22nd May2009

Dear Faith House Family (May 2009)

by FaithHouseManhattan

~ by Bowie Snodgrass

June 1st will mark Rabia and my one-year anniversaries of working for Faith House. I was originally engaged as Christian Co-Leader for Faith House, and as Samir shared last month, am now completing my third month as Director. This year has been a blessed adventure in functionally developing and actively listening for what God is calling forth for this community.

This time last year, I had not yet met Rabia, our Islamic Co-Leader, or any members of her Sufi order, the Nur Ashki Jerrahi community (www.nurashkijerrahi.org). Two weeks ago, I went to their Thursday night ceremony of Dhikrullah and was amazed to see a dozen people there I had already met at Faith House. These relationships made me feel comfortable participating, as a novice and Christian, in their worship. To use a summer-time analogy, I mostly stayed close to the shore, feeling privileged to watch people I call friends swim out into the ocean!

This Saturday, for our twenty-forth (!) Living Room since our launch last September, Rabia and members of her Sufi community will be leading us in an “instructed” Dhikrullah, where we will be invited to learn why they do what they do and to participate, as we feel comfortable. This Living Room will prepare us for participating in the ceremony with the whole Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Community on Thursday, May 28th with Shaykha Fariha al-Jerrahi.  All details are in our NYC Weekly Update.

These events reveal the heart of Faith House: a safe space to experience another person or community’s loving relationship with the divine. The more I expand into the breadth of inter-religious discovery, the more deeply God calls me to delve into the treasures of my own tradition. This is true for many of us at Faith House.

What is the Faith House moment that touched your heart most deeply this year? Please share it with us in an email to info@faithhousemanhattan.org or in a comment on our website.

I would also like to introduce our Summer Intern, Leah Varsano, who will be with us for the months of June, July and August.

“Leah grew up in a college town in Western Massachusetts. She attended a performing arts high school where she spent most of her time doing theater, but she also played violin in a klezmer band at her Reconstructionist synagogue. She is currently a rising senior at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, majoring in Religion with a minor in Asian Studies.  She is the Social Action chair for the Vassar Jewish Union, and is a Jewish representative on the college’s Inter-Religious Council. She also volunteers with a nation-wide campus organization called Challah for Hunger. Leah recently spent five months in India, living with a host family and studying Hindu traditions and temple life. She was attracted to Faith House because of their emphasis on faith-based and community-oriented interfaith work. She’s looking forward to spending the summer learning about other religious traditions, meeting new people and exposing herself to new ideas, and helping Faith House get ready for the launch of their second year!”

May God continue to bless us and lead us,

Bowie Snodgrass
Director, Faith House Manhattan

Category : Reports
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1 Comm
21st May2009

A Muslim Response to a Bombing Plot This Week

by FaithHouseManhattan

~ Sammer Aboelela, one of the leaders in Faith House community of communities and contributor to this website, is Community Organizer with theNYC Community of Muslim Progressives. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Muslims for Progressive Values.

Sammer just left for Cairo, Egypt to visit his family. Couple of days before he left, he and I (Sammer and Samir) met in a coffee shop on the West Side and spend some time discussing the latest in Middle East and then dreaming, hoping, reminding one another why we are doing this community organizing thing. Soon after arriving to Cairo he heard the news about the bombing plot in New York and emailed this letter to us, his Jewish and Christian friends in New York sharing his personal thoughts. Some of the people who live near Riverdale Temple synagogue have been our guests at Faith House and we both met many of our caring and concerned Jewish friends through Marcia Kannry and The Dialogue Project.

Dear friends,

I’m sitting in Cairo now as I write this letter, at the home of relatives with whom I was reunited yesterday after nearly a decade of separation.  I went to sleep last night with a feeling of peace that I haven’t felt in a long time, and woke early this morning to the sound of the Azhan, the Islamic call to prayer, as it sung its way across the neighborhood and through the open window over my bed.

But as I was sharing hugs with my Muslim family here in Egypt, four very disturbed Muslim men were planting bombs in an effort to tear apart Jewish families in New York.  Early news reports suggest that these men were “upset about the war in Afghanistan,” so with a deranged rationale of misanthropic nihilism they somehow concluded that planting bombs in front of two Bronx synagogues and recreating the atmosphere of bloodshed, fear, and loss we experienced during and after 9/11 would provide some personal cathartic release.

I want my friends in the New York Jewish community to know how deeply I sympathize with the emotional anguish that is sure to pervade in the wake of this failed plot.  While we’re all concerned for the wellbeing of our families in this period of economic insecurity, none of us should carry the additional burden of being potential targets of violent acts of hate and terror.  You have no idea how relieved I am that you are all safe from the will of these would-be terrorists, and how concerned I am for your (and our collective) ongoing health and safety.

In all honesty, it is times like these that I wish Islam had some mechanism for excommunication.  I wish that my non-Muslims friends and acquaintances would see me, my family, my Muslim friends, and the American Muslim community as representative of Islam rather than the headline grabbing sociopaths who act in our name.  I’m so sick of finding myself ashamed of something I didn’t do, by someone I do not know, with motives I do not share, against people for whom I care.

Please know that you are not alone in the shock of this news… that good everyday people whom you have never met, and will likely never meet, as far away as Egypt are also distressed by this story.  My thoughts and their thoughts are with you.  My prayers and their prayers are for you.

Peace,

Sammer Aboelela
Organizer, New York Community of Muslim Progressives

Category : Social Justice and Peacemaking, Stories
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3 Comm
13th May2009

A Book Review: A Puzzle, But the Pieces Fit

by FaithHouseManhattan

~ by Melody Tan

Nathan Brown is a writer and editor, based just out of Melbourne, Australia.
He has written for a wide variety of publications in Australia and
around the world, and is a regular contributor to the Faith House
website.



Nemesis Train could simply have been a notebook filled with the journey of the author’s ponderings and explorations of various people’s lives. But what makes it a compelling read is the fact that the reader not only joins the ride as a mere commuter, but becomes a participant in a very real way as well.

This is not a book in the old-fashioned sense of the word, as chapters often appear unstructured and the flow of the book will take most readers by surprise. However, like Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, readers of Nemesis Train will find themselves unwittingly and inexplicably drawn into a story that makes them want to find out more, if only to discover how all the characters fit into the story.

Nemesis Train provokes thought and, more often, encourages the reader to ask questions rather than provides any real answers. Brown chooses to dwell deep in the thought processes of the characters, paying a lot of attention to their state of mind and what spurs them to do what they do.

Brown has a real talent in seeing details that may have been missed by most writers, and certainly by people going about their normal everyday life. Because he takes the time to pause and study the surroundings, he succeeds in painting a clear and real picture in the mind’s eye. The reader is drawn into the world that Brown has created and becomes a part of the book. The interesting, and sometimes quirky descriptions are also often unique and unexpected.

There is often an overarching sense of loss and loneliness present in the book, a sense that life may be a waste of time without any real meaning. However, there are also rare glimpses of wry humor and, through the character Jed Hill, the reader sees hope.

A book that makes a strong statement against war and the detrimental impact it has on war veterans and perhaps the world in general, it also offers grace and understanding to all those involved. But perhaps, it also offers these gifts to everybody, encouraging patience and kindness to those we come in contact with.

And what makes Nemesis Train a rare treasure is the fact that the surprise ending not only helps everything fall into place for the reader, it makes you want to go back to the platform and board the train all over again with your newfound piece of puzzle.

To learn more about Nathan Brown and Nemesis Train, click HERE.

Category : Books
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Pages:12»

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