9 January 05

Abraham’s Tribes

A year ago September, we went to the first community Celebration of Abraham, an interfaith gathering among the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities here. Today there was the second such gathering, this time held in St. James Catholic Church in Davis (oddly, both St. James’ auditorium and the one in the Catholic Church in Woodland where we met for the first event do double duty as basketball gyms).

Again the event was packed. This time the organizers took up the theme of the Messiah among the three traditions, perhaps a little more divisive than last year’s focus on Abraham himself. It’s interesting that even in an event as innocuous as a good loaf of whole wheat bread as this one was cultural differences still come through. When Rabbi Wolfe spoke he told several stories that seemed prototypically Jewish, and I felt most at home there.

At the end we wrote down an action we’d do to help bring forth the messianic era. Mine was to look up and meditate upon the skies and heavens above at least twice a day. We’ve been having interesting skies lately, and there was a fine sunset after we got out of the event.

Posted by at 05:47 PM in Miscellaneous | Link |
  1. About a year ago this time, I went to Rome, where my stepdaughter was playing in the orchestra for a special concert at the Vatican in celebration of Abraham, the common patriarch of three traditions. The Pope set on stage, flanked by a rabbi and an imam—and the orchestra (the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra) was playing Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony….

    — maria    9. January 2005, 21:10    Link
  2. I wish we had something like this interfaith service here. (I think I wrote the same comment last year!).

    — Jenny    9. January 2005, 23:41    Link
  3. I love the idea of inventing one’s own rituals to help bring forth the messianic era! Wild!

    — Coup de Vent    11. January 2005, 13:53    Link

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