Celebrations of Life

January 2009

January 17th - SUNDAY, 11AM

Celebrating the Links Between Existentialism and the Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
Speaker: REV. Janna Nelson

Facilitator: D. Patton White
Music: Scott Hooker

January 24th - SUNDAY, 11AM

Sisyphus and the Rock / Honey in the Rock
Speaker: REV. Marsha Mitchiner

Facilitator: Dominic Thomas
Music: Sue Wilkinson

 

January 31st - SUNDAY, 11AM

Somewhat-inspired thoughts for the New Calendar Year
Speaker: Kate Hauk

Facilitator: Kitty Wimbush
Music: Sue Wilkinson

Discussion Group Reading
The Circuit by Libby Ware

Sunday childcare available downstairs

Having an Event?
Rent our Building

The First Existentialist
Congregation of Atlanta
470 Candler Park Dr., NE
Atlanta, GA 30307
404-736-6416

office@firstexistentialist.org

Rev. Marsha Michiner, our Fellowship Minister

SPEAKER PROFILES:

Franklin Abbott is a psychotherapist in private practice and a poet. He is Chairperson of the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival and coordinates the community poetry series at Outwrite.

Ashley Carraway is an Alabama native She attended Tulane Law School, worked for a civil rights attorney and completed law school in 1973. An associate at Rives & Peterson in 1974 and partner in 1977, Ashley handled class actions and complex employment discrimination and other litigation nationwide. In 1997 she moved to Atlanta, where she was in private practice until 2000. Serving in leadership roles in her church, and on the Atlanta Pride Committee, she was also a founding director of the One Heart Foundation(supporting personal growth education), secretary of the board of Positive Impact (an AIDS organization), and a cooperating attorney for Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, Inc. In 2000, she joined the Atlanta Legal Aid Society as its Litigation Director, also active in the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and a frequent lecturer at its programs around the country. In 2005, she came to Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, where she is now half of the way through its Master of Divinity program.

Rev. Kate Hauk is an ordained U.C.C. (Congregational) minister of 27 years.She has lived in Atlanta for 22 years and has two children: Alexis, a recent creative writing graduate of Emory, and Thomas, a sweet, Buddhist-gourmet chef with many future aspirations. He would have been 20 on July 18th. Kate has been a storyteller and a writer/editor (mostly personal essays) since winning the essay Contest at Camp Allegheny at fifteen. She has worked in a variety of churches—U.C.C, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta, The Friends School of Atlanta, and is now a part time interim minister at Oakhurst Baptist Church, a liberal congregation.

Brownie Hendricks loves to do public speaking and was trained by teaching school for 30 years. She says “anyone who can keep the attention of a restless group of elementary students for 45 minutes qualifies to speak in front of anyone”. During her years of investigation and treatment of child abuse, she spoke to many civic and church groups to raise awareness of the issues involved and ways the community can help in prevention. Stand-up comedy is a special form of public speaking and Brownie started her career in comedy as a way to raise awareness of mental health issues.

Rev. Marti Keller is the second minister with the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta. A lifelong self-described Jewnitarian, she is the President of Unitarian-Universalists for Jewish Awareness (UUJA) and an active member of the Society for Humanistic Judaism. She has been a facilitator this past year for the joint First E and UUCA field test of Building the World We Dream About, an anti-racist, welcoming curriculum.

Alice Lovelace is an arts activist working for social and economic justice. She is an award winning playwright, essayist, performance poet, arts infusion specialist, community arts consultant with a Masters Degree in Conflict Resolution. Alice works nationally and internationally to shape cultural policy, as an arts in education consultant, and to create new arts based programs in education and juvenile justice. She has won many awards including the 2005 Georgia Writers “Lifetime Achievement Award”. Alice is coeditor of “Art Changes" an on-line publication devoted to democracy issues. She is the National Lead Staff Organizer
for the first United States Social Forum in Atlanta, GA
June 27-July 1, 2007

The Rev. Janna Nelson is an ordained existentialist minister. She served as full-time minister at First E from 2003 to 2005. She has a vast knowledge of both existential and feminist principles and the ability to present them in a clear, understandable way. In addition to speaking at various engagements, Janna continues to perform Jazz music with her husband, Scott Hooker, and their band, Standard Deviation. They have performed throughout Atlanta and the south. In April 2005, 7 Stages Theater presented Standard Deviation in concert performing This Jazz Century. Janna also teaches at the International Community School.

Linda Bryant graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in English in 1970 and immediately moved to Atlanta. In 1974, along with Barbara Borgman, she opened Charis Books and More, an independent feminist bookstore in Little Five Points. For the last 32 years she co-owned and co-managed the bookstore. She is now no longer and owner/manager, but still works part-time at the bookstore. In 1976, she adopted her now 32 year old son, and in 2004 became a grandmother. In 1978, Linda completed a Master's in Theological Studies with her thesis on theology and literature.
In 1996, Linda founded Charis Circle, a non-profit connected with the bookstore, dedicated to maintaining the feminist programs that had been taking place at the bookstore for the last 20 years. She currently works part-time at the bookstore and part-time with Charis Circle, which produced well over 100 programs last year.
Linda has been in and out of First E for many years, always admiring and supporting the community here. She currently worships at Circle of Grace, a Christian, feminist community, and is involved with the Atlanta Women's Foundation's Faith and Feminism initiative.

Allen Pope is Assistant Professor of Psychology and member of the graduate faculty at the University of West Georgia. He received his Ph.D. in clinical existential-phenomenological psychology at Duquesne University. He has been a student and practitioner of Vajrayana Buddhism since 1991. Dr. Pope teaches courses on Buddhist Psychology, Psychology of Loss, and Explorations into Creativity. He is the author of “From Child to Elder: Personal Transformation in Becoming an Orphan at Midlife” (2006), published by Peter Lang.

George Tatro has worked in the International Village of Chamblee, Georgia since 1992 as an apartment manager and owner. He is actively involved with the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO.org) and is a graduate of GALEO’s Train the Trainers program which provides leadership training to grass-roots community leaders. He is currently working towards a Master of Divinity degree from Columbia Theological Seminary. In addition to his work as a student, he also leads immigrant encounter programs for Columbia’s Alternative Context and Atlanta’s Faith in the City.

Duncan E. Teague is a member of the Lay Ministers' group at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta. He is a regular guest speaker at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Marietta and also a frequent facilitator of the "Spirituality and HIV" workshop of AIDS 101, hosted by AID Atlanta. He was a longtime member and vocalist at First E; and, after the retirement of the Rev. Lanier Clance, served as a member of the Interim Ministerial Team for almost two years. He was also on the Unitarian Universalist Associations Mid-South District's Hallelujah Team. Duncan has a "day job" at the AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta. He is the Recruitment Coordinator for the tenofovir study and is the senior member of the ADODI Muse: A Gay Negro Ensemble. Duncan is married to his long-time companion, David Thurman, a neuro-epidemiologist at CDC's Center for Chronic Diseases and a member of the Atlanta Meeting of the Society of Friends (Quakers).

Gary Washington is a long-time community and social justice activist,as well as a friend of the E-Cong.He first learned about First E when he met Lanier Clance during a civil disobedience action - they both were arrested as "roadbusters" blocking the Proposed Carter/Freedom Parkway further tearing up our neighborhoods.Gary has been arrested 13 times for his life-long commitment to standing up and speaking out against injustice.

Gary lived in NYC and worked and organized in the garment district in the late 1960's.He was also in the Black Panther Party in 1968 and ‘69.When he moved to Georgia in the 1970's he worked with both worker's rights and the civil rights leaders of the time.He worked with the unions that struck at Meade,Rich's,C&S Bank and Holy Family Hospital along with Hosea Williams and other Black community leaders in the early 70's.Gary was also a member of GANE (Georgians Against Nuclear Energy)for 20 years and helped start the environmental group the Campaign for a Prosperous Georgia in 1985.

He currently hosts the WRFG "Labor Forum"program and is a shop steward with the Teamsters.His union work job counseling employees now extends to talking with returning Iraqi veterans about their experiences,in an attempt to help them cope with the mental and emotional effects of their military service experiences.

Mark White is presently working as an ethicist for the Federal Government, though he tells his mother he plays piano in a house of ill repute. This summer he organized a conference of the major African countries to give them a venue to work out public health ethics based on their own cultural values. In previous incarnations he directed CDC's epidemiology training programs abroad and grew that activity from 5 countries to serving over half the population of the world,lived in Uganda and the Philippines for 7 years, was the United States only bubonic plague epidemiologist, injected live mosquitoes with viruses (no drinking coffee in the morning, the males were too weak to survive the injections but the females could handle it), created and directed the infectious diseases department at Booth Memorial Medical Center, a 600 bed hospital owned by the Salvation Army in Queens New York, and graduated with High Honors in the humanities from Justin Morrill College of Michigan State University which closed two years after he graduated. He sent the only alumni contribution ever received the college, which the dean and faculty used to buy beer for the final party. E.

He is wildly, madly, deeply in love with Shelly Ahmann and their two daughters, Leila and ZuZu, who are 9 and 6 years old respectively. They recently completed a solar-powered Viking Ship robot, which propels itself by rowing with oars and a solar-powered dancing grasshopper. They plan on selling the excess power to the Atlanta grid sometime soon and will contribute the money to the First E.