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 Ethical Inspiration
by Hugh Taft-Morales, BES Leader
Perhaps the first real sunshine after a month of rain helped, but Thursday, October 6, inspired me with peace in three flavors. As I prepared for my talk “Peace from the Inside Out,” my day began by rehearsing “Blowing in the Wind” and “Down By the Riverside” with Carolyn Brown. If you know Carolyn already, you will understand when I tell you how uplifting is her infectious optimism and good nature. And those of you who heard her voice on October 9th will understand that I was inspired further. Practicing the Bob Dylan number was a great start, and when we got into the gospel tune about “laying down my sword and shield,” I had to just lay down my guitar and sing! The power of that song and Carolyn’s spirit just begged to be freed from the constraints of my finger picking. It reminded me that peace, like music, is not an absence, but is full and flourishing!
The second flavor of peace I tasted was a bitter one. As I walked up to the Baltimore City jail, I found the medieval building ringed with barbed wire cold and intimidating. In contrast, peace presented itself in the form of two smiling yoga practitioners fresh from their class with some female inmates. Lea, Greg and I shared lunch at Red Emma’s while they told me about how surprised they were at the receptivity of the inmates to the yoga practice. Even those who chose not to participate in the poses seemed to enjoy just relaxing and watching the others. It seemed to help them, if just for a few moments, forget about the cycle of violence that landed them behind bars.
To finish my day I visited the Occupy Baltimore site at the Inner Harbor for a third taste of peace. Sure, there were angry people there, but there was also energy and hope and cooperation – all ingredients important in peace building. Activists young and old painted signs, planned workshop agendas, and circulated petitions. For a few moments I joined some on the street corner, signs in hands. The smiles, honks and peace signs frommany commuters warmed me. I made a mental note to add a verse to Carolyn’s and mygospel number: “I’m gonna sing out for ‘Bmore peace’/Down by the harborside!” 
Carolyn Brown and Hugh Taft-Morales leading BES in song.
The Rainbow Root
of Ethical Piety
by Rosemary Klein, BES President
Physicist and theologian Theodoric of Freiburg is credited as the first to use scientific method in experimentation properly in western Europe. His fourteenth century achievement, in part drawing on geometry, contributed to knowledge of reflection and refraction in the formation of rainbows.
Freiburg’s achievement was highlighted in our October installment on faith, reason, and the medieval conflict—the second in a monthly, year-long exploration led by Hugh Taft-Morales of James Burke’s The Day the Universe Changed. Burke immortalizes Freiburg’s experiment as the capstone event heralding a new way of thinking, one in which faith and reason would forever be challenged by study of the natural world from which general principles or laws could be formulated.
In the discussion that ensued after watching the video, Freiburg’s colorful scientific discovery surprisingly landed us in the very different subject matter of poetry. What came to mind was William Wordsworth’s classic poetic nugget:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
The “natural piety” with which Wordsworth wishes to guide his days references his strong belief that personal experience and self-exploration more than books or reductionist science are key to shaping an individual’s knowledge. Wordsworth – though a staunch admirer of science – once wrote that the truth sought by the scientist was “remote[,] unknown” and embraced “in solitude.” On the other hand, said Wordsworth, “the Poet…rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion.”
“Ethical piety” as defined by Felix Adler is resonant of Wordsworth’s “natural piety.” Adler notes that with ethical piety “the touch of grace is not expected from without.” Adler elaborates saying, “The fountain of divine power is unsealed by means of effort in the sense that the fundamental pressure toward ideal world relations exists within man…He knows that he errs and must err, and he knows, at the same time, that there is in him the tendency toward the infiniteness, and that this will lift him…This kind of humility is incompatible with arrogant disrespect toward secular knowledge, erudition, scientific power, and the like…”
The individual pursuit of knowledge through experience esteemed by Wordsworth resounds in Adler’s “ethical piety.” And Adler’s sentiments contain a poetry and like the “rainbow in the sky” have the power to make the heart leap up. His words regarding ethical piety illuminate Ethical Culture’s guiding belief of “deed before creed” and in doing so remind us that our intention to act thoughtfully and reflectively regarding what we do must be an “hourly companion.”
Sunday Platform Programs
NOVEMBER 6
“African Migration to
the U.S. in Recent Times”
Lateef Olapade Badru, PhD,
Professor and Acting Chair of Africana Studies, UMBC
The recent influx of African immigrants that began in the latter part of the 20th century is often referred to as the “fourth great migration.” This trend, which has intensified steadily over time, began after decolonization when many Africans, including Barack Obama Senior, came to the United States seeking an education. These immigrants originally came with the sole purpose of advancing themselves before returning to their respective countries. An increase in the number of African immigrants interested in gaining permanent residence in the United States, however, has occurred in recent years. Dr. Badru will describe this migration and its effects on both the U.S. and Africa.
Dr. Lateef Olapade Badru received a PhD in sociology with specializations in international economic development as well as economic sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, following his undergraduate work at the City University of London and his earning of a Masters from the London School of Economics. Before coming to UMBC, he taught in Nigeria and in the U.S. — at Albion College, Rowan University, and the University of Louisville. He has published four books, with a fifth in the works, and many scholarly articles. He has served as an expert witness in immigration cases involving deportation and asylum in federal courts, is involved with a program to help capable students pay high school fees in West Africa, and is Chair of the Board of Trustees for the International Agency for Refugee Movement.
NOVEMBER 13
“The Ache for Home”
Hugh Taft-Morales, Leader, Baltimore Ethical Society
Every person deserves that sacred place we call “home.” Respect for human worth demands it. From its inception, Ethical Culture has worked to assure decent housing for all. Founder Felix Adler did so when serving on the New York State Tenement House Commission, and Leader John Lovejoy Elliott demanded homes for the poor of New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. This talk interweaves Ethical Culture history with reflections about the specialness of "home." It complements Adam Schneider's presentation earlier this fall and honors this year's National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, November 12-20.
Hugh Taft-Morales serves as Leader for both the Baltimore Ethical Society and the Ethical Humanist Society of Philadelphia and also works with the Ethical Society Without Walls (ESWoW). He taught philosophy and history in high school for twenty-five years, graduated from Yale College in 1979, and earned a Masters in Philosophy in 1986 from University of Kent in England. Taft-Morales, who lives in Takoma Park, Maryland, received a certificate in Humanist Leadership from the Humanist Institute in 2009.
 NOVEMBER 20
“Spiritual Nakedness”
Catherine Bordeau, Leader-in-Training at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture
Ethical Culture seeks to create a space where every person can venture on their own journey but also grow and learn from each other in community. Navigating our growth as ethical beings in everyday Ethical Culture communities as we seek better relationships and a just world brings challenges as well as beauty. Reflecting on her own spiritual journey, Bordeau explores the personal nature of our encounter with community and how it is shaped by both our individuality and our capacity to reflect and bring possibilities to consciousness.
Catherine Bordeau, a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, came to New York to work with non-profit organizations doing advocacy at the United Nations, where she acquired five years of experience challenging structures of injustice at the international level. Seminary was her next step, with Bordeau, who also holds a B.A. from Cardinal Stritch University in history and women’s studies, receiving a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary made possible by a full tuition Howard Moody scholarship. Now an Ethical Culture clergy leader candidate residing in Brooklyn with her partner Alexandra and a bilingual puppy named Maya, she is passionate about racial justice, gender justice, the slow food movement, sustainable development and gardening.
NOVEMBER 27
“Hastening Death:
An Argument with Society”
Lawrence Egbert, Former Medical Director, Final Exit Network
A review of the history of the Hemlock Society and how it became Compassion and Choices plus Final Exit Network sets the stage for an exploration of the often challenged issue regarding the morality of guiding persons who wish to die so that they are able to do it quickly, painlessly, and with a minimum loss of dignity. In his review of the moral issues and discussion of the response of many people to the challenge, Egbert will draw on his experience as the medical director for Final Exit Network, for which he was arrested by the states of Arizona and Georgia. In Arizona, an April trial settled the matter. In Georgia, the state has been challenged concerning the right to speak – a matter that may have found resolve earlier this month when the Supreme Court of Georgia was due to hear evidence.
Dr. Lawrence Egbert is a physician currently appointed to the Anesthesiology and Critical Care Department at Hopkins. He notes, however, that he is really is retired though he likes to say that he is “not yet retiring.” A Unitarian who attends Quaker Homewood Meeting, Egbert has been the Unitarian campus minister at Hopkins for a decade. He has taught at Harvard, Hopkins, the American University of Beirut, and Pahlavi University in Iran and has worked with the Hemlock Society and its offspring for 20 years. For the past two years, the Baltimore Ethical Society has nominated Egbert for the American Ethical Union’s Elliott-Black Award, honoring an individual in the larger community who has made a significant ethical contribution to society at personal risk and hardship.
Peace Path Baltimore
Several members of the Baltimore Ethical Society participated in this year’s Peace Path, organized throughout downtown Baltimore by Women in Black, on Sunday, September 11. From left to right: Karen Elliott, Kathleen Wilsbach, Emil Volcheck, Hugh Taft-Morales, Rosemary Klein, and Bernie Brown.
Ethical Action Report
Maintain Funding for the U.S. Institute of Peace
A faction within the House of Representatives is advocating total cessation of all federal funding for the United States Institute of Peace. For the fiscal year ending on September 30, 2011, federal funds for the Institute were cut by 20% from the previous year. For the coming fiscal year running from October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012, proposals are still being considered that totally eliminate federal funds for this important institution. Given the billions of dollars poured into solving international conflicts through force, citizens should demand funding for the Institute.
We urge you to contact your representatives and encourage them to support federal funding of this important peace building institution.
(Excerpted from the American Ethical Union October 2011 Ethical Action Report. For the full report, which includes several other action items, visit www.aeu.org.)
Festivals Provide
Outreach Opportunities
The Baltimore Ethical Society has wrapped up a busy festival season, having participated in the Hamilton Street Fair on July 30, the Abell Community Street Fair on September 18, the Baltimore Book Festival on September 23-25, and the Bolton Hill Festival on the Hill on October 8.
This was the first year that BES participated in the Hamilton Street Fair. Our thanks go to Hamilton residents John Reuter and Karen Elliott for bringing our ethical message to their neighborhood.
The Abell Community Street Fair marked the centenary of their neighborhood with a parade down Abell Avenue, bringing many people past the BES table.
Abell Community Street Fair: Bernie Brown, Em Sabatiuk, and Karen Elliott man the BES table.
The Baltimore Book Festival began on a rainy Friday, and at times a river three feet wide flowed through the booth, but good weather on Saturday brought people out. Dale McGowan, Parenting Beyond Belief editor and Raising Freethinkers co-author, joined us for booksigning that afternoon. Sunday, Laura Lippman, author of the “Tess Monaghan” series of mystery novels set in Baltimore, spoke about her latest novel The Most Dangerous Thing to a packed audience. Some friends from First Unitarian tipped us off that Ms. Lippman expressed humanist views in her talk. This prompted Karen Elliott to present Ms. Lippman with a “bmorethical” t-shirt, which clearly delighted her.
Baltimore Book Festival: Richard Lewis, Karen Elliott, John Reuter, and Don Helm were among the members who helped.
Thanks to everyone who had a hand in making these events a great success! Nearly 70 people signed up to get information about BES at the four festivals.
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