The Process of Dying
2021-10-07 16:00 - 18:00, 2021-10-14 16:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Two Sessions Examining the Harmful Impact of Modern Views of Death and Offering Healthy Alternatives

In this two-session workshop, the Reverends Joelle Johns and Kathleen Reeves will critically examine the denial of death by medical technology, problems with the for-profit death industry, its negative impact on the environment, and offer healthy alternatives for the environment and our psyche that are based on the insights of Buddhism and process thought.

Yes, it’s that conversation, the one no one wants to have. But this one comes with a different perspective: a process and Buddhist outlook on the death industry’s impact on the environment and alternatives. Death and dying has been taken out of the hands of families and our ancestral wisdom has been lost. We don’t know how to die anymore. That often leads to painful, exhausting, and invasive but fruitless procedures from a medical industry that perceives death as failure. It leads to environmentally devastating practices that feeds a for-profit funeral industry. There is a way to reclaim our own dying, to have a good death with quality of life toward the end, and give back to the earth through green options. We also address the “Death File” and what should be included.

About the Instructors

Joelle Johns is an interfaith minister, community/hospice chaplain, certified end of life doula, and pastoral thanatologist.

Kathleen Reeves is an interfaith minister, hospice chaplain, bereavement coordinator, and death midwife.

October 7th and 14th at 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM PacificRSVP below to receive Zoom meeting information.

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If you find this workshop valuable, please consider supporting it by making a donation.

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This workshop was made possible by a collaboration between friends.

Tim Eastman Unties the Gordian Knot - Chapter 5
2021-10-09 08:00 - 10:00
In this series of conversations Tim Eastman will engage with other scholars about his new book, Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context.

In Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context, Timothy E. Eastman proposes a new creative synthesis, the Logoi framework-which is radically inclusive and incorporates both actuality and potentiality-to show how the fundamental notions of process, logic, and relations, woven with triads of input-output-context and quantum logical distinctions, can resolve a baker’s dozen of age-old philosophic problems.

Purchase from

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Bookshop.org

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering - George Strawn
2021-10-12 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Unemployment When People are Superfluous

Presenter(s): George Strawn

George O. Strawn is the director emeritus of the Board on Research Data and Information at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine where he focused on Open Science and FAIR data. He continues this work an an NAS scholar. Prior to joining the Academies, Dr. Strawn was the director of the National Coordination Office (NCO) for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program and co-chair of the NITRD interagency committee. Dr. Strawn held these positions while on leave from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Whitehouse.

Information about how to access the gathering are made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to be added to our email list to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the Institute, please click here.

Process Pop-Up: Olson and Whitehead
2021-10-13 15:00 - 17:00 | Online Event
What is a Process Pop-Up?

Process pop-ups are hour-long, informal gatherings that “pop up” occasionally, and are available to interested and curious minds. They are exploratory and open-ended, like process philosophy itself. Their subjects range from poetry to science, theology to ecology, music to biology. They are facilitated by Jay McDaniel and sponsored by the Cobb Institute.

What is this Pop-Up about?

Our theme is process and poetry though the lens of an essay on the the New England poet Charles Olson (1910-1970). He was a key member of the Black Mountain School of American Poetry (1933-1956) also one of the most philosophical poets of his generation. Olson’s poetry is heavily influenced by the process metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead. Another poet, Robin Blaser, describes the influence of Whitehead on Olson in his essay: The Violets: Charles Olson and Alfred North Whitehead (1983). This process pop-up is an informal exploration of Blaser’s essay, found on the link above and also on this page in Open Horizons: Turning Process into Poetry: Charles Olson.

When is this Pop-Up

October 6th and October 13th at 3:00 PM Pacific / 5:00 PM Central

Resources to Consider

Turning Process Into Poetry, an article on Open Horizons

Writing poetry is not simply a personal act: it is cosmological act. It is a moment-by- moment process of concrescence, inspired by breath itself, not by rules of meter and rhyme, with the outcome, the poem, a gift to the world, which is likewise in process, and which furthers the creative advance into novelty.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering - Mirian Vilela
2021-10-19 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Earth Charter’s Gifts for the Planet

Presenter(s): Mirian Vilela

Since 1996 Brazilian Mirian Vilelas has been working with the Earth Charter movement to promote the United Nations’ sustainability goals. She is now the Executive Director of the Earth Charter International Secretariat and the Center for Education for Sustainable Development at UPEACE. Earth Charter has produced many educational webinars in cooperation with EcoCiv and others. Learn more of Earth Charter’s work, including the roll out of a new Human Development Index and preparations for the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow in November.

Information about how to access the gathering are made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to be added to our email list to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the Institute, please click here.

Educational Development Meeting – Lynn De Jonghe
2021-10-25 15:00 - 16:00 | Online Event
We’re very excited that Lynn De Jonghe has agreed to join us this month to give a presentation on her forthcoming book, Starting with Whitehead: Raising Children to Thrive in Treacherous Times, to be published with Hamilton Books, a subsidiary of Rowman & Littlefield.Dr. Lynn Sargent De Jonghe has had a career in progressive education that spans more than forty years. She served as the founding Head of East Bay Sierra School, which later merged with another school to form Prospect Sierra School, to become one of the preeminent schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to her work in independent schools, Lynn spent fifteen years in public education administering federal funds to innovative programs, advocating for project learning as an alternative to textbooks, and pushing for integration in Massachusetts schools. She received her BA degree in History from Harvard University and a MS in Library Science from Simmons College before completing her PhD in Education at Cornell University. Her doctoral work on children’s problem solving led her to push for challenging educational programs that encourage all students to pursue learning in depth and to use problem solving skills, collaborative learning, and exploration of values in an integrated curriculum. More broadly she is committed to social justice, to moving society from divisiveness to compassion, and to saving the sentient and becoming-sentient life on our planet.We hope you can join us for what is sure to be a stimulating presentation by one of the process movement’s foremost experts on education.

Information about how to access our events is made available via email. To find out about this event, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to be added to our email list to receive regular updates about the Institute’s activities, please click here.

John Cobb & Friends Gathering - Ernie Tamminga
2021-10-26 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Teilhard & Whitehead—A Dialogue

Presenter(s): Ernie Tamminga

Earnie Tamminga has been a fan of Teilhard de Chardin for decades, and he also participates regularly in living room dialogues with Whitehead scholar, David Ray Griffin. Get a head start on the learning circle that Dr. Tamminga will be facilitating for the Cobb Institute next month on Teilhard’s classic work The Human Phenomenon.

Information about how to access the gathering are made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to be added to our email list to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the Institute, please click here.

Process Pop-Up: Can a Christian be a Buddhist, too?
2021-10-27 15:00 - 16:00 | Online Event
What is a Process Pop-Up?

Process pop-ups are hour-long, informal gatherings that “pop up” occasionally, and are available to interested and curious minds. They are exploratory and open-ended, like process philosophy itself. Their subjects range from poetry to science, theology to ecology, music to biology. They are facilitated by Jay McDaniel and sponsored by the Cobb Institute.

What is this Pop-Up about?

Our question is: Can a Christian be a Buddhist, Too? Process thought offers a unique way of understanding and appreciating Buddhist insights concerning impermanence, the primacy of the moment, inter-becoming, no-self, the listening side of love, and the importance of mindfulness, while also understanding and appreciating Christian understandings of God in Christ as a bodhisattva-like Great Compassion who loves each and all with a tender care that nothing be lost, and the life of discipleship as one of practicing the presence of God in daily life. In this hour we will explore the possibility that, with help from process theology, a Christian can indeed be a Buddhist, too. Our springboard for discussion and frame of reference will be Can a Christian be a Buddhist, Too? on Open Horizons.

When is this Pop-Up

October 27th at 3:00 PM Pacific / 5:00 PM Central

Resources to Consider

Can a Christian be a Buddhist, Too?, article on Open Horizons

Buddhism can help Christians become better Christians by helping them become better listeners, more sensitive to the mutual becoming of all things, more open to fresh possibilities (initial aims) for wisdom, compassion, and creativity in daily life. Yes, Christians can be Buddhists, too.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering - Richard Rose & Jan Chase
2021-11-02 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Parliament of World Religions

Presenters: Richard Rose & Jan Chase

Richard Rose and Jan Chase will share the way the Parliament of World Religions is enabling Healthy, Compassionate Communities—Interfaithfully. They have both participated in several gatherings of the Parliament, and they created presentations for the 8th Parliament, held virtually October 16-18. Learn more about “The World’s Premier Interfaith Convening Organization” at the Parliament website.

Information about how to access the gathering are made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to be added to our email list to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the Institute, please click here.

Whitehead & Jung Course
2021-11-02 16:30 - 18:00, 2021-11-09 16:30 - 18:00, 2021-11-16 16:30 - 18:00, 2021-11-23 16:30 - 18:00, 2021-11-30 16:30 - 18:00, 2021-12-07 16:30 - 18:00
In this six-session course, Dr. Sheri D. Kling will guide students through the deep resonances between the philosophy of organism of Alfred North Whitehead and analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung to show what these two great thinkers have in common and why we need them now more than ever.

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John Cobb & Friends Gathering - Damian Geddry
2021-11-09 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Google My Soul: Reaching A New Generation of Spiritual Seekers

Presenter: Damian Geddry

Damian Geddry is a marketing professional who “stumbled into Claremont School of Theology and became fascinated by the disconnect between mainstream protestant churches and their communities.” He created a series of classes, workshops and seminars that address the church disconnect by using research and marketing techniques.

Damian Geddry cut his marketing teeth at Gray Advertising in New York, one of the largest ad agencies in the world. He currently works in a Toyota digital ecosystem the intersection of advertising, social media, website, CRM, and search engine optimization. He explains why “nonprofit organizations—from mainline protestant churches to environmental groups—have a visibility challenge. They are often invisible to Google…and social media.” How can we listen before we speak? Research before we reach out? So, can you Google your soul? Let’s talk about it!

In our conversation Paul Capetz, pastor of Christ Church by the Sea, a United Methodist church in Newport Beach, will also share how he’s been applying what he’s learning from Damian.

Information about how to access the gathering are made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to be added to our email list to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the Institute, please click here.

Tim Eastman Unties the Gordian Knot - Chapter 6
2021-11-13 08:00 - 10:00

John Cobb & Friends Gathering - Thomas Jay Oord
2021-11-16 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Should Christians Be Compassionate if Their God Is Not?

Presenter: Thomas Jay Oord

This is the topic of Dr. Oord’s presentation at last month’s virtual Parliament of World Religions. Although major Christian theologians say God has no emotions, some admit that an emotionless God cannot be compassionate. But if Christians are to follow the biblical command to imitate God in love, should they not be compassionate? Explore Christian views of divine compassion in light of the Christian tradition and open and relational theology. How can the Christian God be rightly thought of as compassionate? Can Christians imitate God by fighting climate change and acting with compassion for victims?

Oord explores this in light of open and relational theology, a subject of his recent book. Learn more at his website for the Center for Open and Relational Theology. For access to his latest essays, blogs, and multiple short podcasts, see thomasjayoord.com. Oord completed his Ph.D. in religion at Claremont Graduate School under supervision of David Ray Griffin. He is an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene.

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the 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.

Teilhard de Chardin Learning Circle
2021-11-17 15:00 - 16:00, 2021-12-01 15:00 - 16:00, 2021-12-14 08:30 - 09:30
Facilitated by Dr. Ernie Tamminga, this discussion group will evaluate how (and whether) Teilhard de Chardin’s hope-filled perspective on the human evolutionary future can still inspire us in a time full of conflicts and division. We begin with a facilitated study of his masterwork, The Human Phenomenon. (Its title was originally translated into English as The Phenomenon of Man, back when it was common to refer to humanity as “Man.” That has been corrected in more recent editions of the book.)

What is a learning circle?

Learning circles are small groups that share a common interest in a topic, text, or activity. In a mode that is informal and conversational, they are typically made up of five to fifteen people who gather together to learn from one another. A learning circle might be a book study group that only explores a single text, or an affinity group that meets for an indefinite period of time.

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International Forum on Process Poetry
2021-11-19 17:00 - 20:00, 2021-11-20 17:00 - 20:00
What Are Poets For in the Age of Ecological CivilizationThe Contributions of Process Poetry

The purpose of the Forum is to bring together creative process poets and process thinkers from US, China, Russia, Europe, and other countries to share their poems as well as their understanding of process poetry. These poems invite us into a process of being aware and mindful, open and caring, self-confident and free. They invite us to imagine communities of love and wonder, kindness and creativity. Through poetry we explore the possibilities for building what we call compassionate communities and an ecological civilization. We are capable of changing our world, but first we must imagine together.

Distinguished Speakers

Dr. John B. Cobb, Jr.Dr. Jay McDanielBai YaProf. Xiaohua WangDr. Andrew Schwartz

Master of Ceremonies: Kathleen Reeves

Kathleen Reeves has been writing poetry all her life and she weaves her deepest feelings into poems. For her, it is healing and creative at the same time. You can find her poetry published in The Huffington Post, Poetry Quarterly, Rivers Poets Journal, Lullwater Review, C.G. Jung Journal: Psychological Perspectives, and the Altadena Poetry review Anthology 2017.

To receive the Zoom meeting information, click on the “Going” button, enter your name and email, and click “Finish.”

This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Postmodern Development of China, Cobb Institute, Center for Process Studies, and China Society for Process Poetry.

John Cobb & Friends Gathering - Sam Mickey
2021-11-23 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Integrating Ecology and Justice in a Changing Climate

Presenter: Sam Mickey

Dr. Mickey is adjunct professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of San Francisco. He’s been studying ecological wisdom at the intersection of religion, ecology, and philosophy. He also has taught at Dominican University of California, Pacifica Graduate Institute, and the California Institute of Integral Studies. As a Research Associate for the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, he has worked with the Journey of the Universe project, and he has done much editorial work. In 2020 he co-edited with Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim Living Earth Community: Multiple Ways of Being and Knowing (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers; Download a PDF version here) He also edited Integrating Ecology and Justice in a Changing Climate (San Francisco: University of San Francisco Press, 2020). You can listen to a recording of an October launch event for this book here. His book, On the Verge of a Planetary Civilization: A Philosophy of Integral Ecology (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2014), engages the process thinking of Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, Catherine Keller, and others.

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the 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 - Elizabeth McAnally
2021-11-30 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Loving Water Across Religions

Presenter: Elizabeth McAnally

Elizabeth McAnally, PhD is the author of Loving Water across Religions: Contributions to an Integral Water Ethic (Orbis Press, Ecology and Justice series, 2019). She lives in Berkeley, CA, and works as the newsletter editor and website manager for the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. She also manages the websites for Thomas Berry and the Great Work, Journey of the Universe, the American Teilhard Association, and the Institute for Religion and Science. Elizabeth earned her doctorate at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and has taught classes on philosophy, religion, and environmental ethics at Pacifica Graduate Institute, the University of North Texas, the University of San Francisco, and Diablo Valley College. She practices yoga and Chinese internal arts (taiji, qigong, bagua, xingyi, and yiquan) and teaches Integral Taiji & Qigong classes in Berkeley and online. Elizabeth is also an avid musician and enjoys singing and playing the flute.

In addition to the link to her book on this week’s topic, she suggests you explore the following links:

“Loving Water Across Religions.” Spotlights interview with Sam Mickey. January 18, 2021. “Integral Water Ethic.” Deep Water Initiative Podcast with Charlie Forbes. March 10, 2019.Integral Taiji & Qigong classes and videos.

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the 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 - Celebrating the Gifts of John Gingrich
2021-12-07 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Celebrating the Gifts of John Gingrich

On December 8, 2020 we were shocked to learn of the untimely death of Dr. John Gingrich, who served as Chairman of the Board in the Cobb Institute’s first year. We were blessed to have his leadership in formative stages of the Institute. This former student of John Cobb served the University of La Verne for 37 years—as Campus Minister, then Department Chair and Division Chair, Professor of Religion and Philosophy, and from 1987 through 2004 as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. To access a brief video tribute scroll to the bottom of the webpage about Our Team. An obituary can be found here. With his wife Jacki Gingrich and others who knew him well, we will celebrate John’s gifts of spirituality, the arts, and education, all informed by process theology.

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the 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.

Tim Eastman Unties the Gordian Knot: Chapter 7
2021-12-11 08:00 - 10:00

John Cobb & Friends Gathering - Callid Keefe-Perry
2021-12-14 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Engaging the Optative: Misplaced Concreteness, Changing the Future, and the Power of Imagination

Presenter: Callid Keefe-Perry

Dr. Callid (rhymes with “salad”) Keefe-Perry is Assistant Professor of Contextual Education and Public Theology at Boston College’s School for Theology and Ministry. His teaching and research orbit around explorations of imagination, spirituality, and education as sites of individual and social formation. Before Keefe-Perry’s career in the academy, he was a public school teacher and worked in leadership for several arts-based non-profits. He was the primary architect of the 2017 merger that became ARC: Arts | Religion | Culture. His first book, Way to Water: A Theopoetics Primer, details the academic history of the field of theopoetics, arguing for its utility in contemporary Christian congregational life. Currently he serves as the assistant director of the Religion and Education Collaborative and is the Senior Editor for the Journal of the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies (ARTS). Confessionally, Keefe-Perry’s outlook is greatly shaped by The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), especially streams of that tradition emphasizing Christocentric mysticism. He is a Member of Fresh Pond Meeting; a host of the worship experiment, Three Rivers; and an endorsed public Traveling Minister within and beyond his denomination.

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the 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 - Christina Hutchins
2021-12-21 10:00 - 12:00 | Online Event
Topic: Varieties of Divine Enfleshment

Presenter: Christina Hutchins

Dr. Hutchins was with us during Holy Week, and she’s returning as we approach Christmas to share poetry on an incarnation theme.

Find more about Christina Hutchins—prize-winning poet, process philosopher/theologian, teacher/workshop leader, speaker/retreat facilitator—at her website. Here is an excerpt:

“Christina lives in Albany, California, where she served as the first poet laureate, teaches private workshops, and offers individual craft consultations. She has worked as a biochemist, a Congregational (UCC) minister, and has taught process theology, philosophies of beauty and critique, and courses on poetry and theological imagination at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. She holds a B.S. in Biochemistry from University of California at Davis, an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School, and an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. While at Harvard, she twice won the Billings Preaching Prize, was named the top graduate as the Thayer Scholar of Divinity, and was elected by her peers to deliver the graduation address.”

Explore a treasure trove of her poems here. You might also check out Jay McDaniel’s podcast interview with this insightful poet/pastor/theologian.

Information about how to access each gathering is made available via email. To find out about a single meeting, send an email to events@cobb.institute. If you would like to receive regular meeting announcements and updates about the 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.
