Rock of Ages -- Unitarian Church of Calgary March 16 2014

Rock of Ages, Rock of Faith

 Before service: Video: For the beauty of the earth



Rock of Ages, Rock of Faith

Service leader: Penney Kome – Guest speaker: Carolyn Pogue

Welcome: Board member -- Brandis Purcell

Greet your neighbour

Chalice lighting and opening words from Annie Besant:

O Hidden Life vibrant in every atom;
O Hidden Light! Shining in every creature;
O Hidden Love! Embracing all in Oneness;
May each who feels himself as one with Thee,
Know he is also one with every other.

Introduction: Penney Kome

Good morning and thanks for coming to hear about the importance of rocks in our lives, especially the oldest rock in the world. I want to take a moment to highlight why this topic is important to us as Unitarians. 

First of all, our seventh principle (adopted in 1993) is to affirm and promote the interdependent web of all existence – all existence, in addition to all life.  Recent extreme weather events have shown the wisdom of this approach. Even if we speak of the planet as Earth and not Gaia, clearly the natural forces wreaking havoc this winter have been anything but inert.  

With this congregation in particular, we’ve been fortunate to have so many geologists as valuable members, thus proving once again that UU s are well grounded in science as well as in faith. We UU s also like to learn from other beliefs, and rocks figure prominently in many faiths, as our guest speaker will show us. 

Just as humans feel kinship with animals and plants, so do we also relate to the minerals  that share our world,  Long before pet rocks became a fad, people around the world carried rocks as companions, in the form of touchstones and worry beads. We humans warm to rocks, even knowing that they are lifeless. We learn about our world from rocks, and we incorporate them into our belief systems. 

Today I have the great pleasure of introducing a distinguished author and peace activist, Carolyn Pogue. Carolyn’s many books include two historical fiction books, a peace colouring book, and the book we’re celebrating today, Rock of Ages. As an activist, she founded the Calgary chapter of Women in Black, and that led to annual Peace Camps for children which have been held in this church, at least once. You may be familiar with Carolyn's campaign against child poverty, with The United Church Women's Child Wellbeing Initiative. [Oh, and her spouse is famous too. We are also honoured to have the Very Reverend Bill Phipps with us again today.] 

I could go on and on, but the real treat today is to hear Carolyn speak for herself. And we’ll start by inviting her to tell us a Story for All, and inviting the young and young at heart up to the front.  Please do come up, children. Carolyn would love to meet you.

Carolyn Pogue: Everybody Needs A Rock, by Byrd Baylor

Author Byrd Baylor offers ten tips for choosing your very own rock. 


Penney Kome:  Now it’s time to light the children’s chalice and head downstairs to your classrooms.

Sing children out: Go now in peace, go now in peace, may the spirit of love surround you, everywhere, everywhere, you may go.

PK: Now please join us in a new song. Carolyn has brought a hymn with her, Called by Earth and Sky, by Pat Mayberry. Please stand in body or in spirit and sing with us. This hymn is not in our hymnbook. Look up at the screen for words and music. 

Offering: After the basket has passed,  you may light a silent candle or this week you may drop a polished rock into a bowl of water, to symbolize your joy or concern.
 
Caring Committee report

I am here on behalf of the caring team -- that is all of us -- as we care for each other in this congregation.  

We take this time in the service to tend the sacred ties that bind our lives to one another.  These are the relationships that are the foundation of this beloved community that we get to create together. We recognize ourselves as part of an interdependent web of existence, affirming that what touches the life of one of us, affects us all. In these moments, we seek to widen the caring ministry by sharing the joys, sorrows, concerns and milestones in our own lives and in the life of the congregation. 

[SWEET team member reads joys and concerns from green cards and talks about greeting cards to sign.]

We light this candle of concern for all those spoken concerns as well as those in our hearts. 

There are joys and milestones in our midst as well. We light this candle for for those. 

One of our greatest joys is to welcome newcomers to our midst. If you are here for the first time, and if you are comfortable doing so, please stand or wave and be recognized.

We light this candle of joy for all that has been spoken, for the guests among us, and for all the unspoken joys held in the silence of our hearts.

Welcome and please join us for coffee and take a blue cup. The blue cup serves as an invitation to conversation. Please also take a moment and stop by our Welcome Table located in the Barker Room and sign our Guest Book. 

Finally, we light our candle of global concern. 


Homily: “Faith like a rock,” Carolyn Pogue talks about rocks as metaphor.

Penney has mentioned some of the work I’ve been involved with over the years. I realized, soon after I began thinking about writing Rock of Ages, that this book really brings together a lot of this work. It is about how I feel about this precious planet. 

The Acasta River gneiss — or the rock from the Denadziidee River— is the most ancient on Earth. Currently, the rock is located southeast of Sahtu/Great Bear Lake, but it hasn’t always been located there.  After it arose from the primal waters more than four billion years ago, it continued to move. Because of techtonic plate activity, scientists say that this rock has slipped beneath mountains and emerged into the air again. It has travelled to the equator and to the other side of the planet. It is the Rock More Travelled you could say.

Two years ago I sat at my computer and stared at this rock. I knew that it had a story inside and I wondered if I could find it. In fact, I found many stories. This morning I share some from a chapter in Rock of Ages in which I looked at some of our spiritual connections to rocks.

Humans around the world have long understood "rock" as a metaphor for the sacred. Stories, scriptures and hymns abound with this imagery. As well, followers of a variety of spiritual traditions venerate particular rocks and stones. 

England

The British Isles are rich with rock and stone stories, rituals and holy places. Stonehenge in England is by far the most well known of the megalithic sites. It can be seen for about three kilometres all around. There are about 80 major stones, some brought great distances from the area now called Wales.  Although it is a very busy tourist and pilgrimage site, modern Druids are still able to practice ceremonies during Solstice. It was apparently constructed so that humans could align themselves with the great powers of the universe.  Stonehenge is about 5,000 years old.  

Saudi Arabia

Tradition says that the Black Stone fell from the sky. It is said to have been venerated in pre-Islamic times, and according to Muslim tradition, dates back to the time of Adam and Eve, the beginning. It is the eastern cornerstone in the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, set there by the Prophet Muhammad in 605 CE. A piece of it is framed and set into the side of the mosque and this is where millions of pilgrims annually come to pray, and to kiss, touch or point to it in a show of reverence. Pilgrims walk around it in prayer seven times. If devout Muslims can possibly do it, they are required to make at least one pilgrimage during their lifetimes. Many millions do just that because there is but one Black Stone. 

Tibet

For Buddhists, though, there are many Mani stones. These are stone plates, rocks or pebbles inscribed with Om mani padme hum, “hail to the jewel in the lotus,” which is a prayer for compassion. Mani stones are placed along roadsides or rivers and sometimes walls as a prayer offering, and as a reminder that Earth is sacred. People walk clockwise around them or pass on the left. This is the way the Earth revolves.

Ireland

Few visitors to Ireland wouldn’t know about the Blarney Stone. This stone, in Blarney Castle near Cork, has many legends attached to it. One says that the Blarney was once part of the Stone of Scone in Scotland. Another says that the builder of the castle appealed to a goddess for help in settling a lawsuit. She told him that if he kissed a stone enroute to court he would receive an eloquent tongue. He did, and the judge ruled in his favour. In gratitude, he incorporated the stone into the castle. Today, the Blarney Stone is said to impart the gift of the blarney to the one who will lean over backward to kiss it. The literature proclaims that if you kiss the Blarney Stone, “you’ll never be at a loss for words again.”

Manitou Stone in Alberta

A few years ago I was told by a Cree friend about a holy stone in this province. It is The Manitou Stone. Learning about it made me cringe. The story is wrapped inside the larger painful story of European Christians believing that they needed to “save” people, and the cruel establishment by the Canadian government, of Indian Residential Schools and racist policies and laws.

In the early days, the story tells us, the Great Spirit, Manitou, sent an iron stone to Earth. Some call it a meteorite; others call it Old Man Buffalo, perhaps because of its power to protect the buffalo, the life blood of the people of the Prairies.

The Blackfoot and Cree, believed that the Manitou Stone protected them against war, disease and famine. The Elders taught this. People left offerings near the stone and made prayers and songs in its honour. 

When Christian missionaries arrived in the area, they saw how the people regularly travelled to the stone and revered it. The newcomers believed that the Manitou Stone was a stumbling block to the conversion of people to Christianity. In the 1860s, Reverend George McDougall, a Methodist, spirited the Stone away and left the hill and the people, bereft. 

The prophecy of the holy ones came true. Very soon, there was indeed war between the Blackfoot and the Cree. Within a few years, the buffalo population was decimated. 

And, finally, a small pox epidemic decimated the people, killing George McDougall’s three daughters, too. War, disease and famine had arrived with a vengeance.

The Manitou Stone had been sent to Toronto, Ontario where it was lodged at Victoria University for more than 100 years. Eventually, a new generation of church people felt shame for the theft and returned the stone to the west. But the councils of Elders and chiefs could not decide who should take responsibility for its care or where it should be placed. And so, the Manitou Stone today is on display at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton.

Just before the Solstice in December 2012, a Ceremony of Forgiveness was held at McDougall United Church in Edmonton. Initiated by Anna Faulds, the ritual involved representatives of Blackfoot, Cree and Dene nations, the Royal Alberta Museum and the local and national United Church. The intent of the ceremony was to remove the negative energy surrounding the Manitou Stone. Such is the power of sacred rocks to this day.
 

Cosmologist Brian Swimme says that science has finally recognized what First Peoples have always said, “We are one.” Swimme says, “We are the universe in human form — related, in terms of energy and of matter — and part of an amazing story.” 

I believe that this rock is important today because it is a physical connection to that amazing story. We can touch the beginning of time.This is why, for example, universities and museums around the world want a piece for display and study — and the Smithsonian Institute went north to get a piece for a cornerstone for a new museum. 

Geologist Janet King located this rock in 1989. In all of Earth’s history, it took until now for the world to catch a glimpse of it. It made me wonder if this grandfather rock had kept his story quiet until now for a reason.

Part of the outcrop is embedded deep in the Earth, part of it stands bold against the wild sky and part of it swoops down into the river. It connects, therefore, Earth, air, water. It remains to be seen what we will make of it.

[end]

Now, please join us in singing Hymn #308, in our gray hymnal -- The Blessings of the Earth and Sky 

Centering -- Poetry excerpt plus lithophone (musical rocks) video 

Anne Marie Sewell has made her poem "if you must touch river rock" available in Carolyn's book, among other places.  We excerpt it here so we also have time to share an exciting brand new video that my colleague Greg Locke just made available for the first time on Thursday night., in which musicians call forth the voices of rocks.

This video from a 2012 Sound Symposium shows how to wrap bungee cords around flat rocks to build sounding chambers, which echo when someone strikes the top rock. Musical rocks are called lithophones. In this video, they sound like rainsticks. 

We will read the poem excerpt and then play the video, and we invite you to relax into contemplating what we have to learn from rocks. Please put your feet flat on the floor and your hands in your lap, and think about taking a few deep breaths. You might want to close your eyes for a minute once the musicians get going. 

"if you must touch river rock", excerpt, by Edmonton Poet Laureate Anne Marie Sewell
...let some stones be porous
some rough, some smooth
so your fingers are soothed
and learn to touch like water
and if one is grey
call it writer's stone
all colours or none
heavy or light
the fog that conceals
or clouds the birthplace of rain
the mind of the poet,
story of it hidden
let this one remind you
the beating of a heart
much older than our own
enfolds us   our blood
part of that dancing over stones
that give the river its song

Video by award-winning photographer Greg Locke, from the 2012 Sound Symposium held in Doctor's Cove, Newfoundland   https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151948818822681&set=vb.592097680&type=2&theater

Responsive Reading:      #550   Please join us in a responsive reading. Carolyn will lead this side with words in regular font. Penney will lead this side with words in italics. 

We Belong to the Earth, attributed to Chief Noah Sealth

This we know. The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth. 

        This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. 

        All things are connected.


       Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughter of the earth. 

       We did not weave the web of life. We are merely a strand in it. 


       Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. 

Closing words: 
Let us bless and keep one another.
Let kindness rule in our hearts
and compassion in our lives,
until we meet again. Amen.
by John C Morgan 

Please join hands or assume the Namaste position for our final Hymn, #123, Spirit of Life. The words are on the wall.

Hymn#123: Spirit of Life -- Words are on the walls

Rooting for the Olympics underdogs

Photo by Penney Kome, Calgary Pride March September 2013

 

Although some LGBT leaders urged a boycott on the Sochi Olympics due to Russia's draconian law against "homosexual propaganda", generally world response has been to treat the event as a teachable moment about celebrating all the different forms of human love.

Russia’s new law banning gay friendly “propaganda” accessible to minors has sparked serious and humourous protests globally. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision not to attend the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi puts him in good company. Neither President Obama nor Vice-President Biden will attend, nor French President Francois Hollande German President Joachim Gauck or European Union Commissioner Viviane Reding.

On February 5, rallies in 20 cities worldwide protested outside the offices of ten major Olympics sponsors. In addition, CTV news reported that, “A coalition of 40 international groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, sent an open letter to the 10 biggest Olympic sponsors last week urging them to run ads promoting equality for LGBT people.”

All the sponsors promptly re-affirmed their commitment to human rights. Some specifically declared their support for LGBT rights.

"Russia's law is harmful to LGBT individuals and families, and it's harmful to a diverse society," said a post on the AT&T Consumer Blog, under the headline A Time for Pride and Equality.

The next day, Chobani (Yogurt) CEO Hamdi Ulukaya issued a statement "It's disappointing that in 2014 this is still an issue," he said. "We are against all laws and practices that discriminate in any way, whether it be where you come from or who you love. For that reason, we oppose Russia's anti-LGBT law." 

As ABC News reported, De Vry University spokesperson Ernie Gibble said, "We are against Russia's anti-LGBT law and support efforts to improve LGBT equality."  Coca Cola announced its strong support for LGBT rights. McDonald’s stated it supports human and civil rights. Visa said that it was “engaged” with the IOC on “this important topic.” 

Google changed the logo on its search page, showing rainbow patches, each holding an athlete in a winter Olympic sport, above a quote from the Olympic Charter about human rights.

Late night talk show host Chelsea Handler inspired rainbows over city halls across Canada when she ran the wrong photo – Vancouver mayor Greg Robertson – while reporting the Sochi mayor’s homophobic remarks. Learning of the mix-up through Twitter, Robertson seized the opportunity to reiterate his well-known support for gay rights.

“I’ve always stood strong and proud for Vancouver’s LGBTQ community, and gay rights are really important to Vancouverites,” he said.  Vancouver Council voted to send a delegation to Sochi to lobby the IOC for gay rights, headed up by City Councillor Tim Stevenson, who is gay. 

After Vancouver stepped up to the challenge, city after city across Canada voted to fly the rainbow flag for the duration of the games, starting with St John’s, Nfld. Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, and Whistler, among others, are flying rainbow flags out front, as their mayors hold news conferences to assert their cities’ support for LGBT rights.  Toronto’s Rob Ford is the biggest hold-out.

Then came the advertisements: Chevy’s Olympics ads include same-sex couples raising children   Norway promoted sports with an ad that ends, “Whatever team you play for...” ; the Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion issued a 33 second commercial with two lugers rocking back and forth with a caption saying, “The Olympics have always been a little bit gay;" and Britain’s Channel 4 re-branded to a rainbow-coloured logo and launched a “Gay Mountain” ad campaign.

The world seems to have seized upon the Sochi Olympics as a teachable moment. Twenty years ago, such a public outpouring of support would have been unimaginable. I am as stunned but delighted as I was the night the United States elected its first Black president. As a Unitarian, whose denomination has offered same sex marriage in Canada since 1974, I honestly did not expect to see this sea change in within my lifetime.

As well, there’s been a fierce debate on whether to boycott the games. In August, actor Stephen Fry wrote, “An absolute ban on the Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 on Sochi is simply essential.”  George Takei in the States urged the same. Some progressives shun the games completely – not easy to do in this Olympics-soaked news cycle. Meanwhile, reporters have mentioned most spectator seats remain unsold, for a number of reasons. 

Conversely, other high-profile LGBT folks have urged gays to make their presence at Sochi highly visible and as successful as possible. As Susan Cole wrote in NOW, “gay rights activists have the chance to get unprecedented visibility.”

On the other hand, one young gay man close to my heart is worried that the news media attempts to support gay athletes could actually jeopardize them.  Everybody’s looking for a Jesse Owens -- the Black athlete who won four gold medals at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics -- to prove Putin wrong. This fellow pointed to the coverage of Ireen Wust, who won two gold medals for speedskating. News reports mentioned that she prefers to be identified as a Dutch skater, even though she is out as a lesbian at home – in Holland, where people don’t pay much attention to such differences.

Yes, every victory by an LGBT athlete throws the hateful law’s lie back in the teeth of official Russia. But, he said, “Right now the media are on a witch hunt for every gay athlete who wins a medal. In effect, they’re identifying potential targets.” He pointed out that Ireen Wust is still competing, still in Russia, where speaking out for gay rights is against the law.  Wust should be the person to decide how she identifies (she has won speedskating gold three Olympics in a row) and how much risk she wants to take.

Although Canada lines up with the gay-friendly nations on the Olympics, he said, LGBT communities at home usually see a different orientation. Somewhere over the rainbow, the athletes will come home again. And now that all of these companies, politicians, and celebrities have made this big show of how much they support gay rights, he said, “it’s time for them to live up to it.”

**** **** **** ****

Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the 1936 summer Olympics, a record that stands to this day. According to the Olympics website, “...Owens won four gold medals, in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and the long jump. He managed to break or equal nine Olympic records and also set three world records. One of those world records was in the 4x100m relay. The quartet set a time that wouldn’t be bettered for 20 years.”

Even more remarkably Owens , a Black man, achieved all this in an extremely hostile environment. The Ineternational Olympics Committee chose Berlin in 1931, two years before Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933. 

According to Wikipedia, “Hitler saw the [1936] Games as an opportunity to promote his government and ideals of racial supremacy, and the official Nazi party paper, the Völkischer Beobachter, wrote in the strongest terms that Jews and Black people should not be allowed to participate in the Games.”

World outcry forced the Third Reich to retract their outrageous request, and a few brave Jewish and Black athletes did compete. If Jesse Owens’ extraordinary triumphs embarrassed the Adolf Hitler’s government and its claims of Aryan racial superiority, other nations did not seem particularly sympathetic.

Indeed, some nations urged the world to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and forty-nine countries actually registered athletes with alternative games in Barcelona.  Unfortunately, the Spanish Civil War erupted the day before the games were due to start.

Russia was among the first to announce it would boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympic games -- even though the Third Reich retracted its original demand that no countries send Jewish or Black athletes -- largely because Russia boycotted all the Olympics at that time and instead participated in the international workers’ games, Spartakiad. 

So there’s a certain irony in the way so many nations have turned against Russia during the 2014 Olympics, on human rights grounds.

In Rumi's footsteps: Sufism in the modern world

Unitarian Church of Calgary, Order of Service January 5 2013

In Rumi’s Footsteps: Sufism in the Modern World    
Service Leader: Penney Kome 
Guest speakers: Malik Muradov , Emine Gurbuzer 
Sound operator: Hendrik Schaink

Welcome (Board member) and Greet your neighbours

Chalice lighting: The lamps are different, but the Light is the same: it comes from Beyond.
If thou keep looking at the lamp, thou art lost: for thence arises the appearance of number and plurality. 
Fix thy gaze upon the Light, and thou are delivered from the dualism inherent in the finite body.
O thou who art the kernel of Existence, the disagreement between Moslem, Zoroastrian and Jew depends on the standpoint.
(by Jalala al-Din Rumi)

Introduction: Why Unitarians should care about modern Sufis and the Hizmet movement 
Hello everyone. My name is Penney Kome. I’m a member of the Church Services Committee, and I will be your Service Leader this week. This year, our Sunday services are highlighting inspiration from other religions. This service is part of that series. We’ll project the text of the service on the screen here, as a guide, but not necessarily as word-for-word text for what we are going to say.

Today, we are very fortunate to have two guest speakers from the Intercultural Dialogue Institute,  an organization with branches across Canada. With me at the front are Mr Malik Muradov, Executive Director of the Calgary branch, and Ms Emine Gurbuzer, head of the local women’s section.

Being able to introduce these two long time Calgarians to this congregation brings me special pleasure because I think our two faiths hold many principles in common. The IDI vigorously promotes interfaith dialogue and religious freedom, which are causes dear to many Unitarian hearts.

The Calgary IDI often hosts events, celebrating occasions like International Women’s Day, or Black History Month, which draw people from communities all over Calgary, often including local politicians.  The group is also closely connected to the global Islamic Hizmet peace movement, which promotes education and religious tolerance in 140 countries around the world. The word Hizmet means, “service for the common good,” and I suggest it corresponds to our Unitarian commitment to live our faith.

“Hizmet” is another name for the Gülen movement, which began with writer and former Imam Fethullah Gülen’s modest effort to connect struggling post-secondary students with volunteer university students – in other words, to give a few local kids some free tutoring. Decades later, Gülen leads an international network of non-profit private and public schools, many funded mostly or completely by donations. These educational initiatives have earned him a fair amount of influence in his native Turkey, especially among Turkey’s media, judiciary, and civil servants who obtained their training this way.

Last April, TIME Magazine named Gülen one of the 100 most influential people in the world – noting that as “the most potent advocate of moderation in the Muslim world, Gülen is waging an urgently important campaign.” The Economist reported in 2008 that, “With his stated belief in science, inter-faith dialogue and multi-party democracy, Mr Gülen has also won praise from many non-Muslim quarters.”

Lately, Fethullah Gülen has clashed openly with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, even though (according to the Christian Science Monitor) a decade ago, the two of them worked together on legal challenges that broke the military government’s hold on power. Now Erdogan's government is reeling from allegations of graft and corruption, including plans to move against some of Hizmet's schools. As a journalist, I think Fethullah Gülen is a story! As a Unitarian, I think any struggle between a spiritual leader and a government deserves careful examination.

Finally, of course, most Unitarians know at least a little about the immortal Sufi poet, Rumi. He was born in 1207 in what is now Afghanistan, forced to flee the Mongols as a toddler (with his family) and therefore raised in Turkey. Writing in Persian, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi crafted verses that have influenced all of Persian, Arab and Muslim literature and other arts across the centuries.  His is called “the ecstatic faith,” the faith of falling in love with the divine over and over again, in both its divine and human form.

Rumi’s poems dare us to test ourselves and our senses, to think outside convention. Most of us have heard the famous line from one of his poems that offers, “...Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there” -- a deliberately shocking invitation to liberate ourselves to follow our joy. Similarly, the whirling dervishes remind us that everything in the world is whirling with the force of love.

Those are my main reasons for inviting Malik and Emine here to speak with me before this beloved community.  Please make yourselves comfortable and join us in looking at Rumi's Light.  

Story for all  – Nasreddin Hoca story
Emine Gurbuzer 

Sing children out: Go now in peace, go now in peace. May the spirit of love surround you, everywhere, everywhere, you may go.

Hymn #188: Come, come, whoever you are   (Round)   

Reading:  Fethullah Guüen on faith and community


Emine Gurbuzer
 
“...Faith makes a believer a person who inspires trust to one’s environment, even to the entire creation. It makes one’s narrow world into a universal one. True Muslims see the universe as a cradle of amity, and thus see everybody as brothers and sisters to a certain extent. As Ali ibn Abi Talib stated, they see others as brothers and sisters, Muslims being in faith and others being in humanity. Surely, their perspective of believers is very different, owing to the belief that they will be together in the intermediary realm, on the Day of Judgment, and the final reckoning.

“...People with such faith will not reduce their relationship with their environment to opportunistic expectations from others; on the contrary, they will try to establish a bond and relationship that will continue in the next world as well. If such a bond and relationship have a different value in God’s sight, then this will let believers become closer to God and make them succeed in both worlds, which is another promise made by faith.

“It is possible to see the Prophet’s blessed statement, “God’s hand (of support) is with the community,” from this perspective as well. That is, as God Almighty protects people who act with a collective spirit in this world from evils and grants them success, He will grant exceptional blessings to them altogether. In other words, acting in the collective yields not only worldly fruits, but otherworldly ones as well....” 
(excerpted from Fethullah Gülen)

Multimedia: Listen to Rumi poem while watching this four minute video   


Malik Muradov on why dervishes whirl, seeking to dissolve into the infinite  

Offering:  This congregation meets 100% of its expenses from free will donations. Let there be an offering to sustain and strengthen this place which is sacred to so many of us, a community of memory and of hope, for we are now the keepers of the dream.

(Brandoch L. Lovely)

If you have a Life Milestone to share with the congregation, please write it on a green card and put it in the offering basket, for someone from the Caring Committee to read from the front. After the basket passes you, you may come forward and light a silent candle of joy or concern, here at the sides.  Meanwhile, please enjoy this video about Turkish marbling art

Caring committee report on congregational joys and concerns 

Meditation: 
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open. 
Don't go back to sleep.                                   Rumi

Response to meditation: video about Muslim calligraphy.  

Conversation: PK, MM, EG with questions and answers about the IDI, Fethullah Gulen, Rumi, and Noah's Pudding


Question: After 9/11 and ever since, I have seen and read stories that describe Muslims as scary people, people that Westerners will inevitably have to fight in what Samuel Huntington described as a “Clash of Civilizations”.  My question to you is, do the Muslims you know think that Westerners are scary people too?

Question: I think some Christian organizations might be worried that dialogue could lead to some of their members converting to Islam. Does IDI try to convert people? What’s the purpose of stimulating dialogue?

Question: What kinds of reactions do you get from inviting dialogue? 

Question: If you want to do good work, why don’t you feed the hungry instead of sitting around and talking? 

Question: Why does Fethullah Gülen call his blog The Broken Jug? 

Question: What is Noah's Pudding?

Hymn # 180 Alhamdulillah Arabic Allelulia  (Round)

Extinguish chalice with 
Closing words – #474: Unto the church universal

Unto the church universal, which is the depository of all ancient wisdom and the school of all modern thought;

Which recognizes in all prophets a harmony, in all scriptures a unity, and through all dispensations a continuity;

Which abjures all that separates and divides, and always magnifies all that unifies and brings peace;

Which seeks truth in freedom, justice in love, and individual discipline in social duty;

And which shall make of all sects, classes, nations, and races, one global community;

Unto this church and unto all its members, known and unknown throughout the world, 

We [those of us present who agree with the goals above] pledge the allegiance of our hands and hearts.   
(Keshab Chandra Sen/Arr. John Haynes Holmes)  

Hymn # 123  Spirit of Life