Are you renting out too much space in your head on a grievance that the other person has long forgotten? Do you have a hard time forgiving yourself? Do you have regrets? Would you like to live a healthier more resilient life with more joy and hope?
Lyndon will present an evidence-based wellness approach to the practice of forgiveness – what it is, what it is not, how to do it, and why it’s good for you and good for the world. A recent study suggests that forgiveness is good for our health on a par with quitting smoking!
Don’t miss this Forgiveness 101 discussion. You may not forgive yourself! 🙂
Lyndon Harris is a forgiveness teacher and coach, an inspirational and motivational speaker, and is co-authoring a workbook on forgiveness for people in recovery. His work at Ground Zero as priest-in-charge of Saint Paul’s Chapel (located directly across from the World Trade Center in New York City) and his personal experiences therefrom have been written about widely and featured in the award-winning documentary, “The Power of Forgiveness.”
Informal discussion and refreshments will follow the presentation.
You might call Chuck Fink an expert on mental health, at least from the other side of the couch. Chuck’s own mental health needs surfaced in his sophomore year at George Washington University and subsequently dominated his life. He considers himself fortunate to have navigated his mental health issues in a period of a relatively safe and competent mental health system. Today, those dealing with a mental health crisis and the accompanying life trauma of mental illness must find their pathway to improvement in a system that is far less helpful than the one Chuck experienced in the 70’s.
Chuck will share his journey and contrast the systems of mental health care and insurance then and now. His story is not a story of despair; it is a story of hope and recovery. He will advocate for and articulate the framework for a stronger mental health system that contains costs, while providing vital care and excellent treatment.
Chuck Fink was a corporate trainer-facilitator and organizational consultant. Upon moving to Asheville in 2008, he initiated and guided the highly successful Men’s Wisdom Works which has grown to over 15 Men’s Groups, dealing with issues related to changes in life. He is an occasional actor, frequent UNC-A OLLI instructor in comedy, film and the art of storytelling, and he presents, before audiences, his own deeply personal as well as humorous stories.
Informal discussion and refreshments will follow the presentation.
Our Constitutional order was established to be legitimated by Reason rather than Religion. The Jeffersonian “separation” of religion from government, however, could not be filled by Reason alone. A “civil religion” arose to provide a general transcendent basis for our Constitutional Republic. Both our heritage of Reason and this Civil Religion are now in grave disarray, threatened by a return to patriarchal Christianity. This talk explores the nature of this crisis and formulates some possible responses to this major challenge.
Dr. William Everett is a retired professor, of Christian social ethics, author, and accomplished woodworker. He lives in Waynesville, NC. Bill grew up in and around Washington, DC, received his undergraduate degree at Wesleyan University and completed graduate theological studies at Yale Divinity School and Harvard University. He taught for over thirty years, first at St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee, then in Atlanta at Emory’s Candler School of Theology, and finally in the Boston area at Andover Newton Theological School. His scholarly work and sabbaticals in Germany, Switzerland, India, and South Africa resulted in the publication of seven books and some fifty articles – in English and German — focused on church and society issues involving family, economics, ecology, politics, symbolism, and law.
Recent work has focused on fiction, memoir, and poetry, including Red Clay, Blood River (2008), a story told by Earth about two brothers from Germany and an enslaved South African woman whose lives bind together America’s “Trail of Tears” and South Africa’s simultaneous “Great Trek” of 1838; Turnings: Poems of Transformation (2013); and Sawdust and Soul (2015), a coauthored book of reflections on woodworking and spirituality. His earlier works, God’s Federal Republic: Reconstructing our Governing Symbol and Religion, Federalism and the Struggle for Public Life, form the theoretical basis for his reflections with us about our current constitutional crisis.
Informal discussion and refreshments will follow the presentation.
