Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem-solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.
The program also includes yoga and mindfulness, permaculture and environmental practices, arts, service and volunteering and community building activities.
We focus on 5 major principles:
Care for the Self
Care for the Family
Care for the Community
Care for the Earth
Care for the World
Ethics for Children can also be a full family activity, with classes for all ages and free adult programs at the same time for those who want to attend.
Visit https://bsec.org/efc to learn more about our class and sign up for our trial class.
Ethical Culture is centered around faith as a belief system devoted to human welfare– Humanism. As Humanists, the study of the self, motivation, and goals are essential to developing the whole person.
Social activism requires a great deal of time and effort for the highest good of others. Helping to foster the vital process of critical thinking about ethical actions, you must take care of your own spirituality. This is the spirituality that Felix Adler promoted in order to move comfortably between self-culture and the ethical culture of “do no harm”. Adler believed spirituality is not associated with any one type of religion or philosophy; it is a quality of soul manifesting itself in a variety of activities and beliefs. Adler was concerned about taking responsibility for our actions, and acknowledging that our 2 actions can make it easier or harder for ourselves and others to be their best, to experience and act on our goodness, to enjoy life.
Nettie Paisley, an Interfaith Minister and Reiki Master will discuss how utilizing the ancient spiritual philosophy from the 5 principles of Reiki can lead to peace during the process of working for the highest good.
Bio:
Nettie Paisley began her career as an adult education teacher in the area of work force development at the State University of New York Educational Opportunity Center in Brooklyn, NY for 30 years. After retirement, she opened a holistic boutique and wellness center called Southern Comforts on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn for four years. Inspired by the beauty and peace of the holistic practice called Reiki, she became a master and teacher. The loving and nonjudgmental life principles of Reiki lead her into the ministry and a graduate of One Spirit Seminary as an Interfaith Minister, which included an internship with Gethsemane Church in Brooklyn, NY.
Nettie operated a mentoring program for foster care youth at Lutheran Social Services and work force development at the Brooklyn Public Library among other agencies. Along with her interfaith ministry, Nettie works as a wellness consultant and practitioner in the areas of Reiki, Qigong and Meditation at SAGE USA, Emblem Health and other sites. She joined the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture and was chairperson of the Life and Ethics Committee, which provided fundraising and social outreach for Brooklyn, in particular, Bedford Stuyvesant that led to the adoption of public school PS 44 for six years through the encouragement of then BSEC president, Charley Horwitz. Nettie was also a BSEC board member and is currently a friend of the BSEC.
Join us for a discussion on health, well being and the connection to current events as we navigate these challenging times.
All are welcome.
Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem-solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.
The program also includes yoga and mindfulness, permaculture and environmental practices, arts, service and volunteering and community building activities.
We focus on 5 major principles:
Care for the Self
Care for the Family
Care for the Community
Care for the Earth
Care for the World
Ethics for Children can also be a full family activity, with classes for all ages and free adult programs at the same time for those who want to attend.
Visit https://bsec.org/efc to learn more about our class and sign up for our trial class.
Guest Speaker: Kendall Christiansen
Hear from an expert in the waste industry about the current intricacies of handling materials, products and end-of-life discards.
Kendall Christiansen Bio:
Having collected (and delivered) newspapers as a kid, and worked as a school and church janitor in his teens, Kendall Christiansen became addicted to garbage when he served as founding Assistant Director of NYC’s recycling system in 1989. He developed a public affairs consulting practice in the field – chairing NYC’s Citywide Recycling Advisory Board, working locally with several companies, and nationally and in Canada for a major client – attending hundreds of national, state/provincial and regional conferences. In 2016 he refocused on helping NYC’s commercial waste and recycling industry to survive and transform into a 21st century industry. Kendall has Midwestern roots, and lived @ Prospect Park since 1980 – and with his wife and family in Lefferts Manor for 31 years. Active on the board of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and other nonprofits, he’s chaired New York Congregational Community Services/Nursing Center for more than 25 years.
Racial Justice Group.
We have launched a community effort to examine the fiction of Race in order to address the fact of Racism. Our plan is to provide information, opportunities, and events that can help us come together as a society to end racism. We will meet the first three Fridays of each month from 4:00 to 6:30 PM at BSEC to plan our efforts, to share resources and related experiences.
All members of BSEC and their personal guests are welcome at the learning sessions of Lucy’s Children.
Lucy was discovered in 1974 by paleontologists in Ethiopia. At that time she was the earliest known ancestor of the human species. This is why we call our group Lucy’s children.
Long-time Brooklyn Society For Ethical Culture members share their legacies in ethical practices and what it means to live an ethical life. They will discuss the roads they have traveled and the challenges they overcame. They will also, share stories of finding BSEC, what keeps them coming back and their vision for the society for the next generation.
Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem-solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.
The program also includes yoga and mindfulness, permaculture and environmental practices, arts, service and volunteering and community building activities.
We focus on 5 major principles:
Care for the Self
Care for the Family
Care for the Community
Care for the Earth
Care for the World
Ethics for Children can also be a full family activity, with classes for all ages and free adult programs at the same time for those who want to attend.
Visit https://bsec.org/efc to learn more about our class and sign up for our trial class.
Racial Justice Group.
We have launched a community effort to examine the fiction of Race in order to address the fact of Racism. Our plan is to provide information, opportunities, and events that can help us come together as a society to end racism. We will meet the first three Fridays of each month from 4:00 to 6:30 PM at BSEC to plan our efforts, to share resources and related experiences.
All members of BSEC and their personal guests are welcome at the learning sessions of Lucy’s Children.
Lucy was discovered in 1974 by paleontologists in Ethiopia. At that time she was the earliest known ancestor of the human species. This is why we call our group Lucy’s children.
Socialism, as a word, use to be a general turn-off in American conversations. However, 2019 has brought certain realities into clear focus: rapacious greed and increased ecological danger cannot be ignored. Moreover, social ineptitude and moral disregard for the general welfare of the people is plainly unacceptable by those in public office, in high or low status, in local or national leadership. Working Americans, particularly, are caught in a vortex of economic pressures carrying the weight of various levels of taxation, medical and other costs with little, if any, relief. Poverty is growing and deepening. The needs of the aged are often completely disregarded. These concerns are not just a urban issues. These problems affect every tier of American society, rural and urban. The only exceptions are to be found in the upper 20% which as a class controls about 90% of America’s wealth.
America is actually in competition with the so-called “Third-World.” America is no longer First World material and we did this to ourselves — or rather our legislative leaders did session after session, generation after generation. Instead of going forward, economically we have climbed our way back to the 1920s, the Guilded Age. Our laws, apparently, were not strong enough to prevent the avariciousness of capitalism which, in addition, to growing and segregating the wealth derived has ruthlessly destroyed and continues to destroy nature’s ecology here and in other parts of the world.
Maybe it is time for all of us to stop following blindly the capitalist model. It’s not going to change! “Today blind relentless economic growth structured into capitalism is destroying the ecological foundations of human society.” In earlier centuries, “socialist thought emphasized building up the productive forces in order to eliminate poverty.” What was wrong with that? Lifting poverty would, in fact, lift the entire social structure of our society and eliminate many of our persistent problems. In our current century, ecosocialism must balance issues and determine not how to produce more, but how to produce enough and distribute those yields to meet the basic needs of all of us within ecological limits.
Bio
Howie Hawkins is a retired Teamster from Syracuse, New York. He has been active in movements for civil rights, peace, unions, and the environment since the late 1960s when became committed to independent working-class politics for a democratic, socialist, and ecological society. He was a co-founder of the US Green Party in 1984. In 2010, he was the first US candidate to campaign for a Green New Deal when he ran his first of three campaigns for New York governor.
Racial Justice Group.
We have launched a community effort to examine the fiction of Race in order to address the fact of Racism. Our plan is to provide information, opportunities, and events that can help us come together as a society to end racism. We will meet the first three Fridays of each month from 4:00 to 6:30 PM at BSEC to plan our efforts, to share resources and related experiences.
All members of BSEC and their personal guests are welcome at the learning sessions of Lucy’s Children.
Lucy was discovered in 1974 by paleontologists in Ethiopia. At that time she was the earliest known ancestor of the human species. This is why we call our group Lucy’s children.
Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem-solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.
The program also includes yoga and mindfulness, permaculture and environmental practices, arts, service and volunteering and community building activities.
We focus on 5 major principles:
Care for the Self
Care for the Family
Care for the Community
Care for the Earth
Care for the World
Ethics for Children can also be a full family activity, with classes for all ages and free adult programs at the same time for those who want to attend.
Visit https://bsec.org/efc to learn more about our class and sign up for our trial class.
With guest speakers:
Julia Bryant, member of the legal team for MTOPP and FLAC; also committee member for Parks and Recreations for Committee Board 9
LaShaun Ellis, member of the legal team for MTOPP and FLAC
Janine Nichols, member of the legal team/occasional petitioner; also the proud Secretary of the Sullivan-Ludlam-Stoddard Neighborhood Assn.
Movement to Protect the People and Flower Lovers against Corruption are two grassroots organizations that commenced a lawsuit against The City of New York, Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo and Cornell Realty Management. The lawsuits challenge the fact that 18 lots of land near the Brooklyn Botanic Garden were rezoned without an Environmental Impact Statement. The lawsuit is ongoing.
Join us for a discussion on health, well being and the connection to current events as we navigate these challenging times.
All are welcome.
Our Ethics for Children program provides a fun, focused learning environment for kids to explore topics that foster empathy, respect and a deeper understanding of self and others. These include: our relationship to the natural world, the diversity of world religions and philosophies, social justice and action, and peaceful problem-solving.
The goal of Ethics for Children is to provide children with skills and knowledge to help them make ethical choices and learn to respect the inherent worth of every human being. We do not impose a fixed set of values or beliefs. Rather, we encourage children to respect and learn about themselves and their environment and to examine how their own ideas and actions impact the greater world.
The program also includes yoga and mindfulness, permaculture and environmental practices, arts, service and volunteering and community building activities.
We focus on 5 major principles:
Care for the Self
Care for the Family
Care for the Community
Care for the Earth
Care for the World
Ethics for Children can also be a full family activity, with classes for all ages and free adult programs at the same time for those who want to attend.
Visit https://bsec.org/efc to learn more about our class and sign up for our trial class.
This inter-generational festival of appreciation is led by Remi Gay, a former board officer and long-time member of Brooklyn Ethical who has been granted permission by Native American elders to perform rituals honoring our earth and its bounty. Through song, dance and story, Remi will lead us in this seasonal favorite for children and adults alike. Please bring a dish to share. Open to the public as always.
Platform meeting is followed by Munch With the Bunch, an opportunity to share coffee, snacks, and conversation with others.
Led by Sarah Zahntecher
Our identity has many facets and this exercise will show us one of them. How do we think of ourselves? What are some of the characteristics that define us?
[In a colloquy, we gather in a circle and practice listening to each other without judgment. Colloquies incorporate small group discussions, music, and listening around a particular theme.]
Racial Justice Group.
We have launched a community effort to examine the fiction of Race in order to address the fact of Racism. Our plan is to provide information, opportunities, and events that can help us come together as a society to end racism. We will meet the first three Fridays of each month from 4:00 to 6:30 PM at BSEC to plan our efforts, to share resources and related experiences.
All members of BSEC and their personal guests are welcome at the learning sessions of Lucy’s Children.
Lucy was discovered in 1974 by paleontologists in Ethiopia. At that time she was the earliest known ancestor of the human species. This is why we call our group Lucy’s children.
