EthicalStL.org

This past July, Bill and I spent a week at Dancing Rabbit, an "eco-village" in northeast Missouri. We were curious to find out what exactly an eco-village is, who eco-villagers are, and what Missouri eco-village life is like. Many of us are looking for new ways of living that are more ecologically sustainable and energy-independent; many are looking to have closer ties with our neighbors and a deeper sense of community; many are trying to get away from the processed American diet that's making us fat and sick; many are asking, What is the "good life" really? Dancing Rabbit is one example of a community of people experimenting with new answers to such questions - and experimenting with some updated old answers. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

Three members talk about what led them to Ethical Culture and how being part of the Ethical Community has impacted them. Bob Heck and his wife Deb found the Ethical Society over 20 years ago and it has been their religious home ever since. Their son graduated from the Sunday School and daughter joined the Youth Group this year. Bob has served as EEC Chair and sat on the Board of Trustees. He is a stay-at-home father and an occasional musical performer on the Platform. Originally from Germany, Christine Floss was raised in West Lafayette, Indiana. She attended both Purdue University and Indiana University, and received her Ph.D. in geochemistry from Washington University in St. Louis in 1991. After working at the Max-Planck-Institute in Heidelberg, Germany for five years, she returned to Washington University in 1996 where she is now a research associate professor in the Physics Department. She and her husband, Frank Stadermann, joined the Ethical Society last April. Their daughter is currently in the Youth Group. Evan Gross was raised in the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County in Teaneck, New Jersey. He attended Sunday School and participated in YES as the National President. After college and a time spent teaching English and traveling abroad, Evan settled in St. Louis last year with his girlfriend. He is our Membership Administrator at the Society and teaches music at Dave Simon's Rock School. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

There is a lot of over-lap in the history of the Ethical Culture and Unitarian Universalism. Both are liberal religions that grew out of enlightenment ideals and free thought movements. Today, both tend to attract people of similar bent: social activists and others looking for community and inspiration without dogma. Many people have found a comfortable home in first one religion and then the other, and some people continue to visit or belong to both. But there are also differences, in history, emphasis, and style that make each tradition distinctive and that cause most people to choose one or the other. This platform will explore the similarities and differences between Ethical Culture and our nearest religious neighbor, Unitarian Universalism, to increase our knowledge and appreciation of both. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

Why do we need more wealth? Aren't we and our world consumed by consumerism? Wealth creation is the invention and use of new means of satisfying human needs. Steam engines and computer software are powerful examples of it. I say that we need more wealth so that our world becomes more comfortable, and we gain options for acting ethically. Individuals' motivation to make money is a driving force behind making a better world. Law has a key role in the creation and maintenance of wealth. I will defend a law-governed marketplace" as essential to the improvement of the human condition. Alan Easton was born and raised in Geneva, a small town in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. He worked at Monsanto in pharmaceutical research for 18 years. He has subscribed to The Economist magazine for over 25 years. He became a member of the Ethical Society in 1989 and currently serves on its Board of Trustees. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

Ethical Society member Randal Blain, M.Div, has served as a pastor, teacher and chaplain. Interested in broadening the field of spiritual care beyond theis-tic concepts and his desire to recognize the spiritual as more than religious has lead him on a 10-year pursuit of a spiritual care model not embedded in religious language. The result, is the development of a "Secular Language of Spiritual Care" which aspires to value the ethical ideal and responds to the need for simplified, yet not diminished, language with which spiritual needs and resources can be discussed. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

This will be an exploration of the constraints we all face in life and how these constraints determine, at least in part, who we become and shape our characters. It will also look at how we can expand our options and live fully ethical and meaningful lives.Jim Rhodes has been an active member of the Ethical Society for 18 years and is married to member Stephanie Sigala. Jim is an environmental engineer and works for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. He enjoys outdoor activities and also photography, music, vegetarian cooking, and dancing with Stephanie. Jim has served on the Board and is a member of the Finance Committee. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

Gateway Greening established more than 170 community gardens on abandoned land in the City's urban core. These gardens provide food for the table and food for the soul, serve as safe places to gather and are often the only asset in threatened neighborhoods. Learn how groups gather around these projects and the impact these gardens have on their lives. For the last 13 years, Gwenne Hayes-Stewart has served as the executive director of Gateway Greening, the non-profit community gardening organization in St. Louis. During her tenure, the organization developed from a small non-profit serving a few hundred people working in 30 community gardens into one serving over 2,800 people working in more than 170 community gardens, neighborhood greening projects, and citizen-managed open spaces. She is a Master Gardener who founded the Great Perennial Divide in 1998. She has been a Rotarian for 18 years. She serves on the advisory board of the Horticulture Department, St. Louis Community College at Meramec and Board Secretary of the American Community Gardening Association. Among her awards are two national recognitions, The American Horticulture Society's Urban Beautification Award and the National Garden Club's Award of Excellence. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

Hostels, hostelling, and hostel programs create world class citizens who are culturally sensitive. World Travel 101, an educational program, will demonstrate this. Mark T. Cockson is the executive director of the Gateway Council of Hostelling International-USA. Mark has a background in teaching, social work and administration in the not-for-profit world. Mark has a love for travel and nature that he expresses through gardening and photography. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

This platform address will explore the movement to local foods that led the New Oxford American Dictionary to christen as its "new word of 2007" the word "locovore." This movement has developed tremendous momentum solely due to grassroots interest - without the help of politicians, lobbyists or corporate sponsors - because it just makes so darn much sense to so many Americans. Eating local presents people with the opportunity to improve the environment, support hard-working farmers and take an ethical stand against the pervasiveness of commercialism in American life while enjoying a healthier lifestyle and the best tasting food available anywhere.Andy Ayers and his wife, Paula, owned and operated Riddle's Restaurant in Bel Nor where they began featuring locally grown ingredients on the menu in the early 1980's. The couple opened Riddle's Penultimate Café and Wine Bar in the University City Loop in 1985 and ran it for 23 years before selling the restaurant to their daughter, KT, who operates it now. An advocate, writer and speaker on behalf of local foods and local growers, Andy received the Lewis C. Green Environmental Service Award in 2006 for his work. Since leaving the restaurant to the next generation, Andy is growing a new start-up business that distributes food directly from local farms to the best restaurant kitchens in the St. Louis area. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

A poem is sculpted on the page. The words, punctuation, and the line direct us to the music of the poem, but it’s what the poem is wrapped in, perhaps skims or floats over, the white of the page, that silence that lies behind the poem that gives voice and power to the poem itself. Is there an inherent ethic to be distilled from this silence? And what part does imagination play in this tango between the poem and the page, between the poem and silence? Does the poetic imagination create the world, and if so, has imagination failed us? There will be more questions than answers - as e.e. cummings wrote: always the beautiful answer/that asks the more question. Walter Bargen has published eleven books of poetry and two chapbooks. The latest are: The Feast, BkMk Press-UMKC, 2004, a series of prose poems, winner of the 2005 William Rockhill Nelson Award; Remedies for Vertigo (2006) from WordTech Communications; and West of West from Timberline Press (2007). Theban Traffic is scheduled for publication in May of 2008. His poems have recently appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal, New Letters, Poetry East, and the Seattle Review. He was appointed to be the first poet laureate of Missouri in 2008. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

Artist Phyllis Plattner will discuss the path that led to her recent multiple panel paintings which are as yet still untitled. Based loosely on an altarpiece format they grapple with the stunning contrasts among opposing aspects of human behavior: the tragically ubiquitous habit of making war and the universal urge for beauty, spirituality, and love.Phyllis Plattner was born and grew up in New York City and greatly benefitted from that geographic happenstance by the easy access to the great museums of the city. It was while standing in front of a Van Gogh and a Gaugin at the Museum of Modern Art at about age eight that she realized for sure that she wanted to be an artist when she grew up. Since then she has never stopped painting, through college at Bennington in Vermont, and graduate school in Claremont, California, and all through her teaching career at Washington University School of Fine Arts (which it was then called), at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, (which is now called MICA) where she still teaches, and in Florence, Italy. She has exhibited her work in various galleries and university museums in this country, and in small exhibits in Italy and France.To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

Professor Kurtzman will inaugurate the June Arts and Ethics platform series by exploring the relationship between music and ethics. From early Chinese, Persian, and Greek times, music has been thought to have powerful effects on human beings and capable of contributing either to their improvement or degradation, i.e., to have ethical consequences. Professor Kurtz-man's talk will examine both the history and prevalence of such ideas and the reality of the impact of music in an effort to evaluate the validity of such ideas and understand the role music plays or could play in modern society.Jeffrey Kurtzman earned his Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He was one of the founding faculty of the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University and is Professor of Music and former Chair of the Department of Music at Washington University. A specialist in 16th- and 17th-century Italian music, he has published books and articles on Claudio Monteverdi and other Italian composers, as well as numerous editions of music by Monteverdi and others from the same period.He was the founder of the international "Society for Seventeenth-Century Music" and is a member of the editorial boards of the Society's publications. Prof. Kurtzman's research has been supported by the John Simon Guggen-heim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austaushdi-enst, as well as grants from Middlebury College, Rice University, Washing-ton University, and the University of Venice. Professor Kurtzman has performed at the piano several times for Ethical Society platforms and has given two lecture-recitals for the Ethical Society this year.To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

Come hear a platform about the past, present, and future of Ethical Culture membership growth. Members of the Future of Ethical Societies Tara Klein and Matt Herndon as well as the Membership Director at the Ethical Society of St. Louis, Evan Gross, will be presenting their ideas in a three-part plat-form. Tara is a member of the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island and she recently completed her thesis on Ethical Culture history at Vassar College. Matt is a professional web designer in the Washington, DC area and will talk about the role of technology in Ethical Culture membership growth. Evan will talk about how the St. Louis Society is expanding its out-reach.To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

Mother's Day was originally "Mother's Day for Peace," and this Sunday we will celebrate and explore the original roots of the holiday as an antiwar movement that sought to bring women together as ethical community leaders. But the inspiration for this platform is mostly personal. The role of mothers (and "mothering" caretakers of either sex) in building strong communities and teaching ethical values is often overlooked, as I have learned from watching the struggle of my mother and many women of her generation to feel valued in a status-conscious society. Many things have changed over the years, and women have more choices and opportunities than ever before in history, yet questions of identity, worth, and what it means to be a good citizen are as vital as ever. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

I like periodically to update and present some of the great wisdom from our past. We need to know history in order not to repeat it, or not to have to re-invent it; there is a lot of historical thought that is surprisingly relevant to today. Unfortunately, that thinking can lose its power over the years due to changes in language and communication styles. This Sunday we will explore the central ideas in "A Common Faith," a seminal work on religious humanism by famous American philosopher John Dewey, who while not a member of an Ethical Society had close ties with our movement. His ideas were radical in his day, and remain radical in ours, and I will do my best to translate them into modern language so that they may re-inspire a new generation. "The religious is any activity pursued in behalf of an ideal end against obstacles and in spite of threats of personal loss because of its general and enduring value." - John Dewey To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

This Sunday's address will continue our look at justice in America. Two differing concepts of justice are retributive justice, which focuses on punishing the offender, and restorative justice, which focuses on the reconciliation of the offender, the victim, and the community. We will examine some of the current problems of our criminal justice system and hear some stories of remarkable reconciliation and healing. We will also explore the ethics of restitution, forgiveness, and mercy, and ask how the values of religious human-ism can help us encourage forms of justice that affirm worth and dignity and seek to bring out the best in all of us. We ought always to deal justly, not only with those who are just to us, but likewise to those who endeavor to injure us; and this, for fear lest by rendering them evil for evil, we should fall into the same vice. Hierocles To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

For centuries, the threshold of religion was our acceptance of forces be-yond nature, and our reliance on them for information about things we do not know and perhaps cannot know. The prophesies of those claiming insight to the forces and mysteries of the universe guided our thoughts, our actions, and our lives. We no longer suborn intellect to authority, and we've come to recognize that religion consists of involvement as much as contemplation. As our concept of what passes for religion shifts, are there imposters that we should be protesting? Have the prophets of yore become the pretenders of today? Tony Hileman is Senior Leader of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. Tony began as a successful businessman in Indiana. He then went on to a second career in wire service journalism, working in Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa for United Press International, then as an executive for Agence France Presse (AFP). Disenchanted with corporate life, Tony left AFP and began his next career as an independent consultant, first in the field of journalism and then more broadly. He eventually specialized as an executive coach, helping individuals achieve personal as well as professional success while simultaneously discovering the vast numbers of people who support a Humanist life stance similar to his own. These years saw the full development of Tony's lifelong views on Humanism and eventually led to his position as executive director of the American Humanist Association in 1999. As Tony often expresses to Humanist and non-Humanist audiences alike, "the need for a strong Humanist voice in the national dialogue has never been greater than it is today." He joined the NY Society for Ethical Culture in 2005. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

This Sunday's address is the first of a two-part examination of ideas of justice in current American culture. We look back on the "Wild" West as a time of lawlessness and vigilantism, but have our underlying attitudes toward justice really changed all that much? Our criminal justice system, a largely privatized industry and a pawn of political games, emphasizes punishment over rehabilitation, seemingly blind to the fact that most prisoners will eventually again be our neighbors. Our popular culture sells to even the smallest children a vision of heroism in which the good guys hurt or kill the bad guys, and we all cheer. How can our ethical values help us to promote justice that keeps us safe and that aids the healing of victims, perpetrators, and society?To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

The tragic Don Imus and Jena 6 situations were two of the biggest stories highlighted by the media in 2007. And the term "race" served as the back-drop. Predictably, the African-American, dynamic duo of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton stepped up to participate and serve as "de-facto" representatives as national dialogue began. But what exactly are Sharpton and Jackson's roles, who appoints them, and what are the effects of their participation in these types of situations? Additionally, what kind of dialogue did we end up with as a nation? Are we better off for it? How was that dialogue moderated? And what role did the media play in all of this? Ethical Society member Mark Albrecht is a Senior Media Communications Major with a double minor in Multicultural Studies and Anthropology at Webster University. Three years ago, Mark had a personal epiphany. Witnessing the state of affairs in the city, state, nation, world and planet, he realized that if he didn't get personally involved in social change, then it was not realistic for him to expect positive change. At Webster, Mark has been active in many student organizations including the University Recycling Committee, ONE Webster (student branch of the ONE Campaign to end global poverty and AIDS), Behavioral and Social Sciences Club, and Habitat for Humanity. He traveled to New Orleans twice to do Hurricane Katrina recovery work and advocacy and is in the process of doing a documentary on the topic. Mark won a Dean's Award for Service from Webster University in 2007 for his work to bring awareness to Katrina's after-math. Currently, his focus is social justice through Media Literacy and Media Re-form and working with Jobs with Justice, ACORN, wecanmo.org, Think Before You Ink campaign, and other grassroots efforts focusing on responsible humanity. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

A common misunderstanding of Darwinian evolution is that it renders existence meaningless and without purpose. In fact, the origin of life marks the origin of meaning and purpose: indeed, if they exist anywhere else in the uni-verse, we will probably never know. This understanding, Dr. Goodenough will suggest, has wondrous ethical implications. Ursula Goodenough, Ph.D., is Professor of Biology at Washington University. Before joining the staff of Washington University, she was Assistant and Associate Professor of Biology at Harvard from 1971-1978. Her primary teaching has been a cell biology course for undergraduate biology majors, but she also co-teaches a course, The Epic of Evolution, with a physicist and a geologist, for nonscience students. Her research has focused on the cell biology and (molecular) genetics of the sexual phase of the life cycle of a unicellular eukaryotic green algae and, more recently, on the evolution of the genes governing mating-related traits. Her laboratory has been supported by grants from NIH, NSP, and USDA and she has written three editions of a widely adopted textbook, Genetics. Dr. Goodenough has served in numerous capacities in national biomedical arenas, including review panels, editorial boards, and many positions in the American Society for Cell Biology. Dr. Goodenough joined the Institute of Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) in 1989. She has presented papers and seminars on Science and Religion in numerous areas and written a book on the subject, The Sacred Depths of Nature (Oxford University Press, 1998). She is a strong advocate of teaching the History of Nature in our schools. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

The U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibits any religious test for public office, yet polls reveal that Americans are less likely to vote for an atheist than a member of any other minority, and the presidential candidates as usual are vying to be named "Most Religious." Americans also tell pollsters in over-whelming numbers that they believe in a god, yet more Americans are living outwardly-secular lives than ever before, and "angry atheist" books top the best-seller lists. What are the roots of anti-atheist prejudice and what is it really like being an atheist today? What is the duty of Ethical Culture, a "non-thiestic" religion that seeks to unite people on the common ground of ethics, to stand up for non-believers? To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

The Minnesota poet Alan Tate has said that "to communicate effectively is to love," and that, I believe, is the essence of my address. I want to explore how we as adults can best tap into our desire to love our children (or anyone for that matter!) and express ourselves more effectively with language that says what we really want to say. How do we get as close as possible to our values, ethics, and core beliefs when we communicate? How do we keep it real, simple, truthful, fresh, and loving with our kids? Of course, communication is sometimes very difficult with children if we are unable to empathize with the variety of languages and unique perspectives children have or if we are too tired, rushed, and distracted by the cares of life. So, how do we slow down and empathize and communicate with kids better? Dave Mampel has been performing professionally since 1992. Previously, Dave was an active ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, serving a 100-member parish in Idaho Falls, Idaho. After leaving the parish ministry to pursue an entertainment career, Dave developed his central character, "Daffy Dave" which has been a popular hit with family audiences in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Daffy Dave's shows have delighted children. He has performed widely in the Bay Area and on his local television show, "Daffy Dave's Tree Fort." Dave's CDs and videos are sold internationally. Daffy Dave also has an official fan club and interactive website, www.daffydave.com. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

It's time once again to kick off our yearly pledge campaign. There are many areas in our lives in which we ask ourselves the question, "Is this worth it?" Committing ourselves to ethical living means weighing the results we want against the resources in time, energy, money, and emotion it will take to move closer to our goals. Each of us must ask him or herself, "Am I really pursuing my goals, or just wishing for them?" Sometimes we feel helpless in the face of all the large problems of our community, our nation, our planet. But in all our lives, there remain untapped resources. What "ethical currency" do we have, and how can we spend it more wisely to help us move our ideals toward reality? To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

The world seems to be getting smaller all the time. Our economy and our culture are increasingly interdependent with those of other countries. This intensifying interplay between people from different backgrounds offers the hope of greater understanding; it also poses the specter of oppression, alienation, and violence. These developments are not morally neutral, yet religious voices have not been prominent in the debates about globalization. One reason may be that the world’s major religions have often been poor global neighbors. Many theological traditions make their own exclusive claims to truth, setting the stage for irreconcilable debates and even blood-shed. Our pluralistic world calls for a pluralistic ethics rooted in a faith in the unique ethical capacities of every person and played out through an inclusive, elevating discourse. John Daken is a native of Mystic, Connecticut who now makes his home outside Washington, DC with his wife Abigail and daughter Eleanor. In his role as a U.S. Navy psychiatrist, he participated in responses to terrorist at-tacks against the USS Cole and the Pentagon and later spent five weeks deployed to western Iraq. Having lost faith in the ability of military force to adequately address the terrorist threat, he left the Navy in October of 2006. He now serves as Medical Director of a community mental health clinic and is an active member of the Washington Ethical Society. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

Many of us have experienced, and all of us will experience eventually, changes in our lives that overturn much of what we have known and counted on: we move to a new place, we lose a job, we retire from a vocation, we lose a beloved person. And so we must start over; we must remake our lives within new circumstances, find new reasons for and new ways of living. The dawn of a new year is an appropriate time to acknowledge that life is a series of endings, but also of beginnings, and to ask, where do we find the knowledge, strength, and help to start over?To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

No matter a person's beliefs, December in America is inescapably Holiday Time. In our hemisphere, the days are shortening and growing colder, and people draw together for warmth and cheer, as they have for millennia. Yet on top of this natural desire for closeness, our economic culture has overlaid expansive and expensive dreams of extraordinary gifts, decor, food, entertainment-all in the name of peace, family, and friends. With all these conflicting needs and messages, it’s no wonder so many of us feel confused and emotionally exhausted at this time of year. What can we do to reclaim the Solstice season? First, we can stop and listen-to ourselves and to our loved ones. What are our true deep needs and desires for others and for ourselves? How can we authentically act to express and fulfill these needs? To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

For those who are traditionally religious, hope is derived from belief in a Divine Being who promises that all will work out for the best in the end. But for humanists, who doubt the existence of such a being, what are the sources of hope, especially when we are challenged by life's misfortunes and tragedies? Dr. Chuman has been the leader of the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, NJ, for 30 years. He has a doctorate in religion from Columbia University where he teaches seminars in religion and human rights for master’s and doctoral students. Dr. Chuman also teaches at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Hunter College, and has taught at the United Nations University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica. He has published numerous articles in the Bergen Record and has also had articles published in The New York Times, The Humanist, Free Inquiry, Humanistic Judaism, and other periodicals. His articles on Ethical Culture and religion have appeared in several encyclopedias. As an activist, Dr. Chuman has worked on many progressive causes, notably on behalf of human rights and civil liberties and in opposition to the death penalty. He has recently initiated a sanctuary program for asylum seekers detained at the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, NJ. "I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings." - Elie Wiesel To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

Where do you go in sleep? The nature of yourself, and of consciousness, is thrown into sharp relief when we consider sleep and the process of "waking up." When we do come up from sleep, is there a fixed degree of awareness that we normally reach—a “plateau” of consciousness where we customarily stop? It will be mused that a per-son’s state of consciousness can be raised beyond the plateau one currently reaches, however normal or adult or elevated it seems to be. We can hardly know today what a higher level of awareness might be like for us tomorrow, but we can confidently say that it will mean an expanded scope of ethical understanding, an increased desire to mount an integrity of self, and a deeper satisfaction from doing so. Bob Greenwell is Leader of Ethical Society Mid Rivers, a satellite of our Society. Mid Rivers began accepting members in January, 2004, and its membership now stands at 51. Bob has a M.Ed. in counseling, is married to Kathleen, and is the proud grandfather of four. He says that at age 61 he sleeps more now than he used to (taking naps), which gives him more opportunities to rise to higher waking states. Sometimes it happens. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

If you know anything about Galileo, it's probably that he challenged the prevailing belief of his time that the Earth was the center of the universe; that he was indicted by the Catholic Church for his beliefs; and that he backed down. That was pretty much all I knew until a few weeks ago. But in finding out more about this classic confrontation between science and orthodoxy, I found that there are many ethical lessons we can take from Galileo's life. Please note: almost all Italian words are pronounced incorrectly (sorry). To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.

Ethical Culture founder Felix Adler described societies as religious communities "dedicated to moral striving." Their purpose was to help people move toward goodness, without any common formula or creed, but with a common need and desire to find better ways of living. How is this possible? By living among others: trying and making mistakes, listening and learning; then trying again. In this way we discover new truths about ourselves and our world. Leader Anne Klaeysen examines the process of moral striving as the core of ethical religion. Anne Klaeysen has been Leader of the Long Island Society since 2002. She is a graduate and current co-mentor of the Humanist Institute and earned a doctorate in ministry from Hebrew Union College. She also holds master's degrees in business administration from New York University and in German from the State University of NY at Albany. Anne was raised Catholic and her husband Glenn Newman was raised Jewish, so it was only natural that they would find Ethical Culture, where their children Andrew and Emily have been raised. To discuss our podcasts please visit http://www.live.ethicalstl.org/platforms on our community site.