FAITH HOUSE Manhattan

A Sabbath Poem (Bozarth)

THE SMALL PLOT OF GROUND
~ by Alla Renee Bozarth

The small plot of ground
on which you were born
cannot be expected

to stay forever
the same.
Earth changes,
and home becomes different
places.

You took flesh
from clay
but the clay
did not come
from just one place.

To feel alive,
important, and safe,
know your own waters
and hills, but know
more

You have stars in your bones
and oceans
in blood.

You have opposing
terrain in each eye
you belong to the land
and sky of your first cry,
you belong to infinity.

(from Earth Prayers, edited by Elizabeth Roberts)
Thank you Bowie for sending this to us!

Have a Cup of Delicious Peace

~ by Ben Corey-Moran who is the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Coffee Development at Thanksgiving, and is a former member of the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s Sustainability Committee, as well as chair of United Student’s for Fair Trade’s National Advisory Board. He is inspired by his Jewish tradition's insights into justice, relationship, and deeply moved by the task of bringing his tradition to life in our time, especially in matters of food, farming, and trade. Ben lives in Northern California.

Sharing a dedication to the deepest expression of our faiths' values, Thanksgiving Coffee Company and Faith House are exploring the possibilities of global interfaith partnership for environmental justice, and an opportunity to support the 754-member Peace Kawomera Cooperative in Uganda. We hope to work together to bring this story of peace from Uganda and inspire individuals and communities here in the US.

In 2003, Joab Keki, a Ugandan farmer, walked door-to-door asking his Muslim, Christian, and Jewish neighbors to leave behind a history of conflict and face their challenges together. This community of third and fourth generation coffee farmers was struggling to make a living off the low prices offered by the local market. They faced a situation confronting millions like them around the world: struggle with low prices, or cut down the coffee trees, and surrounding forest for lumber, and try to make it with another crop. On the one hand, they had the hope for a sustainable farming future; on the other, they faced the dire consequences of poverty, both social and environmental. With the assistance of Thanksgiving Coffee Company, a family-run coffee roaster in Northern California, these Jewish, Christian and Muslim farmers formed a cooperative. They named their coffee Peace Kawomera, which means, “Delicious Peace” in the Luganda language.

Now in 2008, the Peace Kawomera Cooperative has grown to over 750 members. Thanks to their collective effort, the farmers sell directly to Thanksgiving Coffee Company, and receive $2.60 per pound, a price four times higher than what they were previously paid. This has enabled farmers to send their children to school, start savings accounts, and reinvest in their farms.

Somaili Bissaso, one of the Peace Kawomera Cooperative’s most prominent members was instrumental in convincing his Muslim community to join the cooperative, and has since led the growth and development of the interfaith peace effort. When asked about his thoughts on Thanksgiving Coffee, Bissaso responded,  “We are very grateful, and glad that you have come. You have encouraged us, and you have given us energy to love our coffee trees. Even our youth—my grandsons included—now have the hope to be coffee farmers one day. We pray that, Insha’allah, God gives us more time, luck, and energy.”

Together, the farmers have succeeded in doing something that none could have done alone. As they face the many challenges of life in rural Uganda, they look to their cooperative for hope and strength. In the coming years, the Cooperative plans to invest in land and equipment, offer microfinance to members and contribute to a variety of public health and education projects. That’s where communities like Faith House can help. Please visit our Community Development section to learn more about the Cooperative’s struggles and successes.

On the slopes of Mount Elgon, in Eastern Uganda, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian coffee farmers are struggling to heal a history of violence. Theirs is the story of farmers united by a shared struggle for fair and a sustainable economy. Their fair trade, organic and certified Kosher and Halal coffee is purchased by a growing network of churches, synagogues and mosques across the United States. We invite you to join efforts like this and harness the buying power of your community for peace and justice, and to heal the broken relationships of our world. 

To learn more about this story of peace, economic justice, and environmental sustainability, and to find out how you, your institution, or congregation can get involved, please visit Thanksgiving Coffee’s website, www.deliciouspeace.com.

An Article by Martin Marty: Differentism

 ~ from Sightings (2/26/08), by Martin Marty, author of more than 50 books, speaker, columnist, pastor, teacher, and professor of religion at University of Chicago for 35 years. "Marty" is one of the most prominent interpretors of religion today. Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, upcoming events, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com. In this brief essay he looks at two women, one Jewish and the other Muslim, who received advanced degrees fro Chicago's Catholic Theological Union. Both sought to explore faith in the context of an institution of another faith.

"Women Blaze an Interfaith Trail: Two teachers become first Jewish female and first Muslim female to receive advanced degrees from Catholic Theological Union," and "She's First Jewish Graduate of Catholic Theological Union" were headlines in The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun-Times on May 15. These are local news items, but they represent trends that are growing in the religious cosmopolis. At least two Lutheran seminaries have Islamic Study offerings. The presence of Jews on Christian faculties is common. Time to yawn and head back to presidential campaign obsessions for excitement?

What is going on is a revolution in theological education and inter-religious relations on a scale that a religious-warring world ought to cherish. The trend or revolution has its detractors. Some Catholics are building small but well-financed colleges in which Catholic truth is set in amber or hermetically sealed: non-Catholics or Catholics of other kinds are excluded or unwelcome. That's one way of fighting "indifferentism", which The Catholic Encyclopedia defines as "the term given, in general, to all those theories, which, for one reason or another, deny that it is the duty of man to worship God by believing and practicing the one true religion."

A Sabbath Poem (Whitman)

TO BE A GREAT POEM
~ a reflection by Walt Whitman
(from preface to Leaves of Grass)

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning god, have patience and indulgence toward the people, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul--and your very flesh shall be a great poem.

Advisory Council Expands

We are delighted to introduce to you Imam Khalid Latif, a brand new member of our Advisory Council. Imam Latif is a Muslim chaplain at New York University. Under his leadership, the Islamic Center at NYU became the first ever fully established Muslim student center at an institution of higher education in the United States. Imam Latif's exceptional dedication and ability to cross interfaith and cultural lines brought him recognition throughout the city, so much so that in 2007 Mayor Michael Bloomberg established Imam Latif as the youngest chaplain in history of the New York City Police Department at the age of 24.

Imam Latif's numerous speaking engagements and awards have kept him in the public eye as one of New York City's most promising and well-known young Muslim leaders. He has been a speaker at the United Nations, Apollo Theater, Carnegie Hall and a number of prestigious universities, including Princeton, Harvard, the University of Massachusetts, Stonybrook and the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, he has done consultation work for the State Department's International Visitors Program and its Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the British Consulate and Parliament.

He has worked tirelessly to foster dialogue with people of other faiths in order to clarify misconceptions and encourage mutual education. In the process he has begun to carve out a much-needed space for young American Muslims to celebrate their unique identity and have their voices heard in the larger public sphere. And our city is better for it! Alhamdulillah (الحمد لله or "praise to God")! 

Imam Latif will also teach Quran and speak at Faith House several times a year. For his full bio click HERE. To read about our Advisory Council click HERE.

A Sabbath Poem (St. John of the Cross - 2)

IF YOU LOVE
~ by St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)
You might quiet the whole world for a second

if you pray.
And if you love, if you

really love,
our guns will

wilt.



(from the Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices
from the East and West, translation Daniel Ladinsky
- Penguin Compass, 2002)

A Mother's Day in Darfur

~ Rabbi Or N. Rose is an associate dean at the Rabbinical School at Hebrew College and the co-editor of Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice (Jewish Lights Publishing). I (Samir) have met Rabbi Or after he gave a lecture at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan. Since then, he has become a precious source of wisdom and encouragement to us. Many of us can join hands with Rabbi Or and all who are working towards the end of crisis in Darfur.

An ongoing genocide rages in Darfur, Sudan. The violence has already claimed as many as 450,000 lives and displaced more than 2.4 million people. Mothers, in particular, are at substantial risk in Darfur. After five years of conflict, most women who survived the destruction of their villages now live in displaced persons or refugee camps, where it is difficult to find firewood to cook with.

With no other way to feed their families, thousands of courageous women make the choice every day to leave the camps and expose themselves to attack from roving militiamen so that their husbands (who are at an even greater risk of being murdered) and children may live. The strength and resilience of these women reminds me of Shifrah and Puah, the two midwives in the first chapter of Exodus, who courageously defied Pharaoh and intervened to save the lives of the Israelite male children.

This past Mother’s Day weekend, in synagogues and churches across the country religious leaders shared the story of the brave mothers of Darfur with their communities, and congregants responded by donating generously to help protect these heroic women. This initiative was organized by the Genocide Intervention Network, one of the leading anti-genocide organizations in the United States. Over the next six months, GI-Net will work to build propane-powered kitchens in the camps, thus eliminating the need for firewood collection.

Of course, the crisis in Darfur will not be solved by humanitarian efforts alone.  In addition to helping alleviate the pain and suffering of the millions of people languishing in camps along the Sudan-Chad border, we must also agitate for a just political solution. 

With the Beijing Summer Olympics on the horizon, Darfur activists are calling on the Chinese government, Sudan's largest oil customer, valued arms supplier and chief ally on the U.N. Security Council, to stop President Omar al-Bashir and his ruthless administration from continuing its genocidal campaign against the people of Darfur.

The American Jewish World Service, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), and several other social justice organizations (including GI-Net and the Save Darfur Coalition) are calling on President Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games unless China takes several key steps to help end the crisis in western Sudan. The list of actions includes China ending all arms transfers to Sudan, strongly and publicly condemning the atrocities in Darfur, and demanding that the government of Sudan comply with existing U.N. Security Council resolutions and rapidly facilitate the deployment of the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force. 

President Bush could use this opportunity to recommit himself to the Darfur cause, as his record on this issue is inconsistent at best.  What better way for an outgoing president to spend his final months in office than to dedicate himself to ending the first genocide of the 21st century.

As we reflect on the meaning of Mother’s Day and on our love for our families, let us also remember the mothers, fathers, and children of Darfur who desperately need us to take action both as humanitarians and as political advocates.  Let us act with the courage of the ancient midwives of Exodus by joining GI-Net, AJWS, JCPA, and others in helping to birth a new era of justice and peace in western Sudan. 

Article in New York Times: Young Muslim Video Makers

When Ali Ardekani started fishing around on the Internet a couple of years ago for video blogs about Muslims, he did not like what he found: either the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims were depicted as bloodthirsty zealots, or they were offering defensive explanations as to why they were not.

Scenes from a variety of videos made by young Muslims. From top, “I Am a Muslim,” “Who Hijacked Islam?” and “A Land Called Paradise.”

“Arabic sounds foreign and scary — you don’t know what is going on,” Mr. Ardekani said in an interview at his small Sherman Oaks apartment, its walls decorated with Koranic verses. “Or they show a woman with the veil, who doesn’t speak, and it is assumed if she did speak she would say, ‘Help me!’ ”

So Mr. Ardekani, a 33-year-old Web designer, cast himself on his video blogs as Baba Ali, an outsize character with a serious religious message who both dissects and lampoons the lives of American Muslims.

Mr. Ardekani is among the most visible of a new wave of young American Muslim performers and filmmakers trying to change the public face of their religion. His most popular video posting — “Who Hijacked Islam?” — has garnered more than 350,000 hits on YouTube since July 2006. Of course the uphill battle such efforts face is reflected in the comments section. One viewer remarked darkly, “It’s Muslims that do the hijacking.”

These video pioneers’ arena of choice is mostly YouTube and similar Web sites, which young Muslims extol as a new way to take their arguments public. The role model is Bill Cosby, who young Muslim filmmakers believe changed the perception of African-Americans by depicting them as ordinary.

“They are deprived of any type of representation in the media which isn’t a terrorist or an extremely pious Muslim,” said Lena Khan, 23. So whenever an image to the contrary is seen “on YouTube or the Internet or on a TV show, it just spreads across the Muslim community like wildfire, because everyone wants to support it.”

Ms. Khan has placed several short videos on YouTube, among them “A Land Called Paradise,” which shows a variety of Muslims holding up signs. The sign held by a young boy says, “Broccoli is my personal jihad” — jihad meaning a personal, spiritual struggle rather than its more notorious translation as holy war.

To continue reading this article in New York Times click HERE.

Faith House has published a post where you can view A Land Called Paradise video. Click HERE. 

Songs About All of Us: Dan Bern's God Said No

~ by Samir Selmanovic

This song has been coming back to me over and over again, ever since I first heard it on Dan Bern's 2001 album New American Language (thank you Ralf for this gift!). Dan is an indie acoustic folk/rock singer-songwriter. God Said No is a time-travel song that questions our desire to change the past (and by extension, see into the future).  Dan's vision of an encounter with God implies we cannot escape from now, where God is. This song, once it enters your system, can help free you from some illusions you might have about yourself.

I could not find Dan Bern's video performance of this song. Following are the lyrics and a video rendition from a YouTube dude with shades, named Malvasio.

Welcome to a walk to the edge of town.

God Said No

I met God On the edge of town
Where the wind meets the stillness
Where the darkness meets the light
Where the ocean meets the sky
Where the desert meets the rain
Where the earth meets the heavens
On the edge of town
I met God

I asked God
Do one thing for me
Send me back in time, send me to Seattle
Let me go find Kurt Cobain
Take away his gun, take away his bullets
Talk to him, make him wanna live
Tell him how we love him, help him see his glory
God Said No

If I sent you back
If you really found him
You would only ask him
If he could help you get a deal
If he knows a lawyer, if he can help you
God Said No

I asked God
Do one thing for me
Send me back in time, send me to Berlin
Let me find the one they call Hitler
I will stalk him, I will bring him down
I will bring along a powerful gun, loaded with bullets
Obliterate his memory

God Said No
If I sent you back
You would get caught up in theory and discussion
You would let your fears delay and distract you
You would make friends, you would take a lover
God Said No

I asked God
Do one thing for me
Send me back in time, send me to Jerusalem
Let me go, let me go find Jesus
Let me save his life as they try to kill him
Let me take him down, down from the cross
Take the iron from his body, try to heal his wounds
God Said No

If I let you go
If you really found him
Walking with the cross you would stare
Your tongue no longer working,
Eyes no longer seeing
Ears no longer hearing

God said Time
Time belongs to me
Time's my secret weapon
My final advantage
God turned away
From the edge of town
I knew I was beaten
And that now was all I had

God Said No

For more Songs About All of Us click:

Susan Werner's Heaven So Small

Sting's Fragile