dual personalities

Friday at last–what a long week it has been! The highlight of mine was when daughter #1 came home Wednesday night because she had business in town on Thursday.

That was a fun, but short, diversion for me! Nothing like a mid-week wine & gab session.

A quiet weekend of puttering is fine with me. Hopefully we will see the wee babes for our usual Sunday night family dinner.

Miss Lottie looks so grown up with her four teeth!

The wee bud says, “I have a tooth too!”

I will note one historical milestone happening this weekend: Saturday is the anniversary of the dedication ceremonies of the New County Meeting House of the Ethical Society of St. Louis (designed by Harris Armstrong) in 1965.

The Ethical Society of St. Louis was organized in 1886 under the leadership of Walter L. Sheldon. Meetings, services and Sunday School were conducted in the Museum of Fine Arts at Nineteenth and Locust streets, where social and settlement work projects were also instituted. Under Sheldon’s direction the Self-Culture Hall Association came into being. (“Self-Culture”?) After his death, members of the Ethical Society erected the Sheldon Memorial in his name in 1912 and it served as the society’s meeting place until the move to the new Mid-Century Modern structure. In its heyday speakers such as Margaret Mead, Thurgood Marshall, R. Buckminster Fuller, Norman Cousins and Martha Gellhorn spoke from its stage and the St. Louis Chapter of the League of Women Voters was founded in The Sheldon’s Green Room. The Sheldon is now a concert venue and art gallery.Today the Ethical Society, located in an upscale neighborhood in west county, offers “Sunday School” and nursery school for children and adult education classes on various topics including a book of the month club, chorus, discussion on current events, ethical circles, ethical mindfulness meditation and other discussion groups. A Humanist congregation, they “affirm human dignity, celebrate reason, and work together for social change.” It is a “place where people come together to explore the biggest questions of life without reference to scripture, religion, or God.”

I see from their Instagram that their congregation appears to be as old and gray as any mainline Christian group. LOL.

Phooey!

Well, in honor of the ethical humanists, I will go to church on Sunday and to our Annual Meeting.

(It is interesting to note that the Church of the Immacolata, located across the street from the Ethical Society and built two years later, chose this scripture for their cornerstone:

In your face, ethical humanists!

Have a great weekend!

*”All Hail the Power of Jesus Name” by Edward Perronet (1779)