- This event has passed.
Sunday Gathering
October 16, 2022 @ 10:00 am - 11:00 am
Michael DeWilde is one of our “regular” Guest Teachers. He is the Koeze Business Ethics Initiative Director and Professor of Management at the Seidman College of Business, Grand Valley State University. He teaches in the MBA and Executive MBA programs, with a focus on courses in ethics and leadership.
Ruth and Max Bloomquist have recently returned from another trip to France! Ruth’s award winning abilities as a songwriter and singer are accented by Max’s harmony and touch on the upright bass. With influences of folk, bluegrass, and country, they have created a heart-touching, audience-pleasing acoustic Americana that is all their own.
Sundays at the Grand Haven Community Center (Mackinaw Ballroom, 421 Columbus Ave., Grand Haven)
Masks are optional at our In-Person Gathering. The decision of whether or not to wear a mask will be up to each individual.
- 9:00 a.m. Pre-Talk: In Person
Meet the morning’s teacher in a small group setting for an open discussion of the morning’s theme. - 10:00 a.m. Gathering: In Person + Livestream on Facebook
Welcome, readings, meditation from a community member, teaching, and music - 10:00 a.m. C3 Kids: In Person (Woodbine Room)
- 11:00 a.m. Talk Back: In Person
A chance to share questions, comments, and stories related to the morning gathering.
Gathering Program
The Great Questions
Free Will and, um Not Free Will
Gathering Host: Beth Buelow
Music: Ruth and Max Bloomquist
Meditation: Margaret Willey
Moment of Silence
Music: Ruth and Max Bloomquist
Readings / Teaching: Michael DeWilde
“If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings,” said the Tralfamadorian, “I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by ‘free will.’ I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
We ought to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its antecedent state and as the cause of the state that is to follow. An intelligence knowing all the forces acting in nature at a given instant, as well as the momentary positions of all things in the universe, would be able to comprehend in one single formula the motions of the largest bodies as well as the lightest atoms in the world, provided that its intellect were sufficiently powerful to subject all data to analysis; to it nothing would be uncertain, the future as well as the past would be present to its eyes. The perfection that the human mind has been able to give to astronomy, for example, affords but a feeble outline of such an intelligence.”
― Pierre Simon de Laplace
“You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.”
― Sam Harris, Free Will
Music: Ruth and Max Bloomquist
Gathering Host: Beth Buelow
Music: Ruth and Max Bloomquist
(end)