Pictures from Families Celebrate Africa – A MLK Event

We celebrated Martin Luther King Jr’s Day celebrating our community’s diversity and talents. More than ever, it was a good time to honor the cultural richness of our country and the power of peaceful action. A huge thanks to all who helped make this event so successful. All people who worked hard to put it together, the amazing volunteers who welcomed everyone with a smile and with willing helping hands, and all who came with their families to share this event with us.
Check out some of the pictures of the event below:

Members’ Meeting – January 29th, 2017

Dear Members,

We are looking forward to our next Members’ Meeting, January 29th, 1-3PM. We will have a slightly abbreviated platform and luncheon that morning. As many of us have expressed, at this time, we are all called to action. As members of Ethical Culture we are compelled in ways congruent with our values.  Our Society, our community, our members lead a range of programs and organize many ways each of us can make a difference.

As Grace Lee Boggs wrote…
“We can begin by doing small things at the local level, like planting community gardens or looking out for our neighbors. That is how change takes place in living systems, not from above but from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously.”

At our Member meeting we will share about the many opportunities we all engage with and will be asked to join and support:

Lucy’s Children
Society Writers
Ethics for Children
Ethical Action
Ethical Living
Board and membership development
You will also have time to share your own ideas…And, we will also focus on an activity that includes all of us:
the capital campaign for our property stewardship and accessibility
Here we are the change we wish to see in the world…
Rebecca Lurie Board President
Janice Novet, Board Vice-President

Our Winter Solstice Celebration 2016

BSEC Winter Solstice 2016

In times of darkness, we celebrate the Winter Solstice together to welcome the return of the light. Our inter-generational event focused on ancient South American civilizations and how they honored the sun. DuPree led the musical part of the event and the children answered questions about the seasons and helped distribute evergreens and welcoming the sun. The solstice the time to send wishes of peace and light into the world, particularly in times of great need, like now.
Big thanks to all who helped make this event such a success, and to all who brought food, came early and left late to help set up and break down at the end of the day.
Below you will find some pictures of the event:

Ethics for Children Update – December 4th, 2016 class

Simba Yangala (Exploring Ethics, 3-7 years)
It was fun being at the platform with the children, sharing a song with the grown ups this Sunday morning. Back in our class, after our greeting song, I asked the children which place they liked more, the children’s place or the grown up’s place. Two out of eight children said the like the grown up place. For our Ethical discussion, we talked about the importance of caring about our friends. For the Ethical dilemma, we used the example of when to tell a friend’s secret. If it’s a surprise birthday party, we keep the secret and if they going to take another friend’s lunch box, we can get help to bring out the best in them. The children were really engaged in the activity. Before going on to our play time, we practiced voting. The choices were, which one to start first: the playroom for free play or going in the hallway for the selected game, “Statue”. 6 children chose the hallway and 2 chose the  playroom. We started with “Statue” in the hallway and then did our mannequin challenge at the beginning of our free play. Have a wonderful week and see you next Sunday 🙂

Taty Sena (Living Ethics, 12-14 years)
This week in Living Ethics we joined the platform for the beginning musical opening with Dupree. We went back to the classroom for a discussion on our experience handing out our care bags before the Thanksgiving break. The kids were very insightful about what they learned from it and it developed into a discussion about how we can do more and maybe get the whole society involved in the coming year.  More on that to come. We have also talked a little about thankfulness and appreciating what we are given and those in our lives.

Lea Bender (Evolving Ethics, 12-14 years)
We picked up a discussion topic from several weeks ago: what does it mean to “be a man”?  For some other perspectives on this subject we watched/discussed excerpts from a documentary called The Mask You Live In (available on Netflix –I pre-screened it and skipped over a few parts that were too mature, but it’s a good documentary to view in full as parents/caregivers of a young teen).  We will finish our discussion/screening next week and begin to plan the projects that we will present in June.