Washington Ethical Society

In the first of two platforms from last year's auction, Amanda takes on some challenging questions from the winning bidders--questions that get to the heart of our religious commitments and our life together. How do we tell the truth to each other? Under what conditions is venting healthy and ethical? Under what conditions is silence the better choice? Is honesty the best policy always? Are white lies never an ethical option? (Amanda hopes next year's winning bidders pick something nice and easy like the history of religion throughout all time.)

Amanda speaks at WES's annual Sunday to remember those who have died.

A project called Show Me Equality has for two years now been running buses from Missouri to Iowa full of couples and clergy to solemnize marriages. Why drive five hours to your own wedding? Because these devoted couples happen to be gay and lesbian, and Iowa legalizdd samd-sex marriage in 2009. Ethical Culture Leader Kate Lovelady has been honored to rid on the Love Bus twice so far to help officiate these marriages, and she shares some of the stories.

In our free religious movement, we are not bound by traditional lists of rules. But we do live by certain principles. How though, do we create them--when we can't just read the list of ten that someone else put together? What do we live by, and why? Mary invites each of us to explore our own list, our own ethical map of the world, the formation of our deepest values and the way they shape our lives.

We live in a multicultural age of conflicting values. Some refer to this as a "postmodern" era, in which the values of the European Enlightenment are challenged. The celebration of "tolerance" is a product of these far-reaching trends. This address explores: What standards can we as Ethical Culturists invoke in our relations with cultures not our own? "Is there such a thing as 'false tolerance'?" "Where does Ethical Culture stake its claim in this changing world?"

Alida writes, "When I was growing up in a Unitarian Universalist congregation, the opening words on Sunday morning were often: 'the place where we meet to seek the highest is holy ground.' When I walked into WES years ago, I was delighted to find the same words displayed. This platform is about th promises we make on 'holy ground,' also known as covenants."

We don't often talk about God at the Ethical Society. But just what God aren't we talking about? The word is important in our interfaith work, our interactions with the wider world, and for some of us in our own spiritual journeys. Amanda explores the changing conceptions of God over the last thousand years or so--just a quick overview! You are invited to reflect on what "that word" really means.

The fall and the start of our new congregational year together bring a host of new possibilities. We can easily find ourselves being driven by them, rather than engaging them with intention. Intentionality is bout facing ourselves, loving ourselves, broken and whole, incomplete and striving. Mary explores what it means to make a fresh start.

This celebratory Sunday marks the symbolic return from summer to our community. Amanda looks at the importance of staying power, in our congregational life and in our faith--and how Ethical Culture brings hope for us and for the world.

This Labor Day celebration features music from the DC Labor Chorus, ld by Dr. Elise Bryant, a professor at the National Labor College.

Amanda considers questions sent to her by members--from the state of WES to the state of the world.

Amanda and others explore how raising children--our own and other people's--enriches our experiences of joy, mindfulness and trust.

Barbara takes the advent of her 80th birthday to imagine her life both through her own lens and the lens of scientific discovery and possibility. She explores the importance of science in hr own journey and the incredible diversity of the natural world.

Amanda reflects on the importance and the difficulty of slowing down.

As a religious person who believes in science, Amanda explores the ways in which the two disciplines inform and challenge each other. The first in a "Science and Reason" theme.

Part of the point of religious community is to help us grow into qualities of spiritual maturity, enabling us to conduct our lives with dignity, grace and meaning. The concept of spiritual maturity implies that some ways of living are qualitatively better than others; is that so? The Rev. Dr. Kendyl Gibbons is Senior Minister of the First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis, Co-Dean of the Humanist Institute and adjunct faculty at Union Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.

As Miss Manners says, we "follow a common language of behavior in order to avoid making communal life abrasive, unpleasant and explosive." Mary Herman offer a lighthearted but thought-provoking call for a revival of civility and how it applies to our community life.

Guest speaker Tony Hileman has been both senior leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture and executive director of the American Humanist Association. In this platform he discusses how the Ethical Movement has changed without losing its essential character. From the historic roots of Ethical Culture to modern Ethical Humanism, we have remained in substantial agreement on foundational points.

American democracy is confronted by many external threats: terrorism, economic chaos, and environmental degradation. To address these threats effectively, we must also solve problems internal to democracy: paralyzing partisan hostility, ugly culture wars, sound-bite media coverage, and a selfish individualism corrosive of the common good. The traition of Ethical Humanism can help by reminding us that democracy is not merely a form of government, but is an approach to relationships. Hugh explores how we can reinvigorate our civil discourse and build an ethical democracy.

Fatherhood is a timeless role that is nevertheless reinvented by every new father. On this Father's Day, John reflects on his experiences parenting two children, in the context of his own childhood and the many theories of parenting he has encountered as a practicing psychiatrist and consumer of popular literature.