Common Good Tacoma and The Well welcome Rev. Ben McBride on Sept 15 at Common Good Tacoma. He has a new book out "Troubling the Water: The Urgent Work of Radical Belonging." I know this is something that we are all talking about - belonging. For Seattleites, I know we always expect people to come to us, but here's an opportunity to be part of a small gathering with this activist who also stands in our shared spiritual space, working and laboring for a spiritual renewal and a spiritual movement of justice. For those in South King Co or Pierce Co, this is a great opportunity.

Please reserve your space. Space is limited...tickets are free. Just get to eventbrite and reserve your spot.

Rev. Ben McBride is an internationally recognized peacemaker, faith leader, activist, and speaker who has spoken in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Middle East. McBride is the co-founder of the Empower Initiative, a capacity building firm devoted to empowering organizations and communities to foster belonging.

Previously he served as director of PICO California, the state’s largest faith-based community organizing network. McBride was featured in the Sundance Film Festival award-winner The Force, and in 2020 the Center for American Progress listed him as one of the top faith leaders to watch. Ben lives in Oakland, California, with his wife, Gynelle, and their three daughters.

“This visionary and courageous book stands in the great tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. Ben McBride powerfully and persuasively shows how radical belonging and radical self-care are integral to a radical Christianity—a Christianity serious about the radical love of Jesus Christ.”

—Dr. Cornel West, philosopher, activist, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary

Dr. Cornel West joins us by Zoom for a live talk with Q&A. He will present on the philosophy of non-violence as the organizing principle for change used by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This event will be part of several sponsored by The Well and the Seattle Regional Committee of the Poor People’s Campaign leading up to the Mass People’s and Low-Wage Workers Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls on June 18.

REGISTER HERE: It is FREE!!!

Many Christians are taught that God is all powerful, can do anything, and can fix everything. Dr. Thomas Jay Oord explores how a relational and loving God inherently can’t do and fix everything - not alone. A provocative idea for many, come and wrestle with the problem of suffering and evil and a God who strives to heal.

Dr. Thomas Jay Oord is a theologian, philosopher, and scholar of multi-disciplinary studies. He is director of the Center for Open and Relational Theology. He won the Outstanding Faculty Award twelve times as professor at Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, Idaho. Oord is known for his contributions to research on love, open and relational theology, science and religion, and Wesleyan/Holiness/Church of the Nazarene thought. While Dr. Oord’s presentation will come from the breadth of his work, his conversation with us will primarily come from his book God Can’t: How to Believe in God and Love After Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils. We encourage people to read the book prior to the presentation. If you would like to read with others and discuss, please let us know. While we charge for this event to offset our costs, all are welcome to attend regardless of ability to pay. Just let us know at thewellqueenanne@gmail.com.

Tickets are $10 General Admission and $5 for Students. All are welcome to attend despite ability to pay.

This event is one part of three events with Dr. Oord in the greater Seattle area. Feb 8 @The Well, Feb 9 preaching at First UMC Seattle (Thank Goodness God is NOT in Control), Feb 9 evening talk at Bellevue First UMC (God Can’t: A Better Way to Think about God & Suffering - RSVP & more info at fumcbellevue.org/oord.)

Dr. Thomas Jay Oord will be at The Well Feb 8 to discuss the idea that God Can’t Fix Everything and That’s a Good Idea. Read the book first and come discuss.

This 1.25 hour conversation will help determine the questions to bring to Dr. Oord’s conversation and allow space for us to explore power, agency, love, coercion, and divinity. Have you ever wondered if God is omnipotent why there’s suffering in the world? Would a God with limits on power be a blow to your faith? However you decide on this, asking hard questions is always a good thing for our faith. Come, ask, discuss, and get ready for the talk on Feb 8.

There is no charge for the book group, but please RSVP to thewellqueenanne@gmail.com. At least 3 people must sign up for this group to take place.

Shane Claiborne and Michael Martin are taking the "Beating Guns" book and their forge on the road with the Beating Guns Tour, a 90-minute event that will feature music, art, and stories of people impacted by gun violence, culminating with an invitation for the audience to take the hammer and transform a gun into garden tools.

Tickets are free. Register for the event here.

Nadia Bolz-Weber will speak about her newest and most personal book Shameless: A Sexual Reformation.

Out to slay a giant by going after the church’s teachings on human sexuality, Bolz-Weber weaves narrative, history, scripture, and wit together to show how Christianity has often turned the glorious gift of bodies into something ugly and shameful, telling us that true holiness equates to sexual repression — “as if the God of the Universe had programmed into creation a passive-aggressive test of our willpower.”

Joining Nadia for the conversation is Seattle’s own Gail Song Barnum.

Tickets are $7.50-$15 and are available through Eventbrite.

We are grateful to University Temple UMC for allowing us to co-sponsor this event with them.

2 Modules.
Part I: Resistance and Love (Thursday night) - POSTPONED UNTIL 2019
Part II: Not Losing Hope (Friday morning) - POSTPONTED UNTIL 2019                                    Full Event Both Tickets - POSTPONED UNTIL 2019

Dr. Charles L. Howard will use lecture and conversation in exploring resistance to injustice without losing relationships, one's own integrity, relinquishing the struggle, or giving in to despair.

In today's increasingly polarized world people are retreating into their own circles. Relationships are being lost at alarming rates. Sometimes people feel they have to sacrifice principles or integrity in order to maintain relationships. It's easy to give in to despair. If one has the luxury, it can be tempting to give up the struggle. 

Over two sessions, Dr. Howard will help us explore how to seek the destruction of policies, practices, and a culture that encourages harm without seeking to destroy people. He will help value the power of hope and encourage us to hold on to it. He will walk us through the power of maintaining integrity even in the midst of division and conflict. 

Despite the awful face that Christianity often presents in the public commons, Dr. Howard believes that we are trending in the correct direction. There is reason to hope.

The Rev. Charles L. Howard, PhD is the University Chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater.  Prior to his return to Penn, he served in both hospital and hospice chaplaincies, and as a street outreach worker to individuals experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia. His writing has been featured in such publications as Black Theology: An International Journal, Daily Good, Sojourners Magazine, Christianity Todays Leadership Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, The Huffington Post, The Christian Century, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Forward, and Slate.  He is the editor of The Souls of Poor Folk, a text which explores new ways of considering homelessness and poverty, and the author of The Awe and The Awful, a poetry collection and Lenten Devotional, Black Theology as Mass Movement, a call to theologians to expand the reach of their theological work, and Pond River Ocean Rain,  a collection of brief essays about going deeper with God. He shares life with his beloved wife, Dr. Lia C. Howard and their three daughters.

2 hr Workshop - $15

Great strides have been taken in the church regarding safe sanctuaries that protect children from abuse. However, the church often overlooks how they might minister to the adult survivors of abuse in their midst. Survivors of child sexual abuse often hide in plain sight, and the church has little awareness of the spiritual wounds they bear. In this workshop, we will discuss the many aspects of church that can prevent survivors from feeling safe or connecting with God. We will explore simple adjustments to common rituals that will allow those wounded ones among us to participate more fully in the life of the church, as well as the ways in which church members, clergy, and staff can reach out to those victims and walk alongside them in appropriate and healing ways.

Sue Magrath is the author of Healing the Ravaged Soul: Tending the Spiritual Wounds of Child Sexual Abuse. She is a retired psychotherapist, having spent 14 years as a pastoral counselor working with victims of child sexual abuse. She is active in the UMC as a spiritual director, retreat and workshop leader, church consultant, and advocate in the area of clergy wellness.

"Interrupting Silence: God's Command to Speak Out" is a new book by Walter Brueggemann. For 8 chapters, Dr. Brueggemann walks readers through an in depth Bible study about why and how Christians must speak out and act in solidarity with those who are oppressed and marginalized. 

We will discuss the full book in two sessions covering four chapters each time. This will be our second conversation covering chapters 5-8.

Chapter Titles: The Oppressed Break Silence, Prophets Refuse to Be Silenced, Silence Kills, Jesus Rudely Interrupted, Casting Out Silence, The Crowd as Silencer, Truth Speaks to Power, and The Church as a Silencing Institution. 

Please RSVP to thewellqueenanne@gmail.com if you would like to join. Books are available through a local bookstore or Amazon (including Kindle).

"Interrupting Silence: God's Command to Speak Out" is a new book by Walter Brueggemann. For 8 chapters, Dr. Brueggemann walks readers through an in depth Bible study about why and how Christians must speak out and act in solidarity with those who are oppressed and marginalized. 

We will discuss the full book in two sessions covering four chapters each time. Our second session will be August 28, 1-2 PM.

Chapter Titles: The Oppressed Break Silence, Prophets Refuse to Be Silenced, Silence Kills, Jesus Rudely Interrupted, Casting Out Silence, The Crowd as Silencer, Truth Speaks to Power, and The Church as a Silencing Institution. 

Please RSVP to thewellqueenanne@gmail.com if you would like to join. Books are available through a local bookstore or Amazon (including Kindle).

Dr. Jennifer Harvey is a writer, speaker, and professor at Drake University. Her work focuses on racial justice and white anti-racism. Dr. Harvey’s most recent books include Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in Racially Unjust America (Abington Press, January 2018) and Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation (Wm. B. Ee remains). Dr. Harvey has also contributed to the New York Times and the Huffington Post. She is ordained in the American Baptist Churches (U.S.A.)

Tickets are available through Brown Paper Tickets. 

$50 - Sustainer, $25 Supporter, $15 Discount/Student

Tickets are $20 (supporting level), $35 (contributing level), $50 (sustaining level). If you need a scholarship, please contact us at thewellqueenanne@gmail.com. Get your tickets from Brown Paper Tickets. 

Why Racism Skeptics Should Be Empathetically Listened to, and This Should Be the Work of White Allies

Do you struggle as a White person to respond in social or work situations when someone questions the reality of racism or fails to advance anti-racist work?

Many White people are at a loss and need tangible tools and skills to participate in healthy, productive, and effective dialogue with racism skeptics. 

Questions addressed in this workshop include:

* How can a White anti-racist ally speak to racism skeptics in a way that is effective and not off-putting so that they stop listening?

* What do research finding tell us about the effectiveness of various strategies for helping racism skeptics broaden their view of issues like structural racism, unfair treatment by institutions, and white privilege?

It might surprise people to learn that there is increasing scientific evidence that shows that empathy-based dialogues are the way to go if you want to have a chance to change adults minds. According to this research, the best way to foster debiasing is to first listen empathetically to skeptics so they feel heard, and after that, raise experiences and facts that invite them to a broader and more nuanced perspective.

Come and participate in this vital conversation.

This workshop was developed by and is facilitated by Dr. David Campt, who is nationally renowned in the areas of community engagement, conflict resolution, inclusion, and equity. His clients have included large corporations, the White House, the US Military, and nonprofits. He is known as The Dialogue Guy. You can learn more about him and this work at www.whiteallytoolkit.com. 

This event is co-sponsored with Valley and Mountain.

THIS EVENT IS CANCELED AND POSTPONED TO ANOTHER TIME. THERE WERE TRAVEL ISSUES WITH THE PRESENTERS.

This event is hosted at Temple De Hirsch Sinai. It is free and open to the public. 

Currently finishing his book, Painful Hope, Ali Abu Awwad is today a leading Palestinian activist teaching his countrymen non-violent resistance, and reaching out to Jewish Israelis at the heart of the conflict. Ali has toured the world many times over, telling his riveting story of violent activism, imprisonment, bereavement and discovery of the path of non-violent resistance, a story of personal transformation. 

Hanan Schlesinger is an Orthodox rabbi and teacher, and a passionate Zionist settler who has been profoundly transformed by his friendship with Ali.  His understanding of the reality of the Middle East conflict and of Zionism has been utterly complicated by the parallel universe that Ali has introduced him to.  

Join Ali and Hanan as they tell their personal stories and of their efforts to build a better future for their peoples. They come with no ready peace plans in hand, but only with the conviction that human understanding and trust will be the prerequisites for lasting justice, freedom and peace on that tiny sliver of land that they both call home.

Roots is a unique collaboration of local Palestinians and Israelis building a grassroots model for coexistence in the Gush Etzion-Bethlehem-Hebron area. Roots works to nurture understanding, non-violence and personal transformation between Palestinians and Israelis and to advance the two peoples towards a new social and political reality founded upon dignity, trust, and mutual recognition and respect for both peoples’ particular historic belonging to the entire Land.

Roots works primarily among those elements of the Israeli and Palestinian communities 

that have been most marginalized by, threatened by, and opposed to peace and compromise: religious settlers on the one hand, and on the other hand, religious Muslims, ex-fighters and ex-prisoners. We bring together Palestinians and Israelis who live in geographical proximity but by and large have never had real human contact with the other side. Through our programs:

1. The two sides discover the humanity of the other, overcoming suspicion and building trust.
2. An ecosystem of consideration, reconciliation and mutuality is fostered. 
3. People are guided toward taking responsibility.
4. Joint initiatives are developed in order to ease tensions and improve life on the ground.
5. The language of discourse and overall perspectives change, creating the foundation from which peace can sprout.

Roots was founded in January 2014 by Ali Abu Awwad, Shaul Judelman, and Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger together with many other Israelis and Palestinians. The initiative is based in the heart of Gush Etzion (Etzion Bloc), on a piece of land owned by the Awwad family abutting the Palestinian town of Bet Ummar. The result is the creation of a little Garden of Eden called Merkaz (Hebrew for Center) Karama (Arabic for Dignity). It is one of the rare places accessible to both Palestinians and Israelis without special government permits, thus facilitating unmediated get-togethers and deep conversations between people from the two sides.

The Palestinians and Israelis involved in this initiative do not hide the many deep disagreements between them. On the contrary, they are deeply aware of the complexities of the conflict and of the lack of equality between the two sides. What unites them is their honest search for human understanding and nonviolent resolution to the conflict.

Roots is a project of Keren Chai Shalom (The Life of Peace Fund), an Israeli nonprofit organization (legally registered as Beit HaTeatron) that is dedicated to continuing the legacy of Rabbi Menachem Froman of blessed memory, a dedicated settler and peace activist.

Co-sponsors:

@First United Methodist Church

Come engage with Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon, executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace as she hosts a conversation with Daoud Nassar from Tent of Nations near Bethlehem about daily living, human rights concerns, and peacebuilding.

Tickets: $12 suggested donation at the door or purchased in advance via Brown Paper Tickets.

Brought to you by First United Methodist Church and The Well.

Doors open at 6:30 PM. Parking available on site.

This event is co-sponsored by Plymouth Congregational Church. 

Rita Nakashima Brock, Rel. M., M.A., Ph.D. is a noted theologian who she has lectured all over the world. As Co-Founder of the Soul Repair Center, Dr. Brock has become an internationally recognized expert on the emerging study of moral injury and recovery.

At The Well, she will be speaking on The Moral Injuries of a Country: The Cost of Dualism, War and Violence, and the Agonies of Now. 

Dualistic thinking drives us to divide the world into innocent and evil. Heroes are innocent and good. Villains are guilty and evil. Such thinking is too simplistic to capture lived real experiences. How do we deal with failure, love, violence, personal struggle, economic pressures, costly decisions and so forth matters.

A social contract collapses because it's moral foundations are threatened or destroyed by events and behaviors that violate its core values. This lecture will examine, through the lens of moral injury, the recurring and lingering traumatic events that have propelled significant social change in American society and the current context of backlash attempting to reach back to a discredited past.  

In December 2008, she and Dr. Gabriella Lettini began work on the Truth Commission on Conscience in War (www.conscienceinwar.org), which, in November 2010, recommended extensive public education on moral injury. In response, she and Dr. Lettini co-authored Soul Repair: Recovery from Moral Injury After War(Beacon, 2012).

A native of Fukuoka, Japan, whose mother was trained in nursing by the Red Cross after WW II, Dr. Brock’s birth father was a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War and her stepfatherwas a U.S. Army veteran of World War II and the Vietnam War who served 29 years in the military. Dr. Brock earned her Ph.D. in philosophy of religion and theology in 1988 from Claremont Graduate University, becoming the first Asian American woman in the country to earn a doctorate in theology and the first ever to serve on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). From 2004 to 2012, she co-founded and directed Faith Voices for the Common Good, which generated online and in-person networked social change projects for progressive faith leaders and organizations and which helped organize the Truth Commission on Conscience in War. She has held a number of leadership positions in the academy and led the effort to create a program unit in 2013 to study moral injury in religion, society, and culture, a unit she co-chairs with Dr. Elizabeth Bounds of Emory University. 

NEW PRICE: Tickets: General Admission $20, Student $10

Did you know that King County Juvenile Court is currently piloting Peacemaking Circles as an alternative and community-based way to resolve some of its juvenile felony cases? This reduces incarceration, fosters healing for both victims and offenders, and affords a profound opportunity for transformation. This is the Gospel in action and it’s unfolding right here in our own backyard. Faith communities are needed to expand our network of circle providers. Would your church like to be involved? We’ll begin by transforming ourselves using this tool. Please join us to learn more!

QUESTIONS?
Contact for Protestant and Interfaith Communities: REV. TERRI STEWART, (425) 531-1756 or YCC-Chaplain@thechurchcouncil.org

Contact for Catholic Communities: JOE COTTON
(206) 382-4847 or joe.cotton@seattlearch.

This event is co-sponsored by Riverton Park United Methodist Church, the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition, and The Well. 

This event is free and open to the public. Please register by contacting the above listed names. 

With her "Maher Communities," Sister Lucy Kurien, member of the Catholic order Sisters of the Cross, has opened 90 rural and urban communities served in three Indian states with a mission to get to root causes of violence and despair experienced by women and children in India; support family reunification; provide safe and loving residential services for women and children when reunification is not possible; and assist women in their individual paths to self-reliance.

More than 2,000 people have benefited from Sister Lucy's work - over 300 women and 900 children currently in residence in 44 homes.

The "Magic of Maher" lays in its deep path:

• Love is the basis - not services
• Faith in the intrinsic goodness of people
• Reconciliation with even difficult relatives
• Embrace all people across all faiths, castes, class, and ethnicity
• Inter-religious, deeply spiritual
• Operational flexibility with small homes
• Values driven: never pay a bribe, truth and transparency in all interactions

The are also deeply respectful of Mother Earth - composting and organic gardens, solar water heating, water recycling and biogas systems and attention to good nutrition.

We invite you to join in an intimate evening with this Roman Catholic nun who has started an interfaith community. Maher is an interfaith and caste-free Indian NGO. Learn about this remarkable work. 

This event is co-sponsored by Maher Communities: Northwest Friends and The Well. It is free and open to the public. 

Join Zac Calvo, our co-sponsors from Coastland Commons, and The Well as we discuss the intrinsic difficulty in creating a "safe enough" space for vigorous and sometime conflictual dialogue and the free exchange of ideas, even when ideas can be repugnant. What is the institutional responsibility to name its own power in framing the dialogue, in inviting the participants, and in shaping the gathering and space? What ideas are out of bounds? When does difference of opinion become harm and what is the ethical demand placed upon a sponsor to attend to potential harm?

This past year, Princeton Theological Seminary invited the Rev. Dr. Tim Keller to speak at an annual conference and to receive an award from the Kuyper Center. Dr. Keller is a noted leader in the Presbyterian Church of America, a denomination which prevents women and LGBTQIA people from full participation in ordained ministry. Moreover, Dr. Keller shares the views of his denomination and has been outspoken in his stances. 

An outcry erupted. Should Dr. Keller be allowed to speak? Should he be given an award by the school - even by a center within the school? What is the responsibility of students to make space for vigorous debate? What is the role of the institution to uphold its stated values?

Zac Calvo was a leader in the Princeton movement of students, faculty, and others to rescind the award but allow the talk. He will facilitate our dialogue first by outlining the events at Princeton, naming the various places that power imbalances entered and affected the process and then leading us into a broader conversation about power in public spaces. That is, Power Dynamics, Equal Agency and Intellectual Freedom: Developing Ethical Conversation in Institution require thoughtful and mindful attention as well as truth-telling about the institution's role as well as the agency of the individuals involved.

We at The Well are committed to creating a safe and generous place to dialogue about issues that affect mind, body, spirit, community, and world. This question is one we ask ourselves often. Who do we invite? What voices should be heard? What ideas need amplification? Into what communities do we reach for dialogue partners? What issues are pressing? What is the most healthy way to structure a forum? We invite you to join us in struggling together with these and other questions. A common good demands of us mindful engagement. 

This event is free and open to the public.

Peterson Toscano has shaken up Bible academics and received high praise for his ground-breaking, genre-bending, gender blending Bible scholarship. By unearthing the stories of gender-variant people in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, Toscano’s one-person play deepens well-known (and lesser-known) Bible stories and presents an array of Bible characters with an array of genders.

After the screening, Peterson Toscano will be with us to participate in an audience Q & A.


Reviews:
Toscano brings a deep reverence for the Biblical text with him into his exploration of gender transgression.  This play is mesmerizing and compels the viewer to see well known Bible stories in a brave new light. -Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint
 
As a biblical scholar I'm always a bit skeptical about dramatic interpretations of biblical texts, whether they will truly capture the complexity of the originals; however, Peterson's performances bring to light dimensions of the texts that many, even those of us who spend hours with the text on the page, fail to see. By bringing the stories and characters to life we're able to see the human-ness of the biblical narratives in all its gore and glory. -Lynn Huber, Associate Professor of Religious Studies--New Testament and Early Christian History, Elon College.

This event is free and open to the public. Donations are welcome!

The Bible has been used as a weapon against LGBTQ people. For over a decade Peterson Toscano has engaged in a creative and very public dialogue with these ancient texts. His Bible scholarship is sound, but perhaps more importantly, it is filled with humor and warmth.

In this lively performance lecture, Peterson reveals bizarre, hilarious, disturbing, and revelatory characters and moments from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.  This is not “What does the Bible say about homosexuality?” No, Peterson delves into the text to find gender outlaws in it, to bust open traditional readings, and provides whole new perspectives.

What has been astonishing about Peterson’s Bible presentations is how well they are received by all kinds of audience members. Traditional Bible believers, progressive Christians and Jews, Bible scholars, atheists, and people who don’t know the first thing about the Bible, are drawn in, entertained and enlightened.

If you want to hear something fresh and new about old Bible stories and also experience outright weird and hysterical performance art, come see Peterson's performance/lecture!

This is the resolution to our second Peacemaking Circle case while we are in the pilot phase. Come and pack the courthouse and let the justice system know that you want this restorative, healing, peacemaking way of justice rather than the traditional adversarial and punitive process. It is vitally important that the community shows up and lets the juvenile justice know that we want this alternative way of justice. The way that restores and heals, transforming brokenness to beauty.

The King County Peacemaking Coordinating Team

Our Vision Statement: Communities in Peace: Where Everyone Matters and Belongs

Our Mission Statement: Transforming Brokenness into Beauty

Our Core Values: 
• Interconnected relationships
• Honoring and celebrating one another
• Partnering and collaborating

Who We Are: 
The KCPCT is a working committee that meets to coordinate Peacemaking activities in King County. The members of the committee include community partners, faith-based leaders, parents, local residents, young people, as well as leaders and personnel from county and state agencies and key stakeholders from the King County criminal justice system.

“If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.” Richard Rohr

Drawing from the life and work of  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dr. Reggie Williams will explore how the Harlem Renaissance interrupted the thinking of the theologian by offering alternative ways of understand God in Christ. This interruption provided Bonhoeffer with new ways of addressing the struggles and problems of his world. Dr. Williams will utilize Bonhoeffer as a guiding metaphor to frame our conversation on Interrupting Whiteness: Harlem Renaissance, Black Christ, & Christian Ethics. 

Dr. Reggie Williams is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at McCormick Theological Seminary. 

General Admission: $15, Students $8

Race still matters in America today. How can we raise children who go beyond the superficial notion of colorblindness to see and challenge the ways that privilege still shapes our lives? How can parents prepare to seize the teachable moments that arise when we least expect them?

Join us at Epiphany Parish for this 3-hour workshop specially suited for preschool through elementary age children and their parents. Children and parents have separate programs to engage them. Snacks will be provided for the children.

This workshop will focus on identity development and cultural norms. Early childhood educator Jason Frelot will present on how narratives and counter-narratives shape our children's personal and racial identity development.

Cost: $15/child, Early Educators $20, Parent/Adult $30

Dr. Emilie Townes is Dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society, and an American Baptist clergywoman. Dr. Robin DiAngelo is Director of Equity for Sound Generations, Seattle/King County, author, and is a trainer of issues of social justice and race who was appointed to co-design and deliver the City of Seattle's Race and Social Justice Initiative Anti-Racism training with Darlene Flynn. 

These two nationally respected leaders in their fields will come together @ The Well to discuss Womanist Theology and White Fragility. 

Race still matters in America today. How can we raise children who go beyond the superficial notion of colorblindness to see and challenge the ways that privilege still shapes our lives? How can parents prepare to seize the teachable moments that arise when we least expect them?

Join us at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Ballard for this 2.5 hour workshop specially suited for preschool through elementary age children and their parents. Children and parents have separate programs to engage them. Snacks will be provided for the children.

This workshop will focus on identity development and cultural norms. Presenters will discuss how narratives and counter-narratives shape our children's personal and racial identity development.

This workshop series is a co-sponsored project with Columbia City Church of Hope.

Registration fees are $20 per family (one ticket covers one family), or however much you are able to pay. If you need financial assistance with registration, please contact The Well! Also, during registration, please let us know how many children will be coming with you, their ages, and if they have any special needs (dietary or otherwise).

Co-Sponsored by and hosted at Seattle Pacific University, in the Gwinn Commons building (Campus Map). Gwinn is building #37, parking will be available in the Dravus Lot (#45 on the map).  

Miroslav Volf is the Founder and Director of Yale Center for Faith and Culture and Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology, Yale University Divinity School, New Haven, CT.

He has written 15 books on the nature of God, interfaith understanding, religion and violence, identity, forgiveness, and religion in the public commons. Among his many books are A Spacious Heart (co-authored), Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violence World, and Against the Tide: Love in a Time of Petty Dreams and Persisting Enmities. His most recent book, published in January 2016, is Flourishing: Why We Need Religion in a Globalized World. 

What is forgiveness and how do it an reconciliation inform the world we share with 7 billion others, many of whom do not share our culture or religion? How do we learn to embrace rather than reject difference? What roles do religion play in how we negotiate life together? 

RSVP & follow this event on Facebook for updates and more information.

Current SPU students, faculty, and staff with ID may attend free of charge. Contact um@spu.edu for details. 

Scholarships are available. Contact the Well with requests!

SHADOWS OF LIBERTY examines how the US media are controlled by a handful of corporations exercising extraordinary political, social, and economic power. Having always allowed broadcasting to be controlled by commercial interests, the loosening of media ownership regulations, that began under Reagan and continued under Clinton, has led to the current situation where five mega corporations control the vast majority of the media in the United States. These companies not only don’t prioritize investigative journalism, but can and do clamp down on it when their interests are threatened.

This movie is free and open to the public.

Andrew Hanaur is the Campaign Coordinator of Jubilee USA. All persons interested in learning how Jubilee USA works with 550 faith-based organizations to bring greater transparency and fairness to international financial institutions will benefit from this evening's discussion. Learn how to connect the dots between corrupt financial systems and Global Warming.

Jubilee NW Coalition and Jubilee USA work on ending Tax Havens, Vulture Funds, Debt relief for Puerto Rico. 

From JubileeUSA.org:
Jubilee Vision

We envision a world in which we have restored relations between nations and people, a true Jubilee.

We believe in a world where poverty is eliminated and all meet their basic needs. A world in which families and communities have a voice in economic policies and decisions that affect their lives.

This event is free and open to the public.