 Last Sunday January 14th the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center of Charleston hosted an event in alignment with the observation of January being South Carolina’s Interfaith Harmony Month. The evening featured presentations from different faiths on Angels and Experiences. The event ran from 4 to 6 PM and offered food and drink for all, I especially enjoyed a dish prepared by our hostess Shaila Shroff’s husband Vijay.
Our Hindu hostess selected and introduced the topic. Later on she shared her considerations of the concept of angels from both a Hindu and physicist’s point of view. The first speaker was Dinesh Sarvate who is a trustee of the Temple and Cultural Center and has had priestly duties there as well. Following was Muskan Singh, a Sikh who sang a beautiful song in what I believe was Punjabi, the language in which most portions of the Guru Granth Sahib (one of their sacred texts) was written in. She was followed by her grandfather Gajindav Singh who had a career as an educator in New York. IPSC’s chair Dr. Adrian Bird spoke next, he also serves as Visiting Professor of Christian history at Union Presbyterian Seminary, Charlotte. Howie Comen a long time interfaith activist and a private detective, shared interesting material from both Judaic and Islamic perspectives. Radhika Pande chanted a lovely prayer for us, and finally Herb Silverman spoke from his perspective as an Atheist, he serves on the Mathematics faculty of College of Charleston. Adrian and I found the topic interesting in several ways which have resulted in an ongoing email conversation. During his presentation he expressed surprise that in his years of teaching no one had posed a question about angels in his seminary classes. Several of the speakers addressed how we commonly recognize certain kind and caring people as angels. Mr. Silverman shared that he was not expecting to find much agreement with the other speakers and although he disavows supernatural angels he was very comfortable with the notion of natural, human angels. All in all a fascinating and enjoyable evening with a generous and thoughtful group of people. Thank you Shaila.
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 Today as we celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King I was moved to make this triptych image to illustrate the spiritual genesis of Dr. Kings Non-Violent philosophy. It is well known that King was deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s successes using nonviolent resistance. King argued that the Gandhian philosophy was ‘‘the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom’’.
What is perhaps not so well known is that Gandhi was deeply influenced by the American writer Henry David Thoreau whose book ‘Walden; or, Life in the Woods’ was required reading when I was a High School student in the 1970’s. Thoreau’s lesser known ‘On Civil Disobedience’ came to Gandhi’s attention while working his first job as a lawyer for an Indian company in South Africa. The ruling white Boers discriminated against all people of color. Gandhi became an outspoken critic of South Africa’s discrimination policies. When the Boer legislature passed a law requiring that all Indians register with the police and be fingerprinted, Gandhi refused to obey the law. He was arrested and jailed. While in jail, Gandhi read the essay “Civil Disobedience” by Thoreau. Gandhi adopted the term “civil disobedience” to describe his strategy of non-violently refusing to cooperate with injustice, although in later years he preferred the Sanskrit word satyagraha “devotion to truth”. I find it delightfully ironic that an American writer’s work should find its way to Africa and influence a man who changed the history of the Indian sub-continent and then found its way back to America where it continued to be profoundly influential. Today I celebrate all three of these spiritual giants. On Sunday January the 14th I'll travel to the Midlands, North of Columbia to speak in Newberry, SC . This is my first venue of 2018 and I am in the process of arranging as many talks as I can through October to raise awareness of our work and promote the upcoming Parliament of the World's Religions in Toronto this November. If your congregation or other organization would like me to speak please send an email to [email protected].  This event was in alignment with the Governor's proclamation naming January as South Carolina's Interfaith Harmony Month and is our second annual. We focused on getting to know one another and celebrating our diversity, we sat in a very large circle and at a center table and at four corners of the room we had bread from many traditions and olives, dates, figs and such so that at the midpoint of our gathering we could literally break bread. Our keynote speaker was brother Saif Ullah who was born and raised in Beaufort county in a prominent Christian family and whose heart was called by Islam over twenty years ago. As Muslims are rather rare down here it was the first time that many of those gathered had met one, had heard them speak of their faith. There were readings and songs from several faith paths and everyone seemed to have had a fine time.   I traveled up to Columbia to participate in Interfaith Partners of South Carolina's sharing of Governor Henry McMaster’s formal proclamation naming January 2018 “South Carolina Interfaith Harmony Month.” This was a news conference at the State House lobby on Thursday, December 28, 2017, at 10:00 AM. Click HERE to see the video I produced of this 15 minute event, apologies for several technical and logistic shortfalls. This is the fifth year that IPSC has worked with the Governor's office to obtain official endorsement for the importance of interfaith work. There area a number of events around the state specifically aligned with this proclamation, for a listing to help you find one in your area visit this PAGE at the IPSC website. Here is a quote from our chair Dr. Adrian Bird from the press conference which really captures the essence of who we are as IPSC: "At a time when much of the global and local rhetoric drives the idea that we, as human beings, need ‘protecting’ from one another, Interfaith partners of South Carolina and local chapters across the State instead encourage us to ‘know’ one another, building relationships of trust, helping to overcome walls of ignorance that divide us. IPSC will speak the language of protection if and when religious voices are excluded or prejudice drives destruction. But ultimately it is only in knowing one another that we truly learn to see and relate to each other as dignified human beings."  |
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