The Existential Buzz

“Love, Compassion, Presence and Poetry”

Lisa will explore the themes of love, compassion and mindful presence through personal pondering, story, and poetry, including poems from her recently published book. Her talk will range from the very personal to the political and spiritual.

She has pondered how to be more loving and compassionate to herself and others for many decades and will share a few practices that can be helpful. Compassion is not always soft and sometimes requires firm boundaries.

• Facilitator: D. Patton White
• Musician: Carol Calvert

The human race has long viewed the spring equinox as a time of celebration and life. Join us as we explore our connection to the ancient ways of marking the beginning of spring and the spiritual hold it still has on us in the modern world.

• Facilitator: Marsha Mitchiner
• Musician: Jean Heinrich

“You want us to do WHAT!?!?!?  Organizations in Conflict”

Kathie has worked in nonprofits since 1974.  She will share a little of what she’s learned about organizational conflict over those nearly 50 years.

A founding member of Alternate ROOTS, a service organization for community-based artists in the South, deNobriga served as ROOTS’ executive director and planning/development director for ten years. She continues to serve on the working on various committees as needed, and sharing the institutional memory of 40 years of continuous membership.

Raised in Kingsport TN, deNobriga holds an M.A. in Theatre (Directing) from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, and a B.A. with honors in Speech Communications and Theatre Arts. Her early employment included directing and managing community theatres in Smithfield and Sanford, NC and performing with The Road Company, a professional ensemble in Johnson City, TN.

DeNobriga was a Visiting Artist for two years for the NC Arts Council, and a Fellow in the Rockefeller Foundation’s Next Generation Leadership program and in the Rockwood Leadership Institute.

She is now a consultant, specializing in strategic planning, building organizational capacity, designing staff/board retreats and guiding creative conflict engagement. She trained as a mediator at the Atlanta Justice Center and is a board member for Arts & Democracy and Alternate ROOTS. She served two terms as Councilmember and one as Mayor for the City of Pine Lake, where she lives with her wife Alice Teeter, published poet and bon vivant.

• Facilitator: Libby Ware
• Musician: Craig Rafuse

“Everyday Heroes”

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.

Marsha speaks once each quarter, and helps smooth the functioning of the Congregation innumerable times in between.

• Facilitator: Wade Marbaugh
• Musician: Mick Kinney

“Creativity and the Divine: The Sacred Art of Listening to your Soul”

Creativity and the Divine is a topic that is intrinsically linked together in my heart and experience. To be alive demands creativity, which modern life tries to define as a commodity or secret skill set available only to a special few. Yes, there are talented and skillful people in all areas of life but an even more obvious reality is that we are all creating the most important things in the world – ourselves – could there be anything MORE amazing than that? There is but one secret to being creative and enjoying the process.

• Facilitator: D. Patton White
• Musician: Bill Chelton

“Building Relationships with the ‘Other’”

I will speak on the journey of my last two and a half years documenting the music of serpent handling churches of Appalachia. It will center on how love and understanding can bridge cultural and religious divides, and birth powerful relationships. I will also play a few songs.

Abe Partridge is a heralded musician, singer/songwriter, visual artist, and documentarian based in Mobile, Alabama. His 2018 debut, Cotton Fields and Blood For Days earned him rave reviews, with Tony Paris saying in The Bitter Southerner: “He plays guitar the same way he writes lyrics, bashing the strings with abandon until they are just about to come loose, then beautifully picking the notes until every last word falls into place. More to the point, Partridge writes to make you sit up and think. He wants to jar your reality. Sometimes, his lyrics are sly and subtle. Sometimes they come at you with a roar and thunder, as if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were approaching, and the heavens were
opening up to herald a warning.”

When Partridge is not writing or touring, He is creating his folk art paintings, which now hang in art galleries around the southeast and in the private collections. Partridge is now gearing up for an exhibit of his artwork at the Alabama Contemporary Art Center in Mobile in January of 2023 and the release of his full-length studio album, Love In The Dark, on BCPR label in the spring of 2023.

• Facilitator: Ted Pettus
• Musician: Craig Rafuse