Author: 1stexistentialist

“13 Decades Deep: Tone Poem Reflections on the Rose Hill Community and Echoes of Displacement Today”

Last October, our congregation joined Antioch East Baptist Church, the BiRacial History Project, and Candler Park and Edgewood neighbors to raise awareness of the more intimate Black history in our post-Civil War neighborhood. We honored and celebrated the creativity, resilience, and brilliance of Antioch’s and other Black families’ presence on this land they nurtured with fortitude and faith.

Now, one year later, four local White creatives are coming together to reflect upon this revealed history, healing, and justice… each with their own personal probing into the deeper stories and truths that “echo beneath our feet.”

JANET METZGER lives in Decatur where she is an audiobook narrator recording literary fiction, history and political science. She recently retired from over 25 years as an adjunct professor at Emory University School of Law teaching courtroom persuasion. She finds peace tending her garden and spinning wool.

Jeff Crompton is a saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer from Atlanta, living in Candler Park. Since retiring from 30 years teaching music in Atlanta area public schools, Jeff has focused on composition and performing his off-center, jazz-based music around the Southeast.

Craig Rafuse is a singer/guitarist and a Candler Park neighbor. He has been performing songs with social significance since 1963, while also playing in dance bands. Craig currently appears with CJ Jones and the Spirit Bones, ExPand Band, Owls and Kahootz.

Edi/th Kelman is a Candler Park neighbor, 17-year Project Manager for the Early Edgewood-Candler Park BiRacial History Project anchored here at the Old Stone Church/First E, and language-channeler for “13 Decades Deep.”

• Facilitator: Libby Ware
• Musician: Craig Rafuse

“What Would Martin Buber Do? The I-Thou Principle and Moral Action”

Martin Buber, the German-Jewish existentialist philosopher and formulator of the ‘I-Thou Principle,’ certainly had his fingers in a lot of pieces of scholarly and intellectual pie. During his lengthy career, Buber wrote about Hasidic folklore, Asian thought, mysticism, pacifism, the Holocaust, Israeli politics, interfaith relations, and various other social and psychological applications of his dialogical philosophy. However, Buber’s ideas were controversial, and often misunderstood. So what did Buber really say? And is any of it relevant to today’s social and ethical problems?

• Facilitator: Wade Marbaugh
• Musician: Mick Kinney

“Bless the Beasts and the Children”

Brownie has been a long time member of the First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta. She is honored to speak to you. Her talk is about children’s rights. She has been blessed to have many many children in her life. These children came into her life through teaching, social work and parenthood.

• Facilitator: Rev. Marsha Mitchiner
• Musician: William Chelton

”Read a Banned Book Lately?”

Libby will delve into her childhood in a book-filled house and how Florida politicians interfering in education isn’t new, leading into a look at the history of book banning and what is really behind the current rash of book banning. She is asking the congregation to bring copies of banned books to display on the stage.

Libby Ware is a life-long reader, a writer, a book collector, and a bookseller. She is the author of the award-winning “Lum,” and co-writer of “Murder at the Estate Sale,” and the upcoming “Murder at the Book Fair,” co-written with her wife, Charlene Ball. Libby owns Toadlily Books, an antiquarian book business. She is a member of Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, The Atlanta Writers Club, The Georgia Writers Association, and Sisters in Crime. Libby lives in Grant Park with her dog, Grover, a mile from Charlene.

• Facilitator: Charlene Ball
• Musician: Craig Rafuse and Jean Heinrich

“Existentialism and the First E Founding”

Members will share how learning about existentialism through First E has influenced their lives.    

Our Fellowship Minister, Rev. Marsha Mitchiner, has served the Congregation for over two decades, since ordination by us, following her study with Lanier Clance. She counsels, connects, and contacts members and friends, and for those who need it, performs the laying-on of hands in her role as a massage therapist. Many of us can vouch for the quality of her work, and appreciate the wisdom, restraint, and compassion she brings to the job of caring for our Congregation.

• Facilitator: Cindy Lou Who
• Musician: E-Chorus with Jean Heinrich

“Indigenous Approaches to Growing Institutional Efforts”

Michel will describe Emory’s efforts to increase the visibility, voice, and contributions of Native American people. She will highlight people, departments, and initiatives at Emory that continue to be instrumental in this effort. She will bring news describing progress of the new Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies launching this fall in Emory College. Michel also will summarize and highlight Emory’s active relationship with the Tribal communities on and off campus including plans for continuing and growing engagement. 

• Facilitator: TBA 
• Musician: Kathy McGuire

“Sharing Our Work Stories”

An open mic service in which we share stories of our work experiences, the challenges we’ve faced, the lessons learned and thoughts about labor struggles in our country and the world. It’s a time to celebrate our work and the work of countless others whose labor has built our world — and to point out injustices that exist. 

• Facilitator: D. Patton White
• Musician: Kristen Hampton

“On Authenticity”

Several studies have shown that people who are more authentic are also happier. That’s great news, but Sara has a different story to tell. Through sharing her background, her first impressions of First E and Existentialism, and thinking about the future together – we’ll explore so much more of what authenticity has to offer.

Sara Drew serves as the Outreach Coordinator at First Existentialist Congregation of Atlanta. She is a fairly recent graduate of Candler School of Theology where she completed concentrations in Chaplaincy and Justice, Peace building, and Conflict Transformation. She is also a Unitarian Universalist ministerial aspirant and a resident hospital chaplain at Emory’s Midtown Hospital. Sara seeks to continue to develop her abilities in connecting people to their strengths and providing radical hospitality.

• Facilitator: Rev. Marsha Mitchiner
• Musician: Mick Kinney

“I Sat with Elders to Learn from Them — Now I Have Become One”

I was asked recently to speak as an elder of color for an activity at Atlanta Friends Meeting. I said I was not an elder. I interview elders so that I can hear their life stories, learn about their ways of living. I never thought of myself as one, although I am in my 60s and hold a Medicare card. How can I be a person others would like to learn from, possessing wisdom comparable to those whose lives I see as having spanned decades of fighting the good fight, of making changes through segregation, through the Depression and world war? I am the one with so much to learn. I stopped and listened to myself, to my excuses, then realized that I am the older generation of those who have lived for decades, lived through segregation, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War and more. Let me tell you about my own awakening, my transition from that person sitting at the feet of those I honor, to becoming a person with stories of my own to tell a younger generation now ready to hear them.

Dr. Althea Sumpter is a researcher and scholar who uses her expertise as an ethnographer to document cultures and preserve the Southern story of the United States. With her native Gullah Geechee culture as a prototype collecting the oral histories of elders, she teaches ways to research the cultural history within a community, then how to use documentation technology to memorialize and preserve the stories of a community for future generations. She presents talks and workshops on documenting cultural history for others wanting to preserve stories in their own community or the cultural story of a family. Her research and work can be viewed at: altheasumpter.com.

• Facilitator: Libby Ware
• Musicians: Craig Rafuse & Jean Heinrich