Susan Brotherton PES member & Temple University School of Social Work faculty member Susan is the former director of Philadelphia Social Services for the Salvation Army. Prior to that position she served as the director of trauma informed services for the Red Shield family residence, an emergency housing program serving Philadelphia families. Susan will speak to the [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society To welcome spring, let’s celebrate rebirth both in nature and in the human spirit. Share your favorite poem about spring, renewal, and awakening. Those fully-vaccinated and boosted are welcome to join in-person at 1906 S. Rittenhouse Square. Please wear a mask indoors (N-95). OR You can join here online [...]

Shelia Murnaghan University of Pennsylvania Homer’s Iliad primarily celebrates male heroism on the battlefield. However, the poem also raises women’s voices, especially through the genre of lament. Sheila Murnaghan, the Allen Memorial Professor of Greek, at Penn, explores the distinctive perspectives of the Iliad’s women on heroic values and gender relations in wartime. Murnaghan’s research [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society Richard Kiniry (1943-2019) served the Philadelphia Ethical Society for 20 years.  He was a beloved self-described curmudgeon and a philosopher.  Though thoroughly naturalistic and deeply skeptical, Richard promoted Ethical Humanism as a religious response to a broken world.  In preparation for a celebration of Richard's life on April 15, [...]

Anne Klaeysen New York Society for Ethical Culture Today is Easter Sunday, a reminder that belief in the power of miracles can change lives.  This is also National Poetry Month, a celebration of the comparable power of poetry.  As poet Jane Hirshfield put it, "Poetry is the attempt to understand fully what is real, what [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society Many who adopt a naturalistic, rational perspective to life feel uncomfortable acting on anything other than evidence and reason. Ethical Culture does not dabble in supernaturalism; and leaning too hard into the irrational is unwise.  Yet some aspects of experience that exist beyond reason enrich our lives.  Think of [...]

Camp Linden Committee Philadelphia Ethical Society The Children's Summer Program at Camp Linden, the Society's major community-service project, introduces inner­city children to the wonders of nature through a program of environmental education and swimming at our property in rural Chester County. Learn about its impact and experience highlights of our engaging environmental curriculum. Retrieve nectar [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society May Day brings to mind both maypole dancers and Soviet-era military parades. Most who celebrate May 1 rejoice in nature and the imminence of summer. But others associate the day with the movement for economic justice by socialist and labor organizations. Hugh examines the holiday’s dual origins. What lessons [...]

Melissa Feinberg Rutgers University-New Brunswick Usually equated in the West with tyranny, Communism in Eastern Europe was rife with seeming contradictions. The system censored books but also ended illiteracy. Finding bananas in a store was almost impossible; yet the average person had more to eat than ever. Feinberg, chair of the Rutgers-New Brunswick history department, [...]

Hugh Taft-Morales Leader, Philadelphia Ethical Society The human race is confounded by our stubborn reliance on patterns of behavior that don’t work. Doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results is insane. Yet despite the unceasing harm caused by poverty and war, we continue to rely on capitalism to provide for us [...]