United Religions Initiative North American - Briefings

I began typing this message while sitting in the business office at the Berkeley (California) Buddhist Monastery. I’ve been meeting today [Sat Feb 10] with the three trustees elected to represent North America on the United Religions Initiative (URI) Global Council (GC) as well as with other staff and volunteers. One of those trustees is Rev. Dr. Heng Sure, the head of the monastery. Every Saturday night he gives a “Dharma talk”; I missed most of it on the way back from a wonderful Turkish dinner. Perhaps 20-30 people where in attendance in person — Chinese, Vietnamese, and Caucasian Buddhists — as well as dozens more around the world through a webcast.

Dave Randle, founder of the Utah URI CC and the Global Healing MCC, recently sent a letter (below) to the URI contacts mailing list suggesting that now is the time to bring URI’s outward growth back into focus. He also gives a great example of taking interfaith beyond the traditional dialogue and into the classroom, adding to an emerging model of direct interfaith education.

Sande Hart reports: In September SARAH participated in the annual Walk For Hope sponsored by Be The Cause www.bethecause.org. At the Walk, we brought our Peace Tapestry materials for walk participants and sat back and watched as the spirit moved from their hearts to their hands and then created the most current Peace Tapestry. I am attaching a picture of that tapestry held by Laura with her daughter of Be The Cause.

Monica Willard, URI Representative at the U.N., reports: Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Mrs. Nane Annan were honored at a reception held on November 29, 2006 to thank them for their 10 years of service to the UN and to the world. The Hague Appeal for Peace invited a representative group of NGOs [Non-governmental Organizations] to give the Annans a civil society Thank You Party and gift.

The URI of Henderson County is once again showing that the interfaith movement can thrive in Appalachia. This group has been a true pioneer in its interfaith programming and support of the URI mission. They work toward peace by “promoting understanding among the religions and spiritual expressions” in their western North Carolina community, and by “cultivating peace inwardly, locally and globally.”

Here’s an inspirational social justice project from the Interfaith Council of Washington, a URI Cooperation Circle:

“One of the highlights of this year’s (Thanksgiving Interfaith celebration) will be a Blessing of the Scarves for the homeless people. Throughout the community, knitters from all faith and spiritual traditions have hand knit, or gifted yarn to make 1000 scarves to be hand delivered to the homeless people following the program - just in time before the bitter cold of winter hits. This visionary and practical project brings attention to the very real, raw, dangerous, and inexcusable fact that homelessness exists and that it is time to bring an end to it.”

It is difficult to believe that the essay below comes from a teenager. The insight and writing skill are exquisite. What makes me believe is the spirit of hope and a deep understanding of humanity unsullied by — though not unaware of — the jaded cynicism of so common to my peers (mid 20’s to mid 30’s).

This essay was the winner of a contest held by the URI of Charlotte, in the
American state of North Carolina. The contest was held along with another interfaith group in the county as part of their International Day of Peace celebration. They invited high school students to write about building a culture of peace. They had a number of judges representing academic and religious communities, but I suspect no expertise was required to recognize this particular essay as the winner.

In this essay from my personal blog, I reflect on a “Hidden Word” from Bahá’u'lláh and its meaning for me as I join other staff at the United Religions Initiative Global Council meeting. (Personal reflections and editorials in keeping with the URI Charter are welcome here from any member of the United Religions Initiative.)

Hello, I want to introduce myself, my name is Alice Kawahatsu and I serve at the URI Global Staff office here in San Francisco. I work with Mary Kelley in the development office as a part-time Development Assistant. I also happen to be married to a minister of the Konko faith who serves at the San Francisco Konko Church located in San Francisco’s Japan Town. His formal title is Rev. Masato Kawahatsu, Senior Minister. However, since many people have trouble pronouncing his last name, he usually asks people he meets to call him Mas or Mas Sensei (Sensei means “teacher” in Japanese and in the Japanese culture, ministers and teachers are called “Sensei”).

On Saturday, January 21st, 2006, 27 souls came together "with spirits united for peace, justice, and healing" at the Interfaith Center at the Presidio in San Francisco, California. They joined "URI sisters and brothers around the world" as part of a distributed, global Meeting of members. Participants made new connections, enthusiastically shared the nature of their organizations’ work, and candidly discussed the nature and inclusiveness of the emerging culture of interfaith dialogue.