The Plowshares Book Group will lead a discussion of The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity by Nadine Burke Harris, M.D. at two meetings. Counseling Center therapist, Andrea Juarez, will share an introduction to the Counseling Center and share her thoughts on childhood stressors and traumas. | Register | Questions | Join on Zoom
Plowshares Book Club will discuss “Common Ground: Talking About Gun Violence in America” by Donald Gaffney, pastor, Sandy Hook alumnus, and gun owner, who encourages honest conversation and offers a way forward for those who wish to work for a common solution. Sign up
“How can we as people of faith reconcile the call to participate in God’s ongoing struggle for justice while not losing our souls to hatred? How can we love our enemies in this time? Scott Black Johnston believes that there is a way to pursue this difficult work and that people of faith can light the way. He encourages us to recommit to our highest principles —our virtues —and to turn hearts poisoned by cynicism into instruments of love.” Plowshares has selected “Elusive Grace” for the Winter 2024 book read/discussion. The author, Scott Black Johnston, is Senior Pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. He’s also a friend of Pen Peery, and accepted Pen’s invitation to join our group via Zoom from 1-1:30 p.m. during our event! We’ll begin after Worship with lunch and table discussion in P212 Frances Browne Dining Room. Register
Our book club's selection for April is "Unexampled Courage: The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of America" by Richard Gergel. At the event, we will welcome a very special guest: the book's author, Judge Richard Gergel, who is a US district judge appointed by President Obama. The book details how one event changed the course of America's civil rights history. "On February 12, 1946, Sergeant Isaac Woodard, a returning, decorated African American veteran, was removed from a Greyhound bus in Batesburg, South Carolina, after he challenged the bus driver’s disrespectful treatment of him. Woodard, in uniform, was arrested by the local police chief, Lynwood Shull, and beaten and blinded while in custody. President Harry Truman was outraged by the incident. He established the first presidential commission on civil rights and his Justice Department filed criminal charges against Shull. In July 1948, following his commission’s recommendation, Truman ordered an end to segregation in the U.S. armed forces. An all-white South Carolina jury acquitted Shull, but the presiding judge, J. Waties Waring, was conscience-stricken by the failure of the court system to do justice by the soldier. Waring described the trial as his “baptism of fire,” and began issuing […]
