I had, possibly, my best weekend at Corrymeela yet. Saturday I spent listening to and collaborating with a group of Turkish/Turkmenistan Muslims who are seeking to raise awareness and create inter-faith dialogue within the Irish/Northern Irish communities. They hold a lot of passion for what they do. I was very much inspiring to hear them speaking the same language of peacemaking that we speak. I will be meeting with them again, and hopefully that will be helping me plan an inter-faith youth conference for next April.
Sunday we had two visitors from Jerusalem, a Rodef Shalom (a Jewish order of people who are anointed to be pursurers of peace in the Orthodox tradition), and a Muslim Sheikh from the Sufi tradition, who have chosen to work together in Jerusalem for peace. They formed a organization called Jerusalem Peacemakers, the website is www.jerusalempeacemakers.org I was blessed with the opportunity to spend the evening with the two of them and our Centre director. It was fascinating to hear their stories and recieve their wisdom in building peace. In the morning they joined us in worship and taught us to pray in Hebrew and Arabic, quite the experience. We were told that we would be welcome at any time in their homes, so maybe we'll just take them up on it.
I've found over the last little while that the idea of peacemaking between religions gives me a lot of energy and captures my imagination. I've had many chances lately to meet people from the Muslim faith and they've all captured my respect very quickly. I really admire their deep spirituality and their dedication to building peace, which is contrary to how the media has been potraying people of the Islamic faith lately.
1 comment:
I appreciate your title for this post, especially since it's been on my mind lately. Your comments about people you've met reinforce again the fact that Jews and Arabs, Hebrews and Muslims and we Christians as a Jewish offshoot are far more closely related to one another faith-wise than world events would seem to indicate. There are those, of course, who say that the current Middle East conflicts are consequences of economic colonialism, and I'm inclined to agree. Northern Ireland's troubles also originate in economic conflict, not in religious dispute. so nice to hear form you regularly; keep up the good work!
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