David Thomas Seminar

Dear Friends of the Omaha Healing Arts Center,

I would like to extend a special invitation to you to attend a workshop I am delighted
to have just scheduled at the Omaha Healing Arts Center. The workshop is entitled:
The Ethics of Choice: the ethics by which we mature & enlighten ourselves

Some years ago, I learned that in Japanese the word "ethics" is defined as human
logic, the logic by which we become fully human. It struck me as an ideal way to
define ethics (at least the sort of ethics I am interested in) and so, since that time
I have tried to give body and detail to this logic. The result is what I call the
ethics of choice.

To date, several thousand individuals have participated in the Ethics of Choice
workshop. As a result of conducting this workshop, with individuals from all walks of
life, I have come to believe all the more that the ethics of choice relate directly to
what is required for the healing and growth of both self and society.

Provided below is more information on the workshop. If you find yourself interested,
I hope you can attend. Also, please share word of this program with others.
There are many in our community who, I believe, would find this a relevant and
meaningful experience were they to attend.

Thank you, and I hope to see you there.
David Thomas, Ph.D.

What are the Ethics of Choice?
The Ethics that humanize organizations (whether the organization
be at the level of self, family, business, corporation, society)
. . . they are the ethics that foster human development and thus,
creativity, personal responsibility, self-realization . . . they are the
ethics that invite healing, interior peace and the elimination
of unnecessary discord.

Who should attend?
Anyone interested in personal development, organizational development,
creativity, the healing arts . . . including business men & women,
professionals of all sorts, social workers, teachers, therapists, counselors,
artists, college and university students, businesses and organizations
interested in expanding effectiveness and increasing creativity.

What will you get out of it?
(Here is what a few familiar with the program have said.)

"The Ethics of Choice are a profound and poetic resource for wise thinking
and rightful behavior. They define the integrity toward which sacred and
conscious journeys aim."
Paula Ziegman -- Therapist and Artist -- Omaha, Nebraska

"We (the Board of Directors of the Organization of American Kodály Educators)
have elected to adopt the Ethics of Choice as the ethics code for our national
organization. As President of the American Kodály Educators, I would be
delighted at any time to serve as a reference for this work."
Jill Trinka -- President: American Kodály Educators & Director
of Graduate and Undergraduate Programs in Music Education
-- University of St. Thomas -- St. Paul, MN

"Dr. Thomas’ writings and workshops have had a profound effect on my
personality and on the way I deal with stress. His work has changed
my worldview."
William M. Tuttle -- Professor of History -- University of Kansas
author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated Daddy’s Gone to War:
The Second World War in the Lives of America’s Children.

" . . . everyone completely enjoyed the workshop; they came away
with much to think about and plans for change for themselves. (Your)
passion had a significant effect on many . . . and I expect we will
capitalize on what you have started at our management retreat this coming week."
Jane Matheson – Executive Director – Wood’s Homes – Calgary, Alberta

"I believe that the Ethics of Choice program is the best such program available.
Frankly, I know of nothing else quite like it. I recommend it to any business
or organization interested in improving its integrity and its performance and
I do so without reservation."
Jay D. Williamson – President & CEO – Phoenix Systems – Papillion, Nebraska

"When David presented his program to the Mayor and his administrative
staff, he found himself in front of an open but cautious audience. He left us
moved to thought, highly engaged and wanting more.
I strongly recommend this program."
Bob Peters -- City Planning Director -- Omaha, Nebraska

Preface
Here is an excerpt from the Preface to my book on the Ethics of Choice
(which I hope to be publishing soon). I include it with the hope that it
will give you additional insight into the nature and relevance of the
topic we will be discussing.

"For even higher than the life of art is the art of life.
And ethics is the lore of the art of life." Will Durant

Roy Rogers died on July 6, 1998. He was 86. During the 1940’s and 50’s,
Roy Rogers (a.k.a. Leonard Slye) was America’s most popular cowboy.
In dozens of movies and then on television, with his horse, Trigger, his dog,
Bullet, with Dale Evans, Gabby Hayes and the Sons of the Pioneers, he rode
into our hearts and filled a vacuum of which we were barely aware.
Said one commentator, "In the Westerns of those days, no one saw any blood. Guns were fired. Fists flew. Invariably, the bad guys fell. The flesh, however, never tore. These were "B" movies starring a singing Cowboy but mostly, and above all, they were morality plays. And they offered far more guidance, especially to children of shipwrecked families, then most people might imagine."

No one knows what life is, not definitively, not scientist nor artist nor saint.
For Picasso, it was a miracle. For the writer, Conrad Aiken, it was a comic
pilgrimage. For jazz singer Lou Rawls, it was a gas! Too many to credit have called it a dream. No one knows for sure. Therefore, for the purposes of this book, given that the issue remains open, it is a morality play--not unlike, at a certain level, one of Roy’s movies--and we, each of us, are actors in it. Through our choices we craft the characters we play, that is our freedom, and through those same choices we move the play along. It is an ensemble piece with the lead roles always open and up for grabs. Whatever the truth--and it may indeed vary from this--we are not harmed by this view.

I know that for many people, the prospect of reading a book on ethics is not
an enticing one. It is not a topic, typically, that "wets the whistle". But it need not be that way. Will Durant is right (is he not?), higher than the life of art (as high and as rich and as meaningful as that is) is the art of life. And the key to this higher life, by which I presume Durant meant a life rich with purpose, deeply felt, in all essential ways not missed; the key, at least one of them, is ethics. The would-be life artist draws his or her sense of direction from ethics. It is the lore that guides him without which he could not navigate the uncertainty and have a chance of knowing or experiencing his full human maturity. This is one of the reasons this topic is relevant, and reason enough for finding our interest in it.

Beyond that, there is the family, the workplace, the community, society as a
whole, all given shape by the ethics practiced within them. They are the larger wholes of which we are a part, affecting our development in every conceivable way. If they are unethical or in some way self-destructive, then our development can be damaged. "Every birth is the birth of a genius," wrote philosopher James Carse. "Yes," responded Buckminster Fuller (speaking in another context), "but we are all ‘de-geniused’ at such an early age." De-geniused, we might say, by the organizations and institutions that surround us. We make them, these organizations, that is true, but they make us as well, influencing dramatically the rate at which we become (if ever) fully functioning adults. That is why an excursion into this topic leaves very little untouched and why there is every reason for wide-spread interest in it."