Fwd: Join us for a conversation about Taking Moral Action.
Hosted at Cloister Notes, we will discuss some lessons from our book Taking Moral Action, share our concerns and hopes, and light a candle in prayer.
Hello, readers of Taking Moral Action, my substack-in-development. Thank you for being here and for your patience as I get things in order. Exciting things are coming up. In this message, I am forwarding you an invitation by my wife and partner in writing. Dr. Almut Furchert.
If you are already on her Cloister Notes, my apologies for cross posting. If not, read on to find a chance to be part of a conversation this evening based on our book. Perhaps we will see each other there.
Keep tuned for more news about the book and my plans for this substack. Below you can find the invitation to tonight’s Moral Monday.
-Chuck
Join our inaugural Moral Monday Conversation tonight.
How do we act morally in times like this? Join us for a conversation on Taking Moral Action, share your concerns and hopes, and light a candle with us.
Almut Furchert and Chuck Huff
Oct 06, 2025
Friends,
We are looking forward to meet you tonight for our very first Moral Monday Conversation.
Moral Mondays are born out of the need to create a safe place where we can share our concerns and struggles and hopes about the world we live in.
It is influenced by our book Taking Moral Action as well as my East German heritage of Monday prayers.
In 1988, as the Cold War still gripped the world, East Germans started to flock to their neighborhood churches on Monday evenings. Stasi forces (who at least did not come masked and armed) quietly infiltrated them. In the shelter of the church, people started to share their unease with the regime. They prayed and lit candles. From that safe sanctuary they flocked to the streets with candles in their hands. These Monday prayers soon became “Wir sind das Volk” marches, which brought a 40 year old regime down.
On “Survivors guilt” and little acts of resistance
One evening recently, I had a conversation with a neighbor.
How can we enjoy this splendid fall weather when the world around us goes up in flames, we asked each other?
How to not feel guilty turning the news off and enjoying the beauty of the season?
Friends, there is a word of what we are feeling:
“Survivors guilt”.
Like people who watch a traumatic event unfold as bystanders (psychologists call this secondary traumatization) we watch the world aflame, and we feel guilty that we ourselves can still walk about safe and mostly unaffected.
Do you know this feeling? And the agony and helplessness which comes with it?
We almost feel we must “punish” ourselves by obsessively doom-scrolling the evil of the world.
Some questions we want to ask in our Moral Monday’s sessions:
How can we stay engaged, how can we do our part in overcoming division, creating peace, and caring for creation without despairing?
How can we still live, even enjoy our lives, while raising our voice in protest?
Those are questions I hope we will tackle together in our Monday series, a monthly conversation on Taking Moral Action in difficult times.
So, if you have struggled with questions like these, and if you do not want to stay alone with them, this might be for you.
In our first conversation of this series tonight Chuck and I will talk about our book Taking Moral Action, inviting you into a conversation on how to translate it into the variety of contexts we live in.
We will talk, share and end with a candle lighting. I will bring the candles, you bring your concerns, and together we will send a beacon of light, small, but defiant, into this aching world.
Looking forward to have you with us, Almut & Chuck
PS: Please click the heart at the end of this message if you wish to join but cannot make it, so we can hold you in our gathering tonight.
You can also send us your prayer candle request by responding to this email or by leaving a comment below.
How to join us
If you have not yet had the chance to register for our upcoming Moral Monday zoom gathering tonight you can still do so. We are looking forward to have you with us on this new venture:
October 6 — Moral Monday: “Taking Moral Action”
via Zoom, 6:30–8pm CT
with Drs. Chuck Huff & Almut Furchert
click here to find the whole post on Cloister Notes and to register:
It would be lovely to see you there.
-Chuck
Reading about survivors' guilt reminds me of a story from WW1, in the early stages of the Somme.
A farmer was out plowing when a neighbour stopped by, and said "Silas, do you realize that thousands of young men are killing each other in France, as we're standing here?"
Silas looked up into the warm summer sky, and said, "Well , they sure picked a nice day for it."
I became a Christian by way of Zen Buddhism, and for me, waves pass, be they my own pancreatic cancer or the world's ills.
The best thing I can do is to add positive vibrations of love and hope; impartially.