom management, particularly in the K-2 grade levels. This was a well-crafted delivery by Aimee Neumann who is a practicing 1st grade teacher in Chicago. In talking with other Societies' members, I got a feeling on how we should be approaching the need for a curriculum. With respect to this, I'm suggesting that everyone go on line to the AEU website and take a look at the site's "The Framework for the Sunday School at Home Curriculum." Look at page nine, for example. There is some good stuff there that can be used by any group and from which any group can build so as to meet their own specific needs. The Saturday afternoon session had teachers, parents and directors break into groups for learning about each societys problems and experiences and possible answer and solutions. I joined the teachers group. The main feeling that came from that group was that the

Society memberships throughout the country fail to place a major importance on the well being of their Ethical Education programs. I think we need to discuss this in more depth at our next BSEC meeting.

Lower Assembly hard at work Photo Credit: Ben Halberstam

Overall, this conference was well worth the time, and the three of us will have more to report for our next Ethical Education meeting. - Warren Miner

CSA Impressions by Suzie Sky

It was my privilege to spend one Sunday with Irene, James, Cici and Layla. I appreciated their insightful, intelligent and humorous participation. Our class focused on last weeks trip to the Farmer's market and a reading today about the life of a child whose family is part of a Fair Trade cocoa farmer co-op in the Dominican Republic. We reviewed their impressions left from the trip: from freshness of produce, natural settings, prices- which brought us to ideas about the middle-man, growing one's own food, depending on the soil and weather as other Che, Io, Cici, and Jamie - Upper Assembly Photo Credit: Ben Halberstam types of workers depend on their employers perhaps, supply and demand, the path of food from farm to table, fair labor practices, boy-cotting or as Cici would say girl-cotting. One child mentioned taking care of We revealed that some of our assumptions about grandparents, while another mentioned a farmer's life may not have been quite right. We parents helping their children to become learned that despite differences and geographic independent as they support them a little less boundaries, our typical days reveal many as they get older. We even made the similarities such as taking on helping roles connection on a larger scale to roles within within our families with siblings or pets and society. having to work to make a living. We touched on What is awesome is that the kids brought up the relationship people have to their labor, and all these ideas themselves, giving us the choices which may enhance our humanity and opportunity to explore various connections. creativity. We talked about the need for It was a really great class for me, and I hope it independence and the pride which comes from was for them too. working, creating or contributing. We discussed the reality of sometimes needing other people.
Ethically Speaking Winter Issue 2012-2013 3 Preschool Class dance!
Photo Credit: Ben Halberstam

Ethics in Action: Warren Miner By Kim D. Brandon

Sometimes we need to stop and smell the flowers. Everyone has heard that quote, but Im wondering if it has a special meaning here at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. We run through our lives, busy living, supporting our families, building our communities, and doing our part to plant seeds that change the world for the better. As we gather on Sunday mornings, we feel at home. we even add new items and insights that connect Ethical Culture to our schedules. Lets slow down for a minute and get to know more about each other. Most of us more recent members know Warren Miner for his keen interest and gentle alerts to prompt action for care of our building. As I got to know Warren, I found out that his interest in the CSA - Yes, the Childrens Ethical Education Program always has been important to Warren. Ever since 1958, when he was looking for a nonreligious community where his three children could find a sense of identity, he has been focused on the Childrens Sunday Assembly. Warren split from religion in his teens, at a tender age he grew tired of his familys strong Calvinist Protestant traditions. As a small child, he found them to be oppressive at times. Years later, while attending City College, Warren met Joan, his first wife and a non-believer. Once their children were old enough, they joined the Childrens Sunday Assembly, and in time his three kids each graduated from their eighth year. He shared some of his memories about his social activism in BSEC. During the 1960s and the Vietnam War, it was an eventful time to be at the society. BSEC took a position against the war. There was a great deal of activism and involvement on all fronts. Coretta Scott King, and Dr. Spock called an anti-war rally in Washington, DC. 10-12 brave people from BSEC went down to Washington D.C. in joining over five hundred more National protestors. Speakers included Spock, Stokely Carmichael, Rapp Brown, and Mrs. King. It was an historic event, and BSEC members were there. It was really a tricky time. We all met at a diner on Avenue L. It was late fall and our bus company got wind that we were radical protesters and they cancelled on us. Miraculously, we were able to get yellow school buses to take us later that same day.

Ellen Raider and Warren Miner

Right to Left: Rebecca Lurie, Warren Miner and Ellen Raider

Photo credit: Ben Halberstam

Up to one hundred people attended each Sunday Platform during the war. Folks came to Platform dressed-up in suits, ties and dresses. We staged debates. There were so many of us, but everyone was against the war so we had to get someone to volunteer to take the opposing view point just to have a debate. It was a large Sunday school back then. We owned the building next door, and there were about 120 students enrolled. We had eight full grades with 8-10 children in each grade. They taught introductory ideas of values, awareness and the concept of diversity of cultures. Young people joined the society and most had children. It was wonderful and very important to be with other families and children who held similar beliefs if only once a week. The question of who God was or was not wasnt as important as giving children a feeling of security and community. Today, 54 years later, Warren and his wife of 25 years, Ellen Raider, are both involved in our Ethical Society. They want the program to continue to grow for generations to come. They support the Ethical Education committee with some experience from the past in educating young minds. Please see Warrens full story online at the BSEC blog (www.bsec.org/blog)

CSA Cooperative Education Meeting Dates: Sunday, December 9th (1:00-3:00PM) ! ! ! ! ! Saturday, January 13th (1:00-3:00PM)

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Thank You from Annemarie W. Mogil

Dear Ethical Culture friends, My heartfelt thanks to each and all of you for the wonderful (and still unbelievable) cards, messages, commemorative plates, personal wishes and cake on my special day. My 90th birthday celebration was the best yet, and I have all of you to thank for that. You know who you are: you who helped by baking cakes, getting candles, organizing the children to decorate, making cards, preparing the delicious foods, bringing juice, and all of the preparation work required. Ethical Culture truly feels like a second family to me. I particularly want to thank Kim Brandon for taking the time to interview me and for her terrific write-up of her interview about me in the last newsletter. With love - Annemarie
Annemarie at her 90th Birthday while being serenaded by the BSEC Membership
Photo Credit: Ben Halberstam

Anna Garlin Spencer Award

We honor Abby Scher as the recipient of this years AEU Anna Garlin Spencer Ethical Volunteer Award. Abby serves as a perfect example of how her behind the scenes volunteering contributes to the success of our congregation. Being member led means many of us step in and show up in many ways. We appreciate the talent and wisdom Abby brings to our society to keep us connected, relevant and inspired.

Ethical Living Launched!

The new Ethical Living Committee was launched into existence this October, encouraged by the strategic planning process being led by the board. Twelve members and friends of our society discussed passions and ideas for what projects and events can fall under this newest programmatic committee. Three specific projects that already occur with great regularity and leadership will now share the administration of the Ethical Living Committee; The Sunday Abby Scher Morning Sharing Circle, The Writers Group, and Prospect Concerts. Other activities Photo Credit Fiona Boneham committee members discussed programs as diverse as hosting fun happenings or parties, more member circles, book clubs, movie nights, sustainable living workshops, small business networking, arts and crafts, yoga and meditation sessions and hosting a conference about transitioning to a new economy. The immediate task before the committee is to decide and organize some priorities that help to accomplish three things; build new or support existing membership, spread our mission and passion of the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, and spend responsibly or increase revenues for the organization. Soon after the meeting Phyllis Soonachan volunteered to be co-chair of the committee, working with Board of Trustee Vice-President Rebecca Lurie to integrate this committee into the regular functioning of our society. Meditation Circle: Monday, December 3rd at 7:30. Ethical Living meeting: Monday December 10th, 7:30 9:30. Please consider coming and supporting an expansion of our presence in fun and fulfilling ways!

Thank You
The Good Coffee House (GCH) Music Parlor at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture was founded in 1975 and has supported local and national artists. For nearly four decades, the Friday evening concerts of, primarily folk music, have entertained and lifted the spirits of its audiences. The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture wishes to express our sincere gratitude to James Reams; Frank and Nancy Moccaldi; Dennis and Linda Stallard, as well as Ian Zack for their dedication to the Good Coffee House (GCH) Music Parlor. Without them, it would not have been possible.

Ethically Speaking Winter Issue 2012-2013

Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture 53 Prospect Park West Brooklyn, NY, 11215 718-768-2972 www.bsec.org

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BSEC: Guiding free-thinkers since 1907

Stay informed, connected, and involved with BSEC on the web:

American Ethical Union Update

Bart Worden,! the new Executive Director of the ! American Ethical Union, is working hard visiting many Ethical Societies to encourage movementwide cooperation and rejuvenation!He shares reflections on his visits movement wide in his Executive Blog on the AEU website. Visit there at www.aeu.org and click on go there underMeet the Societies on the right hand side.It will help connect you to the larger Ethical Culture community! Bart visits Brooklyn Ethical on February 3. Mark your calendars.

Website: www.bsec.org Blog: www.bsec.org/BSEC/Blog. html Facebook: Friend Brooklyn Ethical and Like our page: www.facebook.com/ EthicalCultureBrooklyn To submit an article or photography to the newsletter please send an E-mail to communication.bsec@gmail.com and check the Newsletter section of website for dates and guidelines for submissions.
To join BSEC as a member please contact Catherine Bordeau: Bordeau.bsec@gmail.com

BSEC Staff Catherine Bordeau - Leader in Training Damal Edmond -Administrative Director Ben Halberstam - Communications Manager

Newsletter Editors Ben Halberstam Joel Shatzky

Board of Trustees 2012-2013 Tom Castelnuovo" Fiona Boneham Kim Brandon" " Tom Castelnuovo Alec Gershberg" " Rebecca Lurie Lucy McNair" " Donna Minkowitz Erin Moore" " Jean Rohe

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