We must turn our attention to finding a new Director of Lifespan Religious Education, and to that end, the Board of Trustees has commissioned a DLRE Search Team to work with Reverend Eileen to find a worthy and qualified candidate for the position.  Team members are Sue Larson, chair, Susan Comstock, Dan Solomon, and Chris Yoo.  They have already met with Eileen and have started the process to identify and evaluate potential candidates.  There are already several applicants in process.

The focus of the Team will be to find someone who is highly motivated to collaborate on quality religious education that highlights intergenerational activities, an excellent children’s curriculum, open and ongoing youth and young adult groups, and highly relevant and inspiring adult education programming.

DLRE Search Team members would like to meet with congregants to learn more about what you love about liberal religious education for children, youth, young adults and all adults! Please contact one or more of us.

Click here to read more.

Suggestions for your reading pleasure and enlightenment over the summer – fill in some of
those blank spots we all have in understanding American history.

Despite the Best Intentions: How Racial Inequality Thrives in Good Schools

By John Diamond and Amanda Lewis

On the surface, Riverview High School looks like the post-racial ideal.  Serving an enviably affluent, diverse, and liberal district, the school is well-funded, its teachers are well-trained and many of its students are high-achieving.  Yet Riverview has not escaped the same unrelenting question that plagues schools throughout America: why is it that even when all the circumstances seem right, black and Latino students continue to lag behind their peers?

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration

By Isobel Wilkerson

“Over the course of six decades, some six million black southerners left the land of their forefathers and fanned out across the country for an uncertain existence in nearly every other corner of America. The Great Migration would become a turning point in history. It would transform urban America and recast the social and political order of every city it touched. …It grew out of the unmet promises made after the Civil War and, through the sheer weight of it, helped push the country towards the civil rights revolutions of the 1960s.”

This is a GREAT book.  It reads like a novel, sweeps you along, and opens up unknown lives.

Family Properties

By Beryl Satter

The “promised land” for thousands of Southern blacks, postwar Chicago quickly became the most segregated city in the North, due to a very intentional, institutionalized system of legal and financial exploitation.  Satter, the daughter of a man who was at the same time a landlord holding some slum properties and a lawyer representing black clients who were victimized by the contract buying system, is able to describe the mechanisms, pressures and terror employed to keep blacks and whites from living comparable lives.  When you read in the June 6, 2019 Tribune that there is a 30 year variance in life expectancy for people living in Chicago’s Streeterville and those 9 miles away in Englewood, this book provides part of the explanation.

Search committee pdf

Ministerial Search Committee Bios

As Mary’s last day approaches, we still have time to express our gratitude to her, and to share our sadness at seeing her go.  We will grieve this loss, individually and together, for some time.  Mary is a gem!!!  Join us on Saturday, June 29th at 5pm for a potluck and goodbye party for Mary.

But we must also turn our attention to finding a new Director of Lifespan Religious Education, and to that end, the Board of Trustees has commissioned a DLRE Search Team to work with Reverend Eileen to find a worthy and qualified candidate for the position.  Team members are Sue Larson, chair, Susan Comstock, Dan Solomon, and Chris Yoo.  They have already met with Eileen and have started the process to identify and evaluate potential candidates.  There are already several applicants in process.

The focus of the Team will be to find someone who is highly motivated to collaborate on quality religious education that highlights intergenerational activities, an excellent children’s curriculum, open and ongoing youth and young adult groups, and highly relevant and inspiring adult education programming.

DLRE Search Team members would like to meet with congregants to learn more about what you love about liberal religious education for children, youth, young adults, and all adults! There are two listening sessions coming up for you to attend and share your thoughts and ideas with Team representatives.

1. Sunday, June 9^th, from 11:30 to 12:30 in Room 6
2. Wednesday, June 12^th, from 7:30 to 8:30 in Room 13

Please come and join the discussion about our beloved RE program!

Click here to read more.