Giving and Forgiving: Interfaith Conversation

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GIVING AND FORGIVING

Sunday, October 18, 2020

12:30 – 4:45 pm

Welcome to our Day  of Learning and Sharing.  We hope that everyone enjoys and learns more about how much we all share in values and teachings during our time together.

Guidelines for Our Day Together

Our religious traditions teach that dialogue is a sacred activity. There are many rich teachings about dialogue and respectful communication to be found in our respective texts, such as the concepts of “controversy for the sake of heaven,” “death and life are at the hand of the tongue,” and “guarding the words we speak.” We have found that in some communities, it is useful to describe the conversations that we facilitate as a sacred endeavor or to explain the purpose and structure of the dialogue in terms of our sacred teachings.

When participants see the conversation in which they are engaged as a sacred activity, with a spiritual as well as practical purpose, it may be easier for them to be open to others. It will also help them to be patient and careful in the way that they speak. Each step of the dialogue becomes more significant, and the process itself becomes more meaningful. In addition, participants may find the structure of the dialogue less constraining and more useful when they see that it has parallels in some of the most important teachings of our Christian, Muslim and Jewish teachings.

Adapted from Dialogue in the Jewish Tradition, Mitch Chanin, Mira Colflesh, Dr. Saundra Sterling Epstein, and Rabbi Rachel Schoenfeld, co-authors, Philadelphia, 2008.

How Do We Have Civil Conversations? Guidelines for Our Work Together

Words That Matter – The words we use shape how we understand ourselves, how we interpret the world, how we treat others. Words are one of our primary ways to reach across the mystery of each other. As technology reframes the meaning of basic human acts like making and leading and belonging, the world needs the most vivid and transformative universe of words we can muster.

Hospitality – Hospitality is a bridge to all the great virtues, but it is immediately accessible. You don’t have to love or forgive or feel compassion to extend hospitality. But it’s more than an invitation. It is the creation of an inviting, trustworthy space — an atmosphere as much as a place.  Let us show hospitality by sharing conversational space graciously, taking turns sharing and truly and honestly listening to each other.

Humility – Humility is a companion to curiosity, surprise, and delight. Spiritual humility is not about getting small. It is about encouraging others to be big.

Patience – Like humility, patience is not to be mistaken for meekness and ineffectuality. It can be the fruit of a full-on reckoning with reality — a commitment to move through the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. We cannot fix in a few moments or hours what took generations to break, but we can do our part.  Listening and sharing graciously and patiently can go far.

Generous Listening – Listening is an everyday art and virtue, but it’s an art we have lost and must learn anew. Listening is more than being quiet while others have their say. It is about presence as much as receiving; it is about connection more than observing. The generous listener wants to understand the humanity behind the words of the other and patiently summons one’s own best self and one’s own most generous words and questions.

Adventurous Civility – The adventure of civility for our time can’t be a mere matter of politeness or niceness. Adventurous civility honors the difficulty of what we face and the complexity of what it means to be human.

Adapted from Civil Conversations with Krista Tippett

Let us celebrate what we share and honor and respect where we differ.  In that way, we come together ready to learn with and from each other how to be even better collectively. [SSE]

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Schedule for October 18, 2020 Conference, 12:30 – 4:45 pm

NOTE TO PARTICIPANTS: As there will be a waiting room to insure you are registered, please plan to arrive ten to fifteen minutes early.

12:30 pm –    Welcome to All / Logistics of our Conference / Introduction to THREE Chairs (by Megan Briggs, our Moderator for the Day)

Opening Statements by THREE Chairs

• Saundra Sterling Epstein
• Catherine Nerney, SSJ
• Aziz Nathoo

1:00 – 1:40 –  Question 1 – What are your personal foundational beliefs about giving and forgiving; where do they come from?

• Presented by. Dr. Saundra Sterling Epstein
• Panelists
  • Hojin (Hye Sung) Park
  • Rucha Kaur
  • David F. Gould III
  • Akkaraju Sarma

1:40 – 2:00 – Break-Out groups  – Participants answer Question #1 for themselves, adding to the seven voices they have heard.

2:00 – 2:10 Stretch and snack break

2:10 – 3:10 – Question #2: How/are we compelled to elevate Giving and Forgiving into a national/universal credo, given our present reality?

• Presented by Dr. Catherine Nerney SSJ
• Panelists
  • Daisy Khan
  • Robert Reed
  • Marcia Bronstein
  • Senator Katie Muth
  • Eboo Patel

3:10 – 3:25 – Audience Q & A

3:25 – 4:15 – Question #3:  Why must we identify with vulnerable segments and groups  in need of our giving and forgiving?  

• Presented by Aziz Nathoo
• Panelists
  • Robert Sweet
  • Hasnain Walji, Ph.D.
  • Rabbi Gila Ruskin
  • Father Sylvester Peterka, CM

4:15 – 4:30 – Audience Q & A

4:30 – 4:45 – Closing Remarks by 3 Chairs

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OUR DAY TOGETHER

Question #1: What are your personal foundational beliefs about giving and forgiving; where do they come from?

Hojin (Hye Sung) Park is a Won Buddhst minister and the Won Institute Dharma Chaplain. She obtained her doctorate Degree in Pastoral Counseling at Loyola University in Maryland and her Masters in Applied Meditation Studies at the Won Institute.  Rev. Park has taught Buddhist Pastoral  Counseling, Won Buddhist Scriptures and Won Buddhist history to students in the Won Buddhst studies program at the Won Institute. She works as a Buddhist spiritual adviser at the University of Pennsylvania and Swarthmore College.

Dr. Rucha Kaur is a practicing Sikh and serves as the Community Development Director at the Sikh Coalition, the nation’s largest Sikh civil rights organization. Rucha holds a Doctoral Degree in Communication Studies from Bowling Green State University and a Masters Degree in Development Communication from Gujarat University. She began her career in public health, working on programs designed to reduce health disparities in the Sikh community through culturally tailored interventions that focus on prevention. Her expertise lies in taking evidence-based strategies and making them culturally relevant for communities in which they are implemented. At the Sikh Coalition, she leads out on strategic direction for grassroots community engagement and manages a team that is building and empowering a national network of grassroots leaders to promote interfaith solidarity, defend civil rights and raise Sikh awareness. Outside of work, Rucha remains dedicated to volunteering her time to causes that promote equality and justice for all while being an avid reader, podcast listener and coffee lover.

David F. Gould III (Bahá’í)  is an attorney graduated from Temple University Beasley School of Law who has his own firm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. He and his wife variously serve to build community, recognizing that the wheel of the world needs to turn so that humanity lives and acts with the consciousness of its being one family.  He has led programs to overcome racial conditioning and, with his wife, directed a camp for junior youth for 34 years.   He is blessed with three children, three wonderful children by marriage, and four wondrous grandchildren.  He lives both in Upper Bucks County and Lansdale.

Dr. Akkaraju Sarma MD FAAFP (Hindu). Akkaraju Sarma, MD, FAAFP is a long-term Philadelphia area resident (since 1970), a participant-observer to the blossoming local ethnic groups, language, and culture-based collectives! His interests are both in Anthropology and Internal Medicine. He has long been commited to Stem Cell donation & Gift of Life issues, sharing his strong belief that as Homo sapiens, we are all the same.  Therefore, conflicts based on other criteria ending in killing each other have no place(s) in this twentieth century. He will present a case-study of Hindu 51-year-old male engineer donating a life gift to a ten-year-old girl, sure to die with Acute Myelocytic Leukemia.

Question #2: How/are we compelled to elevate Giving and Forgiving into a national/universal credo, given our present reality?

Daisy Khan is an award-winning speaker, author, activist, commentator, and the founder of Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE), the largest global network of Muslim women committed to peacebuilding, gender equality, and human dignity. She has been involved in grassroots efforts combating anti-Muslim bias for over twenty years and is renowned as a thought leader on Muslim women’s rights, Islam in America. Khan believes that women’s leadership is essential to solving societal issues. She founded the first global Muslim women’s Shura (advisory) Council to amplify Muslim women’s scholarship. The Council uses an egalitarian interpretation of scripture to publish position papers against issues such as child marriage, domestic violence, female genital mutilation and many others. Khan published WISE Up in collaboration with 72 authors to create a counter-momentum to the rise in hateful rhetoric and violent extremism. Her memoir, Born with Wings, published in 2018 by Random House, depicts her spiritual journey as a modern Muslim woman and her circuitous path to leadership. Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review. Born in Kashmir, she spent twenty-five years as an interior architect for various Fortune 500 companies. In 2005, she dedicated herself to full-time community service and building movements for positive change, both in the United States and around the globe.

Robert Reed is the Executive Deputy Attorney General for Special Initiatives in the Office of the Pennsylvania Attorney General.  Rob works on a variety of issues to educate and train Pennsylvanians on civil rights, hate crimes, the opioid epidemic, gun violence, prisoner reentry, and trauma.  He served as Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington D.C. (1980); worked in the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office (1982-1987); and in Philadelphia (1989-2017).  He investigated/prosecuted homicides, violent drug organizations, civil rights, corruption, and complex white-collar cases. In 1985-86, Rob was on a Presidential Task Force at the DOJ focused on national security.  In 2002 – 2017, Rob was a supervisor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the EDPA of the firearms and Project Safe Neighborhoods section, anti-gang coordinator, and Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. He was tasked as Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney to expand the office’s vision of criminal justice, including violence prevention, prisoner reentry and community outreach.  He formed coalitions to reduce firearms violence, hate crime, and discrimination with Arab/ Muslim/ Sikh/ Hindu/ Asian; LGBT; and Disability Rights groups. Rob led conferences on civil rights/ hate crimes issues, trainings for law enforcement on cultural and religious diversity and worked with underserved communities, creating violence prevention programs in schools.  He helped expand the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Prisoner Reentry Program, supporting trauma-informed training of criminal justice professionals in Phila., Pa., and the U.S. DOJ. He headed the Pa. Re-entry Council that connects re-entry stakeholders from the Commonwealth.   His BA is from University of Pennsylvania, MSc from London School of Economics, and  JD from Boston College Law School.

Marcia Bronstein serves as Regional Director of the American Jewish Committee in Philadelphia/South Jersey.  Marcia is a communal leader with over 37 years of experience in the not-for-profit world.  She oversees diplomatic and advocacy work and intergroup and interfaith relations including the Latino-Jewish Coalition, the Muslim Jewish Circle of Friends, Bucks County Christian Coalition, and Friends in Faith. Marcia holds a MSW from Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work and a BA in sociology and education from SUNY Albany.

Senator Katie Muth represents Pennsylvania’s state 44th District, representing Montgomery, Chester and Berks counties. She is a passionate advocate for change. Grounded in the strong values of hard work, dedication, and commitment to helping others, Senator Muth is determined to champion Pennsylvanians.  Senator Muth’s background and experience instilled a fervor for citizen activism and service. With a proven record of activism, Senator Muth is focused on helping those struggling to find affordable health care, ensuring equal pay for equal work, promoting a livable wage and paid family medical leave. In addition, the senator is focused on aiding students who are overburdened by heavy student loans.  She is focused on making Pennsylvania a place of: progress, fairness, opportunity, and ending pay-to-play politics, victim rights, changing PA’s regressive tax code, ensuring access to universal healthcare, fully fund public school systems, and economic, racial & environmental justice. She resides in Royersford with her husband, Trevor, and their two dogs Vinny and Kermit.

Eboo Patel, Founder and President of Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago based international organization that promotes interfaith cooperation is a well-known author, speaker and educator.  He founded Interfaith Youth Core on the idea that religion should be a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division. He is inspired to build this bridge by his identity as an American Muslim navigating a religiously diverse social landscape.   For over 15 years he has worked with governments, social sector organizations, and college and university campuses to help make interfaith cooperation a social norm. Named by U.S. News & World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders of 2009, Eboo served on President Obama’s Inaugural Faith Council and is the author of Acts of Faith, Sacred Ground, Interfaith Leadership: A Primer, and Out of Many Faiths: Religious Diversity and the American Promise. He holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. Presently, Eboo spends most of his time on the road, doing what he loves: meeting students, educators, and community leaders to talk about the complex landscape of religious diversity and the power of interfaith cooperation in the 21st century.  In his off time, you’ll find Eboo in Chicago with his wife, Shehnaz, and their two sons. Catch up with him on Twitter and Facebook, and keep exploring to learn more about Eboo and IFYC.

Question #3:  Why must we identify with vulnerable segments and groups who are in need of our giving and forgiving?  

Robert Sweet joined the Aga Khan University as Senior Philanthropic Advisor a year-and-a-half ago from Princeton University, where he was Philanthropic Advisor in the Office of Gift Planning.  Robert advises the alumni and friends of AKU on their giving, particularly on more complex ways of giving and deferred giving (“gift planning”).  Robert earned a BA in anthropology from Emory University and an MA in Middle Eastern Studies and an MBA in international business from the University of Texas at Austin.  He studied Arabic in Syria as a Fulbright Scholar and history and literature at Oxford University as an English-Speaking Union Scholar.

Hasnain Walji, Ph.D. is an educator, historian, filmmaker, and author who has penned  26 books on Nutrition and Natural Medicine. Born in Tanzania, of Indian ancestry,  his institutional endeavors span 4 decades in 4 continents,  which demonstrate the breadth of his socio-political endeavor in tackling social injustices that confront our civil society. Currently, he serves as Executive Director of United Global Initiative –  an international NGO with a focus on women empowerment and children’s health. Now in his golden years, his passion is in enhancing interfaith and Intrafaith understanding to make this world a better place for his seven grandchildren.

Rabbi Gila Ruskin, retired from the pulpit, uses the art of mosaicking to build community and to learn life’s lessons. After 34 years of living and working in Baltimore, Rabbi Gila Ruskin and her husband Dr. Paul Ruskin moved to Philadelphia to be closer to their two daughters and their families. She retired from the pulpit at the only synagogue in Harford County, Maryland, where she was instrumental in establishing the Alliance of Abrahamic Faiths including an AME church and the only mosque in the county. Her two years of teaching at an all African-American Catholic high school in Baltimore City enlightened her perspectives, opening her heart to the potential for partnership among faith and ethnic groups striving towards social justice and mutual understanding. Assembling mosaics with groups of all ages, based on scripture and liturgy, has facilitated new interpretations, deepening spiritual connections for her and for those who join her in creating, gluing and grouting.

Father Sylvester Peterka, CM became Pastor of St. Cecelia and Immaculate Conception Parishes in Baltimore. He is a founding member of Mission Baltimore, a group concerned with the welfare of “unchurched” youth in the city. He served as vice president of the lnterdenominational Ministerial Alliance and is respected for his great sensitivity to racial and cultural issues. He studied for five summers at the Institute for Black Studies at Xavier University.  While in Baltimore, Father Sy also served as a consultant to the Vincentians in Ethiopia. Later he was asked by his Superior General to be an Advisor on Formation in all of Vincentian Africa.  Presently, Father Sy is the pastor of St. Vincent de Paul parish in Philadelphia, where he is involved in Social Justice work. He has been to numerous prayer rallies around Racial Issues, and has started Sacred Listening sessions on Race in his parish. He is the chair of a committee within his Province in overcoming Racism.  His favorite saying in describing himself is from a gospel song: “I’m just a Nobody trying to tell Everybody about a Somebody who can Save Anybody.”

Our Conference Chairs and Moderator

Aziz Nathoo is a Muslim Interfaith and Peace activist from East Africa with experience as an educator, leader, and preacher. serving humanity. As Founder of UMMA Charities, he works on bridging the clash of ignorance with peaceful dialogue, knowledge and promoting compassionate service to the vulnerable.  He teaches about Islam and Interfaith Understanding at academic, civic, religious and interfaith forums and at Churches, Synagogues & Temples. Aziz works with the Aga Khan Foundation, United Nations Association, the United Nations, Refugee Relief Agencies, Amnesty International, Charter for Compassion, Interfaith Philadelphia, Sisterhood of Salam Shalom, Dialogue Institute, United Religions Initiative, WE The World, AJC Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council, Pathways to Peace, Institute for Religious Tolerance, Peace & Justice, MONTCO Multi-faith Coalition, Philadelphia Interfaith Walk for Peace, Brahma Kumaris Spiritual Movement, Montco Interfaith Alliance and the Poor Peoples Campaign. He focuses on compassion, social justice and pluralism.  Aziz is on Advisory Boards of interfaith, Peace and houses of worship and works in Interfaith Mediation, Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation. He co-chaired National Interfaith Conferences -“Healing the Soul of the Nation,”  promoting respectful dialogue among faith traditions, emphasizing “conversing” not “converting,” replacing ignorance with wisdom.  Aziz currently serves on the Mayor of Philadelphia’s Commission on Faith-Based and Interfaith Affairs.  Aziz can be reached at aziz.nathoo@ummacharities.com

Dr. Catherine T. Nerney, Sister of St Joseph of Philadelphia, a theologian and professor of Religious Studies at Chestnut Hill College (CHC), founded/directs the Institute for Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Based on the spirituality & legacy of the Sisters of St Joseph, founders of CHC, the Institute brings the gift of unifying love and grace to forgive and reconcile into a collaborative effort to heal divisions threatening our families, organizations, cities and nation, places of worship and global community.  S. Catherine works in interfaith conversations and collaboration, raising new  powerful voices to address issues that divide us, in groups and organizations, promoting ways diverse faith traditions throughout our global community can contribute to healing our wounded world, and repenting and repairing ways in which religion has served in the past to dominate, oppress and exclude others. An international peacemaker (Global Sisters’ Report 2019), Cathy addresses diverse audiences at academic conferences, national & international gatherings, retreats, Catholic, ecumenical and interfaith groups throughout the United States, Canada, Africa and Europe, working with psychologists, psycho-therapists, prison mediators and health agencies on Forgiveness, Compassion and Reconciliation in a Troubled World.   Dr. Nerney’s latest publication is The Compassion Connection: Recovering our Original Oneness (Orbis Books, 2018). The gift of compassion is central to her understanding of  God/the Divine, the DNA of all human becoming, and the fundamental code of all life on our fragile planet in our cosmos. We must realize that humans play a role in welcoming and celebrating the communion in diversity that inseparably weaves together all life.  S. Cathy’s writing and presentations, and work of all in CHC’s Institute for Forgiveness & Reconciliation promote the gift of inclusive love. Interfaith dialogue is urgently needed in expanding our hearts & minds, teaching us to see more clearly how much we need each other. Sister Cathy can be contacted at nerneyc@chc.edu

Dr. Saundra Sterling Epstein (Sunnie) has worked in Jewish Education and community building for forty-five years, teaching texts, educating masses of Jews and people of other faith communities of all ages. She directs BeYachad: Bringing Jewish Learning and Living Together.  She specializes in bringing together the texts of learning, an observant Jewish perspective and issues that are pertinent in our lives in a reasonable way that is informed by Jewish Law.  To that end, she has educated communities throughout North America about inclusion of many potentially marginalized groups for decades, as well as facilitating programming and sharing in Multi-Faith Communities.    She runs various learning programs for the larger community, is well-published, teaches nationally and internationally, and is in her sixth year as President of the Cheltenham Area Multi-Faith Council.  All of her academic degrees are from the University of Pennsylvania. Her book, which is about the best that religion can be for all of us is Life Journeys: Stepping Back and Moving Forward: Some Thoughts from our Sources of Faith and Lessons for Contemporary Society and Life, available at www.amazon.com  Sunnie and her husband Ken have four grown children.  She can be reached at shulisrose@aol.com for more information about her publications, programs she offers and just with any questions you may have!

Our moderator, Megan Briggs, graduated from Taylor University, Upland Indiana with her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. While at Taylor Megan studied abroad in Israel/Palestine at Jerusalem University College. University of Colorado, Colorado Spring is where she obtained her Master’s degree in Counseling and Human Services. Megan worked as a Mobile Therapist/Behavior Specialist before her current career with the non-profit Girls on the Run whose mission is to inspire 3rd to 8th grade girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun experienced based curriculum which creatively integrates running. Along with running and empowering women, Megan is passionate about bringing people together for deep and thoughtful conversations. Over the past year and a half, she has been facilitating Civil Conversations once a month held at coffee shop in Souderton, PA. Megan lives in Lansdale, PA with her husband, and two sons. Megan can be reached at mbriggsis@gmail.com