Classes

Reflection by Chris Highland

Classes with Chris Highland

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Earth Congregations:  Nature as Classroom and Sanctuary

Cherry Hill Seminary (online course)

Spring 2012

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Survey of Chaplaincy

Cherry Hill Seminary (online course)

Fall 2011

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Interfaith Ministry with Homeless Persons (Masters Workshop)

Chaplaincy Institute, Berkeley

December 9, 2010

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Online Masters Degree Courses with Cherry Hill Seminary

Fall 2010:

John Muir and Walt Whitman: Poetry and Politics of Nature

Spring 2011:

A Place to Belong:  Homelessness as the Search for Home

(cancelled)

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“Interfaith Chaplaincy:  Compassion on the Edges” (with Chaplain Paul Gaffney), Golden Gate District Leadership Day at Temple UMC, SF, on Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010.

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“Working with Marginalized Persons,” Chaplaincy Institute, Berkeley, CA (December, 2009)

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“Nature, Human Nature, and the Seeds of American Freethinking.”

Reformers, writers and social critics Frances Wright, Margaret Fuller and Walt Whitman were early voices in American history addressing the major gender, slavery and religious questions clearly and forcefully.  Each stood in the revolutionary tradition of Thomas Paine and his troublesome brand of common sense reasoning.  Whitman, brought up in a family of freethinkers, was stirred by Wright’s rhetoric to comment, “She was a brilliant woman. . .we all loved her; fell down before her.”  Fuller, called the mother of the women’s movement in America, was also a poet, editor and friend of Emerson. This course will re-discover these three in the context of their time with particular emphasis on their rational naturalism and  philosophical insurgency, drawing out lessons that address the most pressing social and intellectual issues of our time.  

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“The Green God: Paths Toward a New Environmental Creed.”

Explorations in the numerous writings of John Muir and John Burroughs as representatives of a radical environmental ethic developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth Centuries.  Their lives and work will be placed in the context of the emergence of land-based pluralistic philosophy on the American frontier.  Focal emphasis will center on the “participatory relationship” of the class with these two proponents of a “natural spirituality ethic” and uncovering parallels for contemporary personal and community integration and balanced social action.

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“The Wild Gospel of Nature”

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“Walt Whitman and the Genius of Common People”

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(these have been offered as summer courses through Dominican University in San Rafael, where Chris is an adjunct instructor)

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Sample classes or themes for classes, retreats, conferences, lectures, workshops or book events:

*“John Muir and Natural Spirituality”

*”Natural Spirituality at Work:  Creating Cooperative Communities of Compassion”

*”Earth Chaplains:  Living with Nature as Classroom and Sanctuary”

*“Frances Wright & Margaret Fuller: Forgotten Voices of Women & Wisdom”

*“Walt Whitman & the American Soul”

*“A Philosophy & Religion of Nature–The Wild Gospel of Nature”

*“John Burroughs:  Creed for a New Season”

*“Emerson’s Essays & Social Justice”

*“Thomas Paine & Frederick Douglass: Freethinking & The Second Revolution”

*“Beyond Belief & Further than Faith: The Journey of Joy in a Life After Faith”

*“The Roof Came off the Chapel!-Stories and Lessons from Jail and Street”

Additional courses or topics can be chosen and developed or adapted to your setting and interest.

Reasonable Fees are Negotiable.

Contact: chris.highland@gmail.com