RELIGION
-- from Latin, re-ligare -- is to bind back together, reconnect, unite --
people with one another.
And re-join us with all of the amazing, interconnected
living system and Creation into which we are born.
Some people distort and misuse religion for
self gain, personal power -- seeing life through a too-narrow lens, identifying
with a too-small, exclusive "we." Is God not the largest frame
of reference?
Through RELIGION, many people on Earth are also
reconnecting, listening, and healing -- creating a new shared culture of
meaning beyond war.
Here are examples of successes from (1) Jerusalem and
from (2) the U.S. and Canada.
JERUSALEM
Face to Face/Faith to Faith
From Jerusalem, Sunday morning, June 27th,
2004, twelve youth -- Palestinians (Muslims and Christians) and Israeli Jews -
flew to the U.S. for an intensive two-week summer camp experience as part of a
sustained, year-long program called Face to Face/Faith to Faith, a
cooperative project of:
Haneen Maikey and Avigail Moshe
coordinate this program for ICCI.
This is one of eight North American camp
experiences in 2004 that are bringing together Palestinians and Jews --
Muslims, Jews, Christians -- including from the Middle East, described at http://traubman.igc.org/camps.htm .
Women's Dialogue Groups
Friday, July 2nd, 2004, women from the
three ICCI Womens Dialogue Groups in Jerusalem, Wadi Ara and the Galilee, met
at Shefayim for a full-day workshop co-facilitated by Rawda Suliman and Naomi
Ackerman, Palestinian and Israeli actresses working in theatre for joint Arab
and Jewish groups.
These three groups have been meeting monthly in
their own communities to discuss life issues and religious texts relevant to
each group. In Shefayim the women of faith shared their personal
experiences of varied group processes and dynamics.
It was "an inspiring and reaffirming day,"
with each group improvising a dramatic presentation that revealed its own
issues during the past year. The three groups together learned more about
each others religions, customs and lives, and they continued to shatter
stereotypes and fears.
To learn more about ICCI and the Women's
Dialogues, write to iccijeru@icci.co.il .
NORTH AMERICA
The Muslim-Jewish PeaceWalks
"This year has been an amazing
journey of interfaith connections under the wings of the Muslim-Jewish
PeaceWalk for interfaith solidarity. . .in Tucson, Las Vegas, Nevada, NYC,
Philadelphia, Albuquerque. . .and work in Spokane, Vancouver, with walks in
Nelson and Osoyous, British Columbia," wrote Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb ( RebLynn@swcp.com ) who partners in these
activities with Abdul Rauf Campos-Marqetti ( RaufIslam@aol.com
) in Albuquerque, NM.
A full story is on the Web at http://peacewalk.blogspot.com
.
See photos from the Philadelphia Interfaith
Peace Walk for Jewish-Muslim Reconciliation, 2 May 2004, at:
Read two March, 2004 stories about
the Muslim-Jewish PeaceWalk in Tucson, Arizona:
In San Francisco:
"Living Your Faith: Jews, Christians, & Muslims in Conversation"
This May, 2004 gathering of Muslims, Jews,
and Christians was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle and in The
Jerusalem Times, the world's largest English language Palestinian paper,
from East Jerusalem.
The article began:
"U.S.
troops attacked a mosque in Iraq, Muslim militants blew up a bus in
Kashmir, and Israeli security forces ravaged a Palestinian refugee camp
in the Gaza Strip.
In other
news, nearly 100 Christians, Muslims and Jews sat down together in San
Francisco, shared a meal, and tried to figure out why religion seems to be
the problem rather than the solution.
They
gathered at a dozen round tables Sunday evening at the new Jewish Community
Center in San Francisco and listened to three experts -- a Muslim, a Christian
and a Jew -- tell them that the essence of all three religions is love.
The article ended, describing how
two dozen Muslims paused to recite evening prayers:
Three
Muslim women knelt in prayer on the other side of the 30-foot-high wall --
right next to a passage from the Book of Zechariah (4:6).
"Not
by might, not by power, but by my spirit,'' it reads.
Iftekhar
Hai, director of interfaith relations for United Muslims of America, stood up,
put his shoes on and walked back into the atrium.
Someone
asked him how it felt to pray in the new Jewish center.
"God
is everywhere,'' he replied.