First Existentialist Congregation
An independent member of the Unitarian Universalist Association
I will be talking about how we continue to find joy in daily struggles while dealing with loss, illness, and pain, using an existentialist and feminist perspective to explore choices and habits. I will be incorporating some Buddhist thought into the talk as well.
In these times of public manipulations and denials of well-documented historical research, the Early Edgewood-Candler Park BiRacial History Project responds to our local Candler Park Centennial in 2022. We are compelled into community action, informed by our archives’ 16 years of materials and our special relationship with the Antioch East Baptist Church.
We feel a deep responsibility to the descendant Black Church and families who co-created this neighborhood and handbuilt this Sanctuary 100 years ago. The physical dimensions of history still vibrate today, in their presence and in their absence. If we can open to their meanings, perhaps we can move together toward healing and repair.
The lyrics of a bunch of Beatles songs derive from Being and Time, Heidegger’s primer on how to become one’s “authentic self ”. Hence, you can learn how to be you in time. I will demonstrate how Heidegger’s notions appear in the songs.
Craig Rafuse has been a musician for 60 years and a carpenter for 45+ years. He loves and lives with Kathy and Bebop the cat in a beloved community. He has been involved with the First Existentialist congregation for about 40 years.
Anthony Knight is the President & CEO of The Baton Foundation, a Georgia non- profit organization that serves the emotional, intellectual and cultural needs of Black boys in grades five through nine. Before founding the Foundation, Mr. Knight worked for twenty-two years as
a museum educator and consultant.
Mr. Knight has extensive experience with and interest in African-American history and culture, public and living history, informal education and Black youth. Mr. Knight’s work with The Baton Foundation reflects his ongoing interest in the issues and practices related to the collecting, preservation and interpretation of information about and material culture from the African Diaspora.
Mr. Knight’s undergraduate work was in Spanish and English (Ohio Wesleyan University), and his graduate work was in museum education (The George Washington University). Mr. Knight also holds a degree in Spanish-to-English translation from the Núcleo de Estudios Lingüísticos y Sociales, Caracas,
Venezuela. Mr. Knight is a New York City native.
Join us for a spirited, artistic Sunday Service featuring music, dance, and film celebrating creativity/creating, and our Congregation’s founding with:
presenting artistic works and discussing creating, existentialism, our Congregation and Founders.
Musicians: CJ Jones and the Spirit Bones Band
Kathy McGuire, a college administrator and perpetual student who just sent her teenage son off to Georgia State University, will reflect on teaching and learning. What does it mean to be a lifelong learner, and how does it help create meaning and purpose at different stages in our lives?
Originally hailing from San Antonio, Texas, Kathy is a lifelong learner with diverse interests, holding degrees in psychology, biomedical sciences, music performance and public administration. She and her family live on a small farm in the woods in Conyers, Georgia, where they enjoy the company of chickens, quail, ducks, rabbits, cats, and dogs.
During the work week, you can find her at Oxford College of Emory University, where she serves as the Director of Institutional Research.
Rev. Marti Keller is the granddaughter of a garment workers union leader in Boston, at a time of sweat shops and dangerous working conditions. Her activist work has always been at the intersection of gender, economic, and racial inequalities. She headed up two advocacy organizations for women and children, worked in the arena of reproductive justice for Planned Parenthood, and for the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation.
Mark White is a proud member of the First E, and it only took him ten years to learn to spell “existentialist,” two years less than it took to learn “epidemiologist.”
He has two sons, two daughters, and two dogs. Most important, he has a wonderful wife, Shelly Joan Ahmann. They have been married for 23 years.
A week ago, Mark completed a memoir called “Memoirs of a Disease Detective.” It took 13 years, and he would never have done it if Libby hadn’t turned him on to Carol Lee Lorenzo, a superb writer, teacher, and friend. The book is about his life where he and his Filipina wife traveled the world teaching and fighting epidemics in the Philippines and Uganda. Most were tropical diseases such as cholera, typhoid, malaria, measles, etc. They also investigated an Ebola virus epidemic, two earthquakes, and the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. It threw so much ash into the atmosphere that the global temperature fell by two degrees C for two years. Don’t get any ideas for global warming. His line editor commented that the book made her laugh many times and cry once. What a great review.
God knows if he’ll get a publisher, but if all fails, he’ll publish it myself. JK Rowling got 12 rejections before somebody took Harry Potter, and even then, Scholastic Press published the first edition. Writing about the past may not seem something an existentialist should do. But it is. You have to make up all that dialog you couldn’t remember. In seeking the truth, Mark emailed most of the people who appear and asked them to fact-check, a profoundly humbling experience.
As Faulkner says, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” He looks forward to seeing all his old friends at the First E, and meeting some new ones.
We learn a great deal from those who raised us, sometimes about how to be and sometimes about how not to be. We all have these stories and I’ll be sharing mine with you, along with the lessons I’ve accumulated over much of a lifetime.
Rev. Kim Palmer is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister serving as an affiliated community minister with the Unitarian Universalist Metro Atlanta North congregation. She is a board-certified chaplain and has served Emory University in the dual role of chaplain and spiritual health researcher until retiring last year, along with her wife Marty. She continues to train chaplains and support research projects at Emory and elsewhere as a contractor. When not working, she and her wife chip away at numerous house and yard projects, while they dream of the time they can begin traveling.
D. Patton White (he/him) has worked as a dancer and choreographer since 1982, for the stage, site-specific work, and dance for the camera. As Artistic/Administrative Director of Beacon Dance since 1990, he has sought innovative ways to bring art to the public, including site works throughout DeKalb County parks and nature centers, the High Museum of Art, in the former Sears building in Atlanta, in Freedom Park, at the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center, the B Complex in southwest Atlanta, the Emory University Campus, and on the Atlanta Beltline. He currently teaches part time at Emory University. He has been an artist in residence at UNLV, Rice University, and Emory University, and has conducted numerous community residencies and his work has been funded by the NEA, South Arts, GCA, Florida Council on Arts & Culture, among others. He has been a member of Alternate ROOTS since 1997.