“We have inherited a big house, a great “world house” in which we have to live together – black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other. This means that more and more our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. We must now give an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies.”
Today Martin Luther King Day has become an opportunity to promote this vision of interfaith cooperation and ecumenism.
Here in Los Angeles, I am involved in two such events, one sponsored by the South Coast Interfaith Council and the other by the Parliament of the World’s Religions. I will be giving the invocation at the SCIC event, which will take place in a black Baptist church and will feature local Chumash Indian leaders. I also plan to give a workshop on “Compassionate Listening” along with a Sufi woman friend of mine, Noor Malika Chishti. My presentation will be based on the Compassionate Listening project (compassionatelistening.org) and the book on Compassionate Listening by Gene Hoffman, which I edited after 9/11. More info is provided below.
The keynote speaker at the Parliament event is Dr. Mark Waldeman, a neuro-scientist whose book on “How God Changes Your Brain.” His book offers practical tips on how to be a better communicator based on the latest research in neuro-science. His work also confirms scientifically much of what I have experienced as a Quaker. More will be said about Dr. Waldeman and his work in future blog entries.
Here are two queries to consider:
What is your community doing to foster interfaith understanding, peace and justice on MLK day?
And what are you and your Meeting doing to foster the beloved community
Submitted by Anthony Manousos interfaithquaker@aol.com
19th Annual
Community Wide
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 16, 2011
3 -5 p.m.
Gospel Memorial Church of God in Christ
1480 Atlantic Avenue
Long Beach, CA 90813
The Barbareno Chumash Council is a tribal organization
representing Chumash descendents whose ancestral villages
were located in what is now the general Santa Barbara area.
The Council is active in bringing Chumash people
back to their maritime culture and revitalizing
the Barbareno Chumash language.
Along with other Chumash tribal organizations,
the Council works to protect sacred sites and maintain
the traditions and songs passed on to them from their ancestors.
The Barbareno Chumash Council, or BCC, is also an affiliate
of the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development.
The Seventh Generation Fund is an Indigenous
non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and maintaining
the uniqueness of Native peoples throughout the Americas.
For more information, please visit here.
Music by:
Gospel Memorial Church of God in Christ Choir
Gopi Saravati & Sri’s Players of Morningland Monastery
The ROCK Gospel Choir
and more!!
*
* Multi-Cultural Gathering
- Multi-Religious Celebration
Gospel Memorial Church of God in Christ
Long Beach Ministers Alliance
Long Beach Religious Leaders Association
Co-chair of Barbareno Chumash Council
www.SCInterfaith.org
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