Interfaith event at the Hindu Temple of Charleston

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.
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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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