Meeting House Report

Meeting House

Approximately 20 people attended the “Living the Election” meeting, held on Wednesday, November 5^th, at First Congregational Church.  Under the able facilitation of Stewart Burns, Director of the Center for Community Engagement at Williams College, several questions were considered and discussed.  “How do you imagine living the values this election represents for you?”, “What would our community and the nation as a whole look like for these values to predominate?”, “What are your next steps?”, What do you need us to do?”, were some of the questions discussed.  The conversations were lively, and many participants indicated an interest in continuing these discussions into the future.  There were two general interests raised at that meeting:  1) an interest in continuing these conversations about important issues; and 2) a need for channeled activism.

In a follow-up meeting, the possibility of sponsoring a speaker/discussion series was discussed that would address some “cutting edge” issues.  Topics could include civil civic discourse – collapsing political polarities, anti-racism, busy-ness (the tyranny of too much to do), neo-capitalism/consumerism/materialism, poverty, eco-justice, war, class-ism, faith and politics.  This series should be flexible and responsive.  We also acknowledge that this is not just an initiative for our church community, but for the wider community, including the college’s Office of Community Engagement.  We welcome your thoughts on this initiative.  Please feel free to e-mail Betsy Burris at betsburris@gmail.com with any thoughts or ideas.