An Interview with URI Global Council Member P.K. McCary
July 24th, 2007
In February 2007, Global Council Trustees, P.K. McCary and Kathy Sandoval participated in a dialogue introduced by the URI at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery in Northern California. The purpose of the dialogue was to reflect upon religious experiences leading to interfaith work and to discuss the future of URI. Part 2: P.K. McCary.
These interviews with Kathy Sandoval, P.K. McCary, Rev. Heng Sure, and Stephen Fuqua, can be watched in two installments on YouTube: Reflections on Faithful Experiences Leading to Interfaith Work and Reflections on Strengths and Hopes of the United Religions Initiative.
Similarly, P.K. became a part of Genesis, a program hosted by Bill Moyers in 1995. She reflects upon her role in interfaith:
“I sat, pretty arrogant, pretty sure of what I knew about the Bible,” P.K. begins, “not only what I had learned, but what I taught. I sat with Muslims and Jews who told me their stories and as a storyteller, the stories from a Jewish and a Muslim perspective opened up a whole world for me. When I did the Genesis program,” P.K. continues, “it was like something opened up for me and I could see God as bigger than my religion, even the God that I supposedly serve. I think of myself as a servant of God.
We all are, but we’re in this world to make a difference and to treat each other better, and to care about one another, and to take care of the earth. It wasn’t enough just being Christian anymore. I was invited to the United Religions Initiative and in some ways the rest is history. I’ve found my spot. I love interfaith work. I love inter-cultural work. I love being part of a greater family, a human family.”
P.K. goes on to describe her view of the future of interfaith and the future of URI:
“It’s never going to look like you think it’s going to look like, but it’s always more than you hoped it would be and that ultimately it’s going to get better. I think that’s URI. It’s has to get better because it’s made up of people and we’re not perfect, but we have a shared interest in that we’re saying because we all have to live in this world together. Some people have ideas about how that works. Maybe we’ll disagree about it and maybe we’ll figure out that that little pieces work and we’ll get something totally different than what we thought. I think we’re learning that we’re going to have this garden that is made up not only of things we can eat, but also of things that give us pleasure and things that we can cultivate and put on our backs. It’s going to be made up of things that give us warmth and comfort. We don’t know what it’s all going to be, but it’s going to be okay and that’s the hope of it.”