CityLights: A Report from the City

~ by Julijana Kojic, a graduate (Master of Theology) of Eastern Orthodox St. Vladimir's Theological Seminary in New York, interested in spirituality and women's studies, soon to be mother, and a director of CityLights

CityLights is a group of spiritual seekers, based in New York, which has existed now for five years. We began as two home groups of friends meeting in the apartments, one on the East Side and another on the West Side of Manhattan. The idea behind these weekday evening meetings was to bring us closer together in the space outside of the walls of our houses of worship, where we could share life together and explore what an authentic community can be.

In 2003 CityLights started to gather for worship on Sabbath. Throughout our short history we saw ourselves as a group that wants to be inclusive and to learn from different spiritual traditions. Although most of us are of Christian background, diversity is cherished and persons of any faith or no faith are welcome and invited to participate in the community life, discussions, and activities that we organize or to just observe.

Since our inception, the mission of the CityLights community has been “learning to love well.” We know that God is love and want to discover and understand from our own and other traditions what that means and how it can be lived out. We are looking for God's face in the faces of our neighbors, the people that live around us. New York is home for God's children of Eastern and Western Christianity, Islam and Judaism, of secular thinkers and many other religions who carry wisdom and goodness in their traditions.

Although at times we feel burdened by the challenges of being a small and diverse group in the midst of New York City's complexity, we are encouraged to embrace the margins as our place of life and to allow God to change us through such experience so we can join God in changing the world.

The Faith House project and people around it who are willing to move to New York to love and serve this city inspire us and encourage us with their courage. Some of us from CityLights were privileged to meet Rose and Al Poblacion, who came to New York in March for the first time and are soon moving here, committing the next three years to the hope of the Faith House, to the vision of a place that would, in Christian terms, seek to be an embodiment of the way of Christ for our time and place.

Lives and thoughts of many of us at the CityLights have been influenced by ministry and friendship of Samir Selmanovic and we are looking forward to having him, Vesna, Ena, Leta, Alvin, and Rose in New York with us soon. We are praying for the birth of the Faith House as the place that will celebrate grace of God wherever it is found and help many discover life in the Kingdom of God.