April 2016:

Dr. Richard Cahilll, Director of International Education and Associate Professor of History, Berea College, spoke to us about the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.

Feb 2016: History of Islam in America

Dr. Matthew Pierce spoke about the History of Islam in America, including early Muslims who aided explorers of the Americas, Muslim Africans who were captured and sent as slaves to North America, and up to the 20th c. with the Nation of Islam . The autobiography of Malcolm X was highly recommended as "required reading."

Jan 2016: Peace and Peacemaking

Richard Mitchell, Quaker, Shahied Rashied, Imam, and Dr. Clayton Thyne, UK professor and Director of the Peace Studies program, led a discussion on peace and peacemaking. Mitchell and Rashied emphasized that peace starts from within, while Thyne presented statistics showing a decline in all manner of non-natural deaths.

March 2014 – “Our Blessed Earth: One Woman’s Quest for a Slower, Simpler, More Sustainable Life.”

Speaker: Nancy Sleeth, author and co-founder of Blessed Earth, a Christian environmental nonprofit.

Description – Sleeth, author of Almost Amish and co-founder of the Christian nonprofit Blessed Earth, shared how her family downsized to a house the size of their old garage, got rid of more than half of their possessions, and rediscovered the simple joys of a faith-focused life.

February 2014 – “Faithful Christian and Muslim Women as Agents of Change within Faith Communities

Event subtitle was "An Exploration of Traditional and New Ground-breaking Roles of Faithful Women within Christianity and Islam".

Description: The independent film, "Pink Smoke Over the Vatican," was shown. The film documents the ground-breaking role of women priests within the Roman Catholic Church in United States, Canada, Britain and Europe. Then a panel of Christian and Muslim women spoke on their roles as women of faith.

Panel: The Rev. Donna Rougeux and The Rev. Janice Sevre-Duszynska, ordained priests of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (www.arcwp.org/) and Dr. Nadia Rasheed of Masjid Bilal Ibn Rabah in Lexington.

July 1, 2013 – trip to Appalachia

We made a one-day tour with Fr. John Rausch, Director of Catholic Committee of Appalachia which included a visit to an Eastern Kentucky mountain top removal site as well as the beauty and inspiration of “God’s garden.”