“Beyond this Place: The Value of Life”

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.

• Facilitator: Libby Ware
• Musician: Mick Kinney

“Celebrate Creating”

Join us for a spirited, artistic Sunday Service featuring music, dance, and film celebrating creativity/creating, and our Congregation’s founding with:

• Ted Pettus (Emory professor, musician/rock-star)
• Patton White (Emory instructor, dancer/choreographer/film-maker extraordinaire)
• Jean Heinrich (Clinical psychologist, musician, First E Founder)

presenting artistic works and discussing creating, existentialism, our Congregation and Founders.

Musicians: CJ Jones and the Spirit Bones Band

“Back to School”

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.

• Facilitator: Wade Marbaugh
• Musician: Elise Witt

“Bread and Roses and Dirty Work –
a look at essential jobs and the toll of labor
inequality in this country, past and present”

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.

• Facilitator: Patton White
• Musician: Jean Heinrich

Stories of Mom: Lessons for a Lifetime

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.

• Facilitator – Jan Lister
• Musician – William Chelton

It’s about time! (and space, and energy…)

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.

• Facilitator – Cindy Lou Who
• Musician – Craig Rafuse

“Thinking About Family, Thinking About War: A Picture Worth a Thousand Tears.”

Jon Herman is a recently retired associate professor of religious studies at Georgia State University, where he taught classes in Asian religion, comparative mysticism, and critical theory in the study of religion. He is the author of Taoism for Dummies, and several articles on topics such as interfaith dialogue, contemporary conceptions of “spirituality,” religious studies and public education, environmentalism, Neo-Confucian mysticism, and the late science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin. He is currently researching for a book on the Jewish existentialist author Martin Buber’s unpublished lectures on the Taoist classic, the Tao Te Ching.

During his retirement, Jon has been authoring “Herman’s Toteboard,” a (liberal) blog offering election analysis and political commentary. You can find the blog at www.thetoteboard.org.

Jon’s wife Ellen has recently retired as the coordinator of Threshold Ministry, an organization providing assistance to the homeless and those suffering other effects of poverty. She had previously worked in religious education, and university, prison, and hospital chaplaincy, and is still working tirelessly to combat homelessness. Jon and Ellen are the parents of two young adult daughters, both adopted from China. Molly is the director of communications and children’s ministry at St. Martin in the Fields Episcopal Church in Brookhaven, and Carly is a student at UGA, studying public health.

• Facilitator – Marsha Mitchiner
• Musician – Kathy McGuire