Hui Tz Temple off Satellite Boulevard in Suwanee.By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher | Four different religions will be the focus of four Lenten programs at Christ Episcopal Church in Norcross during Wednesdays in March. People of all faiths are invited for the weekly programs, which will begin at 6 p.m. with soup and salad in the church parish hall, followed by the one-hour presentation and discussion.
Previous popular Lenten series have focused on military, medical and judicial ethics.
Speakers and their topics for these programs are to be:
March 8: Islam: Edward Ahmed Mitchell is a Muslim-American civil rights attorney. He serves as executive director of the Georgia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-GA). As America’s largest Muslim civil rights organization, CAIR engages in interfaith dialogue, counters Islamophobia, and builds coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.
He is a graduate of Morehouse College and Georgetown University Law Center, and previously served as a criminal prosecutor in Atlanta. He is also an editor of Atlanta Muslim, a member of the Georgia Association of Muslim Lawyers, and a member of the board of trustees of the Islamic Community Center of Atlanta.
Mitchell was born in Los Angeles, Calif. to an interfaith family that included Protestants, Catholics, Christian Unitarians, Muslims, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. He accepted Islam in 2004.
March 15: Hui Tz: Victor Sze is an attorney and financial adviser with Raymond James and Associates. He is the adviser for the Hui Tz Temple off Satellite Boulevard in Suwanee.
He is a first generation Taiwanese-American, who was born in Boston, raised in Tennessee, studied in Chicago, and worked in Taipei. He graduated from the University of Chicago, and got his law degree from Vanderbilt Law School.
Previously Sze worked at Arthur Andersen in the tax planning department and KPMG in the forensic services department investigating cases involving industrial espionage. He also worked at American National Bank as a financial analyst and spent time in Taiwan working as an editor for an electronic dictionary company
March 22: Zen Buddhism: Terry Sutton has been studying Zen Buddhism since 1984, living, practicing, and working with the various San Francisco Zen Center communities and teachings through 2002. That includes three years with the mountain monastic practice community, Tassajara in Hot Springs, Calif. On return to his hometown Atlanta, he lived and practiced with the Atlanta Soto Zen Center from 2003 – 2012.
Ordained as a Zen priest, he is a graduate of the University of Georgia School of Forest Resources. His firm, Cascade Springs Forestry, is a professional, ecologically oriented, landscaping company specializing in invasive non-native shrub and vine control for campuses, parks, and greenways. He lives with his life partner, Tixie, in historic Norcross.
March 29: Hinduism: Kishore Ramachandran was brought up in India and came to the United States in 1980 to pursue his Ph. D. at the University of Wisconsin. He moved to Atlanta in 1986 to be a professor at Georgia Tech in the College of Computing.
He serves a spiritual mother, Amma Sri Krunamayi, and says: “Everything I know about Hinduism I have learned from mother through her teachings. Though trained in Hinduism, her followers are from all faiths since she says, ‘Stay in your own path, come and see me as your mother.’”
He adds: “Locally, we are building an ashram called SRIM Center for mother at exit 193 off Interstate-75 in Forsyth, Ga.”
Christ Episcopal Church is located at 400 Holcomb Bridge Road in Norcross.
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