|
Weekly Update
October 20, 2009
|
Greetings!
Our second Serve Together is this Sunday. Come volunteer with people of other faiths to carve pumpkins with low-income seniors at one of the residences run by the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. Details are below, along with links to a report about our first Serve Together at the Islamic Relief USA's "Day of Dignity" event in Brooklyn.
The next Living Room will "Walking More Than One Path: Is Religious Multiple Belonging Possible?" on October 28th. Our host will be Professor Paul Knitter, a leading theologian of religious
pluralism and interreligious dialogue, and author of Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian. Following a short talk and dialogue, we will practice silent Buddhist sitting.
As a follow-up to this Living Room, we are showing the film REFUGE, followed by a Q&A with the director, at the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order's Dergah in Tribeca. This film explores the cultural dynamics of East and West as told by the Dalai Lama, other Buddhist masters, film directors and artists.
We look forward to seeing you at these autumn events!
|
|
|
SERVE TOGETHER
Pumpkin Carving with Low-Income Seniors
THIS Sunday, Oct 25, 2009
12:30 - 3:30 pm
Linda and Jerome Spitzer Residence
351 E. 61st NY, NY 10065
(between 1st and 2nd Aves)
Subways: 4, 5, 6, N, R, W to Lexington/59th Street
Come volunteer for a fun afternoon in one of Met Council's low income senior residences. We will be carving and decorating pumpkins with
residents, as well as serving Fall Harvest snacks (such as apple cider
and pumpkin pie).
Each volunteer is asked to please bring 1-2 small pumpkins to the event. In your RSVP please note whether or not you will be able to bring pumpkins.
RSVPs are a must, as space at the location is limited.
Please RSVP to bara@faithhousemanhattan.org
About our host organization: Met Council is one of New York's largest human services agencies, providing
more than 100,000 New Yorkers with critical services in their fight
against poverty and its effects every year.
Looking forward to seeing you there,
Bara Levitt, Social Justice Intern
|
|
LIVING ROOM
Walking More Than One Path:
Is Religious Multiple-Belonging Possible?
 Wednesday, Oct 28, 2009
6 pm Doors,7 pm Program
Intersections, 274 5th Ave
Btwn 29th and 30th Sts
With Prof Paul Knitter, Author of Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian
A young Roman Catholic priest experiences Vatican II in Rome, leaves the priesthood, gets married and becomes a leading scholar on religious pluralism... then later in life finds that his wife's Buddhism leads him down a path that saves his Christian identity during a crisis of faith. What's your story? Many religious people today have found that other paths inform and strengthen their primary path or have converted from one path to another or are still searching for a single path where they feel they "belong."
Esteemed scholar, wise and compassionate soul, and Faith House Advisory Council member, Paul Knitter will talk with us about what "multiple belonging" (or "multiple practicing") means, share his own story, lead us in community sharing, and then bring us into an extended period of meditative silence in the Buddhist tradition.
In addition, Faith House extends a warm welcome to members of Knitter's Union Theological Seminary class on "Dealing with Diversity: Preparing Religious Leaders for a Multi-Religious World" who will be attending Living Rooms in October and November as part of their course requirements.
Paul F. Knitter, the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a leading theologian of religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue. Knitter is author of more than a dozen books, most recently, Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian. Knitter's journey into interfaith dialogue began in 1964 when he was a seminarian in Rome and experienced the Second Vatican Council firsthand, at a time when the Roman Catholic Church declared its new attitude towards other religions.
Photo by Marcus Braybrooke: Paul Knitter, Maha Ghosananda, Irfan Khan and members of the Peace Council in the village of Acteal, from interfaithstudies.org
RSVPs welcome, but not required, on our Facebook Event or Meetup Event online.
|
|
SPECIAL EVENT
REFUGE Film, Q&A with the Director
 Wednesday, Nov 4, 2009
6:30 pm Doors, 7 pm Film,
Followed by Q&A with the film director, John Halpern
$10 Donation
Dergah al-Farah in Tribeca
245 West Broadway Ave
Btwn Walker and White Sts
Subways: 1 to Franklin St or A, C,
D, N, Q, R, W to Canal
Since the beginning of the 20th Century, Westerners have been
traveling to the East in search of spiritual wisdom. By the 1950's
Eastern meditation masters were coming to the West and establishing
meditation centers here. This film is the story of those journeys, East
and West, towards refuge.
Halpern's REFUGE engages the audience in the cultural dynamics of East and West, and in the mutual explorations of Buddhism and western mind on the part of its main characters. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, film directors Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, composer, Philip Glass, writer, Melissa Matheson, film director and abbot, Dzongzar Rinpoche and others, tell the story. www.refugefilm.com
Director, John Halpern, will join us for Q&A after the movie
John's next film from MDS Productions will be "KASHMIR~The River" exploring the human capacity for peace in the face of politics and oppression in Kashmir.
The Dergha will provide a samovar with tea, please bring vegetarian snacks to share (e.g. fruit, nuts cheese, popcorn)
|
|
|
In Faith,
Juliet rabia Gentile, Islamic Co-Leader
Samir Selmanovic, Founder and Christian Co-Leader
Bara Levitt, Social Justice Intern
|
|
|
Featured Article from faithhousemanhattan.org
Islamic Relief USA
Day of Dignity 2009
Faith House Was There
|
 |
On October 3, a group of 12 Faith House volunteers gathered in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn as a part of Islamic Relief's National Day of Dignity program to serve America's most needy in 19 cities across America.
Report by Bara Levitt, Social Justice Intern
Photos by Alvin Poblacion
Click to go to this post
|
Featured Article from
faithhousemanhattan.org
A Profile Video and a Book Review - "It's Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian" by Samir Selmanovic
|
 |
|
Watch the YouTube Video. Read the latest review. "Samir Selmanovic is asking the right questions at the right time, and refusing the consolations of certainty at a time when strident orthodoxies--atheist as well as religious--are perilously dividing us."
- KAREN ARMSTRONG, author, A History of God and The Case for God
|
|
Featured Sabbath Poem faithhousemanhattan.org
|
A FUTURE
NOT OUR OWN
~by Oscar Romero Archbishop of San Salvador (1917-1980) |
It helps, now and then, to step back And take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, It is beyond our vision We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of The magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, Which is another way of saying That the kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection... No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, Knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything And there is a sense of liberation realizing that. This enables us to do something, And to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, An opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results... We are prophets of a future not our own. Email your Sabbath Poems to info@
faithhousemanhattan.org |
|
|
