 Bay
Area Interfaith Connect is the monthly newsletter sponsored
by the Interfaith
Center at the Presidio. Each month we alert you to interfaith resources
and opportunities that are available in the Bay Area and beyond.
Bay Area Interfaith Connect includes time-sensitive
listings of local and regional events-- dialogues, classes, lectures,
celebrations and more that are open to, and respectful of, the wide
spectrum of religious traditions and communities in the greater Bay
Area. (To have your event listed, send information, including date,
time, location, sponsor, and the nature of the event to the Editor,
Andrew Kille.)
Bay Area Interfaith Connect is sent each month to nearly 2,000 subscribers, and is available online at the Interfaith Center at the Presidio website. If you do not receive the monthly updates and would like to do so, simply write to info@interfaith-presidio.org. Please include your name, and, if you are willing, your street address and phone will help us to keep you up to date on interfaith activities.
Some of the opportunities that appear in
Bay Area Interfaith Connect continue to be useful long after
the original publication. These include notices of books, website links,
and ongoing or long-term projects. They will be archived on this page
Books
| Websites | Other Opportunities
Books
- One Heart: Universal Wisdom From the World’s Scriptures (Marlowe & Company, 2004).
This great little book places the scriptures of the world’s religions side by side for comparison on a variety of topics. Look up drinking, for example, and you will see responses from Native American Religions, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Taoism and Confucianism. One Heart is an easy-to-read reference that attempts to illustrate the inherent commonalities across the world religions.
- We Declare! Songs, Chants, Dances, and Multimedia Projects
by Bay Area Musician Merrill Collins presents a unique melding of music, interactive projects, and learning about musical instruments from around the world, all centered on texts from Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration. The book includes instructions for eight musical experiences, adaptable for participants from children to adults. The music is largely chant and percussion, and there are informative descriptions of instruments, reflections on the Declaration, and a CD with all the music. Available from www.spiralingmusic.com.
- Interfaith Dialogue and Peacebuilding
Edited by David R. Smock and published
by the US Institute for Peace in 2002, the book includes contributions
from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish writers. All emphasize that religion
is in fact not usually the root cause of dissention and violence. Interfaith
dialogue, these contributors argue, can promote understanding, communication,
and reconciliation. The writers use concrete examples from their own
experiences in places such as the Middle East, Africa, and Northern
Ireland to show both the potential and the limits of interfaith dialogue.
Overall, they present a hopeful, if realistic, picture of the application
of interfaith dialogue to peacebuilding.
- God's Breath: Sacred Scriptures
of the World -- The Essential
Texts of Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sufism, and Taoism
God’s Breath, by John Miller and Aaron Kenedi, gathers together
the sacred texts of the world’s major wisdom traditions and presents
them with enlightening introductions by noted scholars, leading thinkers,
writers and spiritual teachers, including Huston Smith, Karen Armstrong,
Reynolds Price, Stephen Mitchell, Marcus Borg, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung,
and the Dalai Lama. God’s Breath is an essential book for students
of the world's religions because it gives the reader an opportunity to compare
and contrast each text and gain an overall deeper understanding of religion.
- Grace Under Fire
Andrew Carroll, creator of The Legacy Project, here compiles fifty
letters spanning the history of American soldiers at war. What emerges
is an account of the importance of religion and faith to Americans
under the most stressful of circumstances imaginable from the Revolutionary
War to the current war in Iraq. The letters capture the breadth of
human existence; soldiers tell anecdotes about comrades and ask about
their families, and they also wrestle with existential questions
of life and death. They also offer a glimpse of the diversity of
spiritual and religious beliefs among Americans throughout this country's
history.
- Religious
Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- and Doesn’t
Steven Prothero raises the issue of the of religious illiteracy
in the United States. Despite the US's role as is home to representatives
of the world's major faiths, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism,
Hinduism and Buddhism, American citizens are shockingly uninformed
when it comes to understanding the basic tenets of these religions
and the differences among them. Prothero has an article on the subject
in the Chronicle of Higher Education: "Worshiping
in ignorance"
- Speaking of Faith
Krista Tippett,
host of the weekly NPR radio show Speaking of Faith, has
written a challenging new book by the same name. She says “I
wrote Speaking of Faith, in part, to answer questions that listeners
have persistently asked me over the years–how I came to care
about large questions of meaning, and how I’m changed by my
radio conversations with people across the world’s traditions...my
conversations week after week teach me that sacred traditions are
among our richest sources for deep thought, creative engagement,
and hope in the 21st Century world.” Information about the
broadcast, the book, and how to get podcasts is at the Speaking
of Faith website.
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Websites
- INTERFAITH CENTER AT THE PRESIDO
The Center has additional sites that highlight different dimensions
of our work:
- MCDONALD WINDOWS SITE
Learn the story of the McDonald Windows, created from shards of stained
glass collected from damaged houses of worship in WWII by US Army Chaplain
Frederick Alexander McDonald. The windows will eventually be incorporated
into the renovated Interfaith Chapel at the Presidio. Remembered
Light
McDonald Windows on KPIX TV
Did you see the report about the McDonald Windows on KPIX
TV? If you missed it, you can still see it on the CBS5
Website.
- SACRED SPACE PROJECT SITE
At the Interfaith Center's Sacred Space project site, www.interfaithdesign.org,
you can find all 160 submissions to the international competition
in 2004. The issue: How would you design sacred
space where all faiths feel at home? You can read essays from the
book about the competition or order a copy for yourself.
- INTERFAITH PODCASTS- interviews and news
of interest for Interfaith listeners:
- SPEAKING
OF FAITH-.American Public Media's Speaking
of Faith with Krista Tippett is public radio's weekly conversation
about religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas.
- NPR
RELIGION: The weekly podcast is a compilation of stories
on religion from several National Public Radio programs like Morning
Edition and All Things Considered.
- INTERFAITH
VOICES:
An independent public radio show hosted by Maureen Fiedler, Interfaith
Voices offers an hour-long discussion on public issues from many different
faith perspectives.
- INTERFAITH
TODAY:
Managed locally by Rowan Fairgrove, a frequent participant in ICP events,
this podcast intends to document the wonderful, life-affirming work being
done in the interfaith context.
- METHODIST WEB RADIO: February was the Methodist Church
in England's month of prayer for interfaith relations. Dr Elizabeth Harris
tells how the idea came about and Barney Leith speaks about the world's
second most widespread religion - the Baha'i faith. And Buddhist Megume
Hirota shares her thoughts on being a part of a small religious group
in diverse British society.
http://www.methodist.org.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=opentogod.webradio#45
- ONLINE INTERFAITH NEWS - Electronic newsletters
at two major websites continue to be required reading for anyone interested
in interfaith work locally and globally:
- SACRED
SOUNDS
Sacred music is performed all year long around the Bay
Area, but it can be difficult to find . Now choral music lovers can go to
a website listing Bay Area concerts – http://www.chorusconcert.info.
Happy listening!
- INTERACTIVE MAP OF FAITH GROUPS. Mapping
Faith is
an interactive tool created by Faith
in Public Life, which touts itself
as a "resource center for justice and the common good." Its
website provides a wealth of information, including the new Mapping Faith.
The searchable Mapping Faith database allows individuals to locate leading
faith advocates for justice and the common good. Users can sort diverse
leaders and organizations by geography, policy specialization, and faith
affiliation. They have currently mapped 2522 organizations in 45 states,
but they continue to build their database on a daily basis. They encourage
people to submit the names of organizations not yet listed.
- LISTEN
MEDIA.
From its origins in the Earth Religions
Community in Southeast Virginia, Listen
Media has grown to encompass
the wider interreligious dialogue. The LISTEN acronym stands not only
for "Living
In Spiritual Tolerance, Enlightenment and Nonviolence," but also
describes the essential element for interfaith relations, that we LISTEN
to each other. LISTEN
Media seeks to foster mutual respect and
understanding between diverse faith groups by serving as an information,
education and networking resource to the spiritual community.
- 100 MULTIFAITH RESOURCES. Living in a multifaith,
hyphenated world creates some wonderful opportunities for broadening
our understanding of both spirituality and practice. That's certainly
what the folks at Spirituality
and Practice have discovered
in book reviewing over the past decade. This site offers 100
titles that qualify as multifaith resources.
- PEW REPORT ON RELIGION IN AMERICA. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life just published an updated version of the U.S. Religious Landscape Study, a comprehensive analysis of religious affiliation and practice in the U.S. At their website, you can find the full report, along with tools to learn about affiliations, maps of religious groups, and comparisons among groups: religions.pewforum.org.
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Other Opportunities
- SUBMIT A SONG FOR THE INTERFAITH SONGBOOK. You are
invited to participate in the formulation of the next (second edition)
of One
World, Many Voices, an interfaith songbook, now being assembled.
Please submit one or even two songs (music and lyrics) of your choosing
from your faith tradition. It should be a piece of music loved by you,
one which best describes your tradition, and which should be introduced
and sung within an interfaith setting. Please send – with
notes on why it may be important, especially to you – to: Dr.
Jack W. Lundin, Editor 202 Avenida Barbera Sonoma, CA 95476 Thank you
very much for being a part of the new interfaith songbook. Jack Lundin
(Order the first One World Many Voices through the ICP
Online Store.)
- 20,000
DIALOGUES is a nationwide campaign designed to bring
people of different faiths together using films about Muslims to stimulate
discussion and promote understanding. It brings the concept of interfaith
dialogue into the hands of ordinary people who want to make a positive
difference. To host your own dialogue and film screening, 20,000 Dialogues
provides you with resources to lead interfaith discussions. You
can choose Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet or Cities
of Light: the Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain, two award winning
PBS documentaries free of charge. Go to 20,000
Dialogues for details.
- FAITH & PUBLIC LIFE - A new curriculum for
people of faith, Faith Seeking Peace, places biblical texts
in conversation with the criticual issues of our day, such as terrorism
and national security, federal budget priorities, nuclear weapons, and
war. You can download the curriculum at Wand.org.
- PEACE
VIDEOS AVAILABLE - The World Council of Churches has a series of
peace messages from distinguished peacebuilders around the world. They
can be downloaded from www.overcomingviolence.org/peace2004.
- MAKING THE PLANET GREENER - The United Nations
has launched a campaign to plant 1 million trees in the coming year.
Twelve percent of that number have already been pledged. Join activists
around the world to make the planet greener, with fresher air and cleaner
water for all! Find details at http://www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign/.
- PBS INTERFAITH DOCUMENTARIES
AVAILABLE AT DISCOUNT.
The Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches
is offering two PBS Documentaries at a discount to help local churches,
synagogues, mosques and other organizations for public showing and stimulating
dialogue. The films include: Three Faiths, One God: Judaism, Christianity,
Islam, and Jews and Christians: A Journey of Faith. A guide with additional
written material is also available for each film. For more information,
see the NCC
Interfaith Relations website..To order or for more details, please
write to Sarosh Koshy: skoshy@ncccusa.org.
- NORTH AMERICAN WOMEN OF FAITH
NETWORK. Religions
for Peace Women's Mobilization Program and Religions
for Peace-USA are excited to announce the launching of the North
American Women of Faith Network. The North American Women of Faith
Network will join Religions for Peace Women of Faith Networks from
around the world in building peace, promoting sustainable development
and protecting human rights for all. Working groups will be created
to develop initial focus, themes and objectives for the network. A
continental gathering will be scheduled for Spring of 2008. More
information.
- DIRECTORY
OF CAMPUS INTERFAITH GROUPS. Religions
for Peace USA has compiled a directory
of interfaith groups at undergraduate colleges across the US.
You can find information about each group's goals and activities
and contact information. So far, no Bay Area schools are listed.
If you know of a group that should be included, there is a link for
suggesting listings. Help people find opportunities for interfaith
dialogue and to connect with other schools seeking to do the same.
- WALK THE LABYRINTH AT CHARTRES. Veriditas invites you to Walking a Sacred Path - In Chartres Cathedral, France May 23 - June 7th, 2008 Join us for this wonderful journey into the heart of the sacred center through the use of the historic labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral. Through a series of workshops and trainings of your choosing, you will explore historical archetypes, use the labyrinth as a tool for unity and wholeness, learn the art of labyrinth facilitation to share with others, delve into the sacred feminine, and engage in spiritual skills based on the book Barefoot on Holy Ground: Twelve Lessons in Spiritual Craftsmanship. We will engage in ritual, meditation, lecture, art, music, and sacred circle as vehicles for unfolding the deep mystery within and around us. For registration information contact Veriditas at 415-561-2921 or go to our web site at: www.veriditas.org Early registration until March 31st and regular registration begins April 1st.
- TOURS WITH SPIRITUAL INTENTION. Imagine Adventures is pleased to announce three unique opportunities for journeys of the spirit that will enrich your interfaith experience. This June, Steve Scholl, a scholar of Islam and interfaith lecturer and filmmaker, will be leading two trips to Morocco, to the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music from June 1-15 and the Gnaoua World Music Festival June 18-July 2. A third tour will be Peacemakers in the Holy Land Tour, meeting with spiritual activists from the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions. Tour leaders are Jewish peacemaker Eliyahu McLean and Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Bukhari, a leader of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order. For more information, visit Imagine Adventures.
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