Cobb Institute

Learning Circle: Process Thought 101: Process-Relational Philosophy
2024-10-28 08:30 - 09:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Online Event
Probing Process-Relational Worldviews For Newcomers

Want to learn more about process thought? Join our learning circle, as we read and discuss together various essays and books on important themes to process thought. Our reflections will be guided by the Twenty Key Ideas of Process Thought.

Like many of you I do not have a formal background in process thought. My seminary program did not include readings in process theology. However, through various offerings from the Cobb Institute and Process and Faith and Open Horizons I have received a good and welcome introduction to process thought. My interest has grown with my increased knowledge of process. My hope is that this learning circle with provide a place for those of you, like me, who are new to process to read and discuss the books and essays of process theologians and philosophers.

The focus in our next round will be C. Robert Mesle’s Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead. This short book covers a lot of territory and provides an excellent overview of Whitehead’s thinking.

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Learning Circle: Process & Coffee
2024-10-31 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-11-07 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-11-14 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-11-21 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-11-28 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-12-05 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-12-12 08:00 - 09:00, 2024-12-19 08:00 - 09:00
Process & Coffee is about spiritual integration and exploration. We meet weekly to dive into books by mystics and sages. The discussion that follows helps to deepen our own spiritual lives.

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Living Earth Youth Dialogues: The Living Earth Community and the Human Soul
2024-11-01 18:00 - 19:30 | Online Event
In this workshop, Oliver Mesmer will explore what it means to be a part of a living community of sentient beings—a community of many species within the diverse kingdoms of life. His presentation will focus on what he has learned in his research with the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology on topics such as the differentiated sentience of the more-than-human world, as well as ecological spirituality. Oliver will invite us into a discussion on how we might orient our perception, our actions, and even our lives around the paradigm that we each inhabit a particular niche within a global interdependent ecosystem.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Layman Pascal
2024-11-05 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: Metamodern Spirituality and Archaic Futurism

Presenters: Layman Pascal

Layman Pascal is the facilitator of the Metamodern Spirituality Labs that last week’s guest, Brendan Graham Dempsey, hosts at Sky Meadow. In May, 2024 Layman curated an experiential, interactive presentation on the topic of “Archaic Futurism” for the ICON Conference in Denver. For our Cobb and Friends gathering, he’d like to expand on this topic and bring it to a process-oriented audience. His presenter information for that conference describes him this way: “Layman Pascal used to be a Canadian meditation teacher, yoga instructor & philosopher of Integral Metatheory, but he’s feeling much better now.” He does things like: lead the Metamodern Spirituality Retreats, host the Integral Stage podcast, and provide unique online courses. Layman specializes in metashamanics, the metaphysics of adjacency, nondualist theology, developmental theory, sacred naturalism, psychotechnologies, and cultivating human religious instincts suited to a post-postmodern civilization facing numerous accelerating and converging crises. He is also the author of Gurdjieff for a Time Between Worlds: Hyperpersonal Essays on the Grandfather of Metamodern Spirituality, published by Sky Meadow Press.

Layman has also conversed with/interviewed a number of important voices in our process community, including Matt Segall and Andrew Davis. A portion of our Cobb & Friends conversation will include a brief interview by Jared Morningstar, Communications Director serving the Cobb Institute and the Center for Process Studies.

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If you experience any difficulty with the RSVP, please send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular announcements and updates about activities and events at the Cobb Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Certificate Program 2024 Commencement
2024-11-12 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: Certificate Program 2024 Commencement

Presenters: Certificate Program Leadership, Faculty, and Participants

Since its inception, the Cobb Institute has provided a number of compelling and fascinating educational offerings. In our Learning Lab, as we sometimes call it, we’ve conducted a wide variety of experiments, all with the aim of transforming education for ecological civilization. Whitehead once said, “What education has to impart is an intimate sense for the power of ideas, for the beauty of ideas, and for the structure of ideas, together with a particular body of knowledge which has peculiar reference to the life of the being possessing it.” As important as ideas are, the impact they have on our lives is equally if not more vital. Indeed, we offer an approach to learning that seeks to bring about transformations in both our students and the worlds they inhabit: from value-free research to personal growth; from isolated learners to learners-in-community; from attachment to dogmatic ideologies to openness to evidence; from gaining knowledge as mere data to knowledge as wisdom nourished by multiple ways of knowing; and from the primacy of analysis to the primacy of creative synthesis and embodied discovery.

The Cobb Institute’s most ambitious educational offering is the Certificate Program in Process Thought & Practice. The program provides an occasion for students to learn about the great diversity of process philosophies and the many ways in which those ideas can be expressed in everyday life. It begins with a general introduction to process thought and ends with an opportunity to creatively and concretely express what participants have learned. In between students participate in courses covering Whitehead’s philosophy of organism, major religious traditions, the complex landscape of ecological civilization, and the relevance of Whitehead’s cosmology to the natural sciences. 15 students recently completed the 2024 program, and for our gathering this week, we will take a break from our usual format to host their commencement ceremony. During our time together, we’ll hear from the program dean and the faculty members about their experience, the graduates will each give a brief presentation on their capstone synthesis and springboard projects, and we’ll take a brief look at what’s on the horizon for the 2025 program.

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If you experience any difficulty with the RSVP, please send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular announcements and updates about activities and events at the Cobb Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

Learning Circle: Labor & Creativity
2024-11-12 16:00 - 18:00, 2024-11-19 16:00 - 18:00, 2024-11-26 16:00 - 18:00, 2024-12-03 16:00 - 18:00, 2024-12-10 16:00 - 18:00, 2024-12-17 16:00 - 18:00, 2025-01-07 16:00 - 18:00, 2025-01-14 16:00 - 18:00 and 1 more date | Online Event
Reading and Reflecting on A. F. Pomeroy’s Integrative Perspective on Marx and Whitehead

This 9-week learning circle provides a discussion-based study of Anne Fairchild Pomeroy’s text Marx and Whitehead, which systematically links Whitehead’s process-relational philosophy to Marx’s dialectical critique of political economy, identifying deep resonances between the two in order to develop a pathway for the vital integration of these two great thinkers into a more comprehensive perspective.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Rolla Lewis and Mary Elizabeth Moore
2024-11-19 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: Cultivating Beloved Communities in Divided Times

Presenters: Rolla Lewis and Mary Elizabeth Moore

The Cobb & Friends session will invite participants to reflect on their own lives and those of others in small groups and all together. We will especially focus on the presence of cosmic Life and its potential for cultivating beloved communities and the thriving of life in individuals, local communities, and the universe, even in the hardest of times.

The two leaders of this session have long experience in leading reflective processes in groups seeking to know themselves and the world in a deeper way, and to contribute to creative transformation.

Rolla Lewis is the primary leader. He is the 2024 Dean of the Cobb Institute Certificate Program and Professor Emeritus of Educational Psychology at California State University East Bay. He is author of Lifescaping Practices in School Communities and co-author of What Is the Color of Your Heart: A Humanist Approach to Diversity. Rolla identifies himself as an advocate in public education, a builder of eco-relational understandings, and a researcher seeking to enhance schools, student learning, and wellness.

Mary Elizabeth Moore is co-leader. She is Chair of the Cobb Institute and Dean Emerita and Professor Emerita of the Boston University School of Theology. Among her books are Teaching from the Heart, Teaching as a Sacramental Act, and a recent book of poetry, So Much to Love, So Much to Lose. Her passion is to work with others toward tikkun olam, repair of the world.

* John B. Cobb, Jr., “Cosmic life,” in D. Bartosch, A. Grandpierre, and B. Peng (Eds.), Towards a philosophy of cosmic life: New discussions and interdisciplinary views (Singapore: Springer Nature 2023), 9-16.

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If you experience any difficulty with the RSVP, please send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular announcements and updates about activities and events at the Cobb Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Tze-Ki Hon
2024-11-26 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: Yijing and Process Cosmology

Presenters: Tze-Ki Hon

Dr. Tze-ki Hon, a long-time scholar of contemporary interpretations and readings of the Yijing (The Changes in Our Times), was one of the lecturers at the recent celebration of the 100th anniversary of Alfred North Whitehead’s arrival at Harvard. He will discuss with us the topic of that lecture, “Yijing and Process Cosmology.”

Dr. Hon currently serves as the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College (UIC). After obtaining his bachelor’s degree from the University of Hong Kong, he pursued further studies in the United States, earning a master’s degree from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Over the past twenty-plus years, he has taught at Hanover College in Indiana (1992-1996), SUNY Geneseo (1996-2016), and City University of Hong Kong (2017-2021). Professor Hon specializes in the study of the Yijing (I Ching), Chinese cultural history, modern intellectual history, and the transmission of Chinese classics to the West. He has published three books: The Yijing and Chinese Politics (2005), Revolution as Restoration (2013), The Allure of the Nation (2015); and co-authored Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes) (2014) with Geoffrey Redmond, which instructs Westerners on how to read the I Ching. He has also edited six volumes of collected papers, including Confucianism for the Contemporary World (2017), Cold War Cities (2021), and The Other Yijing (2022). His papers appear in journals such as the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Modern China, Monumenta Serica, and the Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies.

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If you experience any difficulty with the RSVP, please send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular announcements and updates about activities and events at the Cobb Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

John Cobb & Friends Gathering: David Rosen, Osman Örs, and Sheri Kling
2024-12-03 09:00 - 11:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: Relational Abrahamic Faiths

Presenters: David Rosen, Osman Örs, and Sheri D. Kling, PhD

Several locations around the world have taken concrete steps toward interreligious understanding and relationship by creating communities of faith that house all three Abrahamic traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The House of One in Berlin, Germany and the Abrahamic Family House on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi are two such communities. Each has its own unique way of approaching its mission.

Seeking to learn more, Sheri Kling, director of Process & Faith, reached out to invite a representative from each community to join her in this presentation to the Cobb & Friends gathering. Rabbi David Rosen and Imam Osman Örs readily agreed. They’ll share highlights and images from their communities and discuss the joys and challenges they’ve experienced. Dr. Kling will facilitate the conversation.

Speakers

David Rosen serves as Special Interfaith Advisor to the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi. Rosen has been advancing understanding and good relations between religious communities for more than forty years – from the time he served as rabbi of the largest Orthodox Jewish congregation in South Africa, during his tenure as Chief Rabbi of Ireland; and throughout the last more than thirty years based in Jerusalem. In addition to interreligious representation and education, his work involves mediation and peace building and he is heavily involved in multi-religious engagement on ecological issues. Among the various awards and recognition he has received, Rabbi Rosen was granted a papal Knighthood in 2005 for his contribution to Jewish-Catholic reconciliation and in 2010 he was made a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) by H.M. Queen Elizabeth II for his work promoting interfaith understanding and cooperation.

Osman Örs holds a Masters Degree (M.A.) in Islamic Sciences, Education, and Anglistics from George-August University in Göttingen, Germany. Since 2015, he has worked as a theological advisor and imam at the House of One Foundation in Berlin. He also collaborates with Demokratie Leben in combating antisemitism and racism, conducts educational workshops, and addresses theological and liturgical aspects of interreligious unity at the House of One. In addition to his work at the House of One, Osman Örs is involved in various community roles. He has been a member of the coordinating committee of the Berlin Forum of Religions since 2016 and is a charter member of the Council of Imams of Berlin since 2021. Osman Örs is committed to fostering interfaith dialogue and combating discrimination in Berlin’s religious communities.

Sheri D. Kling, Ph.D., is the director of Process & Faith with the Center for Process Studies and interim minister of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Bradenton, FL. Sheri earned her Ph.D. in Religion: Process Studies from Claremont School of Theology. She is a theologian, songwriter, and spiritual mentor, as well as a faculty member of the Haden Institute, adjunct faculty with Claremont School of Theology, and the author of A Process Spirituality: Christian and Transreligious Resources for Transformation. She regularly delivers dynamic “Music & Message” presentations to groups, and offers courses, concerts, and spiritual retreats. She may be found online at sherikling.com.

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This event is co-sponsored by

If you experience any difficulty with the RSVP, please send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular announcements and updates about activities and events at the Cobb Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Jo Paz Dominguez
2024-12-10 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: Make Turtle Island Indigenous Again: Regenerating Land, Identity, and Community

Presenters: Jo Paz Dominguez

Jo Paz (he/they) is an Indigenous community advocate, organizer, and trauma informed facilitator whose work is rooted in the belief that healing—both personal and collective—is a journey of interconnectedness. Guided by decolonial and regenerative principles, Jo emphasizes relational well-being, racial equity, and hyperlocal, place-based strategies that honor the wisdom of the land and community self-determination.

Jo summarizes the conversation they’ll have with Cobb and Friends this way:

What if the way forward is not forward at all, but a turning back to the land, to the stories it whispers, and to the cracks in the systems that hold us captive? In this workshop, we will lean into the wisdom of the Peoplehood Matrix and decolonial placekeeping, unraveling how the entanglements of land, language, history, and ceremony shape who we are and who we might yet become. This is not about fixing a broken world, but about befriending its brokenness with compassion, nurturing the soil of community, and listening deeply to ancestral wisdom. Together, we will name and weave our collective care, dreaming strategies for liberation that honor the land, disrupt the systems we inhabit, and welcome the impossible. What does it mean to truly belong, to truly thrive? Let’s ask the land—and each other.

Here are a few links showcasing Jo’s engagement in community building in the Los Angeles area.

Meet the Outreach Workers Working to End Homelessness

Protesters call on Garcetti to find shelter for 1,000 homeless women

Everyone In – Meet Elyse and Joseph

L.A.’s homeless agency faces calls to dissolve ties with police

Our Land, Our Voice

First Residential Community Land Trust Project in East Los Angeles

Crenshaw Mall Redevelopment Plan Health Impact Assessment

Green Pets Program – Caring for Mother Earth

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If you experience any difficulty with the RSVP, please send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular announcements and updates about activities and events at the Cobb Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

John Cobb & Friends Gathering: Sheri Kling
2024-12-17 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Via Zoom
Topic: A Season of Darkness and Light

Presenters: Sheri D. Kling

Cosmologically, this period of late fall marks the increase in hours of darkness until the winter solstice when the hours of light begin to make a return. Many religions have major holidays during this period. For some, the period of darkness is not feared but is celebrated as a time of rest and renewal or of waiting in a kind of pregnant pause. Most celebrate the increase in light and see this turning of the season as the welcome return of the energies of rebirth and growth.

In this Cobb & Friends gathering, Dr. Sheri Kling, director of Process & Faith, will introduce some of the major holidays in late fall and early winter, noting their significance in each tradition. We’ll look at Diwali, Advent, Hanukkah, St. Lucia Day, Winter Solstice, Christmas, Epiphany, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve, and Lunar New Year.

Sheri D. Kling, Ph.D., is the director of Process & Faith with the Center for Process Studies and interim minister of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Bradenton, FL. Sheri earned her Ph.D. in Religion: Process Studies from Claremont School of Theology. She is a theologian, songwriter, and spiritual mentor, as well as a faculty member of the Haden Institute, adjunct faculty with Claremont School of Theology, and the author of A Process Spirituality: Christian and Transreligious Resources for Transformation. She regularly delivers dynamic “Music & Message” presentations to groups, and offers courses, concerts, and spiritual retreats. She may be found online at sherikling.com.

To receive the Zoom info for this gathering, click the Going button and enter your name and email.

This event is co-sponsored by

If you experience any difficulty with the RSVP, please send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular announcements and updates about activities and events at the Cobb Institute, please join our list of Friends.

Can’t make it to the live session? Click here to access our archive of Cobb & Friends recordings.

Course: Introduction to Process-Relational Thought & Practice 2025
2025-01-22 17:00 - 18:30, 2025-01-29 17:00 - 18:30, 2025-02-05 17:00 - 18:30 | Online Event
Discovering Dynamic Ideas for a Relational Life

This 6-week course provides an introduction to the process tradition by examining key ideas in Whitehead’s philosophy, exploring some general ideas that flow from his philosophy, and considering applications of these ideas in personal life and community development.

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Renewing Faith Online Conference
2025-01-23 15:00 - 2025-01-25 13:30
Process & Faith invites you on a sacred online journey to renew your faith and explore how we live into process and open & relational theology together. Let’s bring more beauty into our Christian paths!

During this multi-day online event, we’ll explore several core themes of Christian faith—not academically, but in “big conversations” and practices.

Renewing Faith: A Call for Reimagination and Renewal

Renewing God: Deep Listening, Creativity, Transformation

Renewing Jesus: Atonement, Salvation

Renewing Message: Preaching, Scripture

Renewing Worship: Liturgy, Creeds, Sacraments, Aesthetics

Renewing Spirit: Practices, Religious Experience

Renewing Community: Education, Outreach, Service

We’re going to do our best to not be all heady about it, but actually drop down deeper—into our bodies and souls! It’ll be online, so body and soul can join from home.

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