The Northern Virginia Ethical Society wishes you a happy holiday season!

A couple of thoughts:

Thornton Wilder: "We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures."

P. J. O'Rourke: "Thanksgiving is so called because we are all so thankful that it only comes once a year."

When couples schedule weddings with our Society's officiants, they often describe what they want as "spiritual but not religious." NoVES Leader Jone Johnson Lewis will explore what they might be asking for, and what both "spiritual" and "religious" can mean to members of an Ethical Society.

Great moral leaders, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., are often placed on a pedestal by human society, yet we are inevitably disappointed by their human limitations and frailties. Some people idealize such leaders because, in a world darkened by violence and greed, we seek moral heroes that can balance evil with their unblemished goodness. At the other extreme, some take a certain pleasure in tearing down these icons of moral purity, either to expose hypocrisy or to relieve themselves of the burden of living up to such a high standard.

Platform question: From and Ethical Culture perspective, how can we acknowledge the goodness expressed by our moral leaders, while admitting their limitations, in a way that brings out our best as moral leaders? Can we, for example, avoid setting up President Elect Obama as so much a hero that he will, in time, disappoint us?

The Northern Virginia Ethical Society celebrates Winter Festival, borrowing from many traditions willingly and lovingly. As the cold weather drapes our shoulders, we nevertheless feel the warmth of the holiday season.

Ours is a festival of festivals -- a sharing of traditions and joy. All are welcome!

We join with the many faiths and cultures who hold this time sacred.  Hanukkah begins at sundown on December 21, and western Christmas is celebrated on the 25th.  As the world turns again towards the sun at the winter solstice, most cultures celebrate holidays dedicated to hope and renewal.   Our Buddhist neighbors will celebrate Bodhi Day on December 8 -- the date, according to Mahayana tradition, of Siddhartha Gautama’s presentation of the Four Noble Truths, the foundation of Buddhism.  Northern European cultures celebrate Yule with bonfires and feasting.  This holiday period belongs to many cultures and many voices.  We welcome them all.

The Northern Virginia Ethical Society wishes you a happy holiday season!

Empathy is a critical attitude and skill for developing more ethical relationships in personal life, in politics, at work, in every venue of life – how do we learn empathy as a skill and nurture empathy as an attitude?

In 1922, Langston Hughes wrote that, “Tomorrow, I'll be at the table, when company comes nobody'll dare say to me, ‘Eat in the kitchen,’ then. Besides, they'll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed.”

Eighty-five years later, while diversity in the White House holds promise for America, there are still few African Americans at the table. Corporate leadership is still predominantly white, a disproportionately high rate of black men are in prison, and people of color suffer disproportionately from poverty and unemployment.  As an inheritor of invisible racial privilege and liberal guilt, Hugh Taft-Morales will share his insights about moving towards an empowering multicultural perspective.

Religion in American is a sensitive topic.  Some people demand that it be part of the public square and even preferred by the government over secular or rational views. In such a culture, practically any declaration by Humanists can be construed as offensive by someone.   But if we believe our philosophy benefits humanity, isn't it important for others to hear our views? Roy Speckhardt, Executive Director of the American Humanist Association, will discuss how to grow Humanism in our faith-based society. 

The outgoing Administration's treatment of terror suspects caused national and international dismay.  The American Ethical Union and other religious and secular groups condemned torture and so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" as immoral, debasing, and ineffective for gathering intelligence.  During his campaign, the President-elect condemned torture as a betrayal of American values.

Time: January 31, 2009 7:00 pm

Place: Home of the Stanton's (directions upon request)

Join a viewing and discussion of the award-winning movie "Watermarks" which tells the story of a reunion of a Jewish girls' swim team separated by the Holocaust. After 60 years the group reunites for an inspiring team swim. Greta Stanton, mother of NoVES member Andy Stanton, was a member of the team. Greta will be participating in a speakerphone discussion.

Suggested donation: $5.00

A recent study showed that teens pledging to remain virgins were as likely to have sexual encounters as those who made no pledge.  Children pledging to remain celibate not only were as likely to have sex as other children, they were less likely to take the necessary precautions to prevent pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases.  Despite these sobering facts, some parents continue to oppose comprehensive sex education, and instead insist on "abstinence only" sex education.

Melissa Sinclair will discuss how sex education is taught in schools now, describe our society's attitudes to sex education, and suggest what we ALL can do (if you have children or not, if they are grown or not) to improve how we view and talk about sex in society.

Date: February 7, 2009 9:00 am to 3:00 pm (Snow date February 21)

Place: Green Hedges Arts Building

This engaging interactive workshop led by Leader-in-training Hugh Taft-Morales, promotes white anti-racist activism and multicultural fluency in the lives of participants, their families, and their friends. Anyone, of any racial and ethnic background, is welcome to attend. Within an environment of safety and integrity, the class explores how to transform roadblocks to multicultural agency and anti-racist activism in ways that bring out the best. The values and ideas of Ethical Culture will inform our discussions. As we learn how to become more multiculturally fluent, we will have some fun and do some real work.

Suggested donation: $25

One led our nation in a Civil War so that we could fulfill the words in our founding documents.  The other explained how nature changed and developed.  Each understood the risk of his actions but bravely pushed forward.  In honor of the bicentennial of the birth of both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln on February 12, NoVES Leader Jone Johnson Lewis will highlight the ethical concerns of these two individuals who, each in his own way, had enormous impact on the world we live in today.

Many parents hope that their children will learn to make the right moral decisions.  But our children are bombarded with conflicting messages from the internet, friends, family, and society.  How should they respond to peer pressure, to violence, to dishonesty and to material temptation?  They get different answers from all sides. 

In response, some parents end up taking their children to church or temple -- even when they don't believe the dogma -- in hopes that their children will learn, somehow, how to be good. But religious doctrine often is rule and punishment-based.  Rules help when the issues are simple and clear. But in our complex world, children need tools that can help them decide on the right course even in the most confusing situation.  

Arthur Dobrin will also be leading a workshop related to this topic, at 1:30 - 3:30 p.m. at the nearby Vienna Community Center.  (About the workshop)

Jerry Ziskind Memorial Workshop

You're invited to join Arthur Dobrin, author and teacher, at the Vienna Community Center on February 15, 2009, at 1:30 p.m. for an interactive workshop on How to Raise a Moral Child. The presenter offers hope that raising moral and caring children is something that can be achieved with the right attention and reinforcement.

As parents, do we have a successful plan for teaching right from wrong all worked out? Or do we still struggle with the challenges of raising honest, thoughtful, and compassionate children?

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus..."

Our new president hesitated for just a moment.

"...and nonbelievers."

In the first minutes of his presidency, Barack Obama acknowledged that there are Americans who do not believe in a higher being. He included them in "our patchwork heritage."

Meet the Sunday School staff, volunteers, and children, and learn more about the curriculum of the Northern Virginia Ethical Society's Sunday School. See if the Sunday School is a good fit for your family!

Do you want to raise honest, thoughtful, and compassionate children? Traditionally religious Sunday Schools not meeting your family's needs?

The Northern Virginia Ethical Society's Sunday School is holding a special Open House to introduce families to how our Sunday School can serve families who want to raise their children to be citizens of the world: compassionate, creative, and able to use their reason.

Find out more about our Sunday School on this site or contact the Sunday School director, Lynn Konnerth, if you want more information: email or phone: 703 503 3216

Members: if you want to help out with this Open House please contact Lynn.  Thanks!

Jone Johnson Lewis, NoVES Leader, presents her pretty-much-annual platform address highlighting an individual's ethical life journey.  As with other figures, she's picked a person this year who has some connections to our own Ethical Culture movement -- Frederick Douglass was, for instance, a hero of Felix Adler, who was the first Leader of an Ethical Society, and he spoke several times at Ethical Societies during his lifetime.

In the whirlwind of our busy lives, it is a special moment when we experience another person as unique and of inherent worth: the quick glance into a stranger’s eyes, the extra pause and embrace of a loved one going off to work or school, the spontaneous appreciation of a colleague.   The brief moments of recognition of another’s humanity offer us a form of transcendence that seems both personal and universal.  They happen to us, and to most of the six and a half billion other people on the planet, everyday.  How are we to make sense of these experiences?  What form do these flashes of connection take?  Are they of the head or of the heart or both?  Like sparks, they seem to shine bright and then fade.  How can we use these moments to ignite and sustain the fire of commitment to build a better world?

But salvage from that wreck he did, and with what he salvaged he founded Ethical Culture—a progressive religious movement that espouses

The Northern Virginia Ethical Society celebrates Spring with an annual festival. Each year we gather to welcome to warming and longer days with an event for all. Join us in our celebration, which will include music, poetry, song, and a communal potluck meal.

Image (c) 2009 Jupiterimages. Used with permission.

One thing that most fundamentalist theists and some current anti-religious books have in common: they assume everyone means the same thing by such words as "God."  Ethical Culture is nontheistic, and by that we mean that we don't require belief in any deity as part of our identity.  That doesn't mean all members of our community are atheists or even agnostics.  The god some of us disbelieve in isn't necessarily that god that others in our community believe in.  Jone will explore some of the newer concepts of deity that are current in liberal religious circles, and also explore whether there are other beliefs that might be more difficult to reconcile with an ethical humanism than some versions of god-belief.