Angels and Interfaith

Today was another marathon day.  I was tired so skipped the 7 AM spiritual session in favor of an extra hour of sleep, but was over at the Convention center by 8:15 for the first session in Democracy and Pluralism.  I was running a bit late as I entered the Convention Center but was delighted to walk into a procession of angels floating about the concourse!  I had to stop for photos, because it’s not every day you run into a flock (?) of angels!   They showed up again this evening before the evening plenary, processing through the plenary hall, wings aglow, delighting everyone!  My students and I went up to talk to them.  Turns out they are a group from Australia and one can train to become an angel, apparently, and they are starting to train angels in this country and some European countries! 

The sessions I attended today were excellent.  The one on democracy and pluralism was run by the United Religions Initiative and their methodology is not to do lecture style sessions, but rather to have dialogue circles where people talk to one another and actually dialogue on the topic.   So that session was all about how we manage differences of religious belief in the political arena in our “secular” separation of church and state country.  We had an interesting mix of folks in our group, Jewish, Muslim, Unitarian, secular humanist, and various Christians.

The second session was also led by URI, this time dialoguing about what we are doing in our various venues in terms of interfaith collaborations and partnerships.  Again, I had an interesting group with folks from South America, India, Texas, Alaska, California, Minnesota and Chicago, so we had lots of different perspectives and folks doing different kinds of interfaith work sharing stories.

Then it was time for my students to be part of a presentation on Women at the First Parliament and Women as Spiritual Mentors.  That session went extremely well, and the two students who presented did really polished and compelling presentations.  I was very proud of them.  Then the rest of them worked with the attendees facilitating interactive dialogue.  It was a great session! 

By the time that session was over, it was 1:30 and I had to go do battle with the Parliament powers that be to get a new room assignment for the session my students are leading tomorrow.  The room we had on Friday was sorely inadequate for our needs and we were scheduled in the same spot for tomorrow.  It took a lot of pushing (all the way to the President of the Parliament who finally agreed to let his staff change our room!) but we finally got a venue change, which also changed the time of our presentation from 10 AM to 5:15.  I’m not thrilled with that dinner hour time slot, but the venue is much improved, so we’re going to make the best of it!  I spent nearly an hour working that out and then went to Langar for my delicious Indian lunch.  Ran into Episcopal church colleagues while there.  This interfaith world is certainly a small one!  I also ran into the Imam with whom I travelled to Morocco last year, and he and I are trying to get our students together.  He has 10 Eygptian Muslim students here and he wants them to meet me and my students so they can dialogue with peers who are doing interfaith in this country.   We had hoped to rendez-vous today, but timing wasn’t good.

I went to a fantastic session about efforts on the ground in Israel and Palestine, called the Abrahamic Reunion, which is a large grass roots peace organization in Israel and Palestine including Jewish settlers, orthodox Jewish rabbis and their congregations, Druze clergy and congregations, Muslim imams and their people and Christian clergy who are working together to combat the violence that is so much a part of life in Israel and Palestine and working together to create space for peace.  It was really moving to hear their stories of how they come together when acts of violence break out and stand with each other and reach across the divide to respond with compassion and friendship rather than revenge.  The personal stories these folks shared were spell binding.  It was really wonderful to hear a narrative that the news media simply never reports out, about ways in which Israelis and Palestinians of all faiths are working together to bring about peace in the Holy Land.  It reminded me of my experience when I travelled there in 2008 and 2010 when it became clear to me that if the political leaders would get out of the way and let people at the grass roots level make peace, it would be possible.    That session was absolutely packed – not a seat in the room and people standing out in the hall to try to hear the speakers.

After that session it was time for the URI reception.  My students and I went to it so that we could mingle with and meet the leadership folks at URI, some of whom we’ve met in the course of the Parliament, particularly the Young Leaders Program director who has been working with us to prepare our sessions.  There was free food and beverages and we had a chance to do some dialogue work URI style.  Then after that was the evening plenary on the topic of Ending Religiously Motivated Violence and Hate Speech. That plenary was absolutely riveting in the beginning, although, as has been the case with all of them, it went on far too long.   But a number of the speakers were dynamite including Alan Boesek, Karen Armstrong, Tariq Ramadan and Jane Goodall.  We started the session with a song for peace, led by a musical group and joined in by a program for children that featured a large group of very young kids up on the stage singing the peace song along with the musicians.  They brought the house down!  We finally left the convention center at 9:50 and the plenary was still going on!  The organizers of this Parliament really need to learn something about people’s tolerance for sitting and listening to speeches!!

PIcs today include shots of my students doing their presentations and the angels!!