Current Reports on S.P.A.N. Activity:
Season for Interfaith-Intercultural Celebration 2011

Update from Rev. Dr. Peggy Price, Seal Beach Center for Spiritual Living

We have so much going on here in our area - there is a third annual "Blessing of the Waves" service on Sunday morning, Oct. 2 at the Huntington Beach Pier - this, too is an interfaith program sponsored jointly by the Greater Huntington Beach Interfaith council and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County. Can you imagine that? This event gathers hundreds of people to hear our prayers of blessing. Several different musical groups will perform - this year a Tongan choir, and an ukulele group led by my husband as well as an interfaith choir.

 

After we complete the service on the shore, a large group of surfers do a paddle out, form a circle in the water, and pray together. i will not be part of that, but I will be one of those to deliver a prayer of blessing on the shore. Then we all go out to breakfast together.

 

Our Interfaith Thanksgiving service will be on the Sunday preceding Thanksgiving, and this year it is at a Zoroastrian Temple.
Even with as much as we are doing, there is so much farther for us to go to build the bridges of understanding and peace. Yet I feel deeply that like the drops of water, we are beginning to wear a smooth spot in the stone.

 

~ Rev. Dr. Peggy Price
Center for Spiritual Living
Seal Beach, CA

Sacred Center New York: Beyond Oneness Sunday Celebration
In Observance of the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11

My friend Gerry White- Nobel Peace Prize winner for the landmine Survivors Network, and current passionate proponent for the Abrahamic Initiative, and most particularly the Abraham Path- co-officiated with me and the whole congregation walked out the door and around the corner as a symbolic gesture of Interfaith Unity and Healing.
~ Rev. Jane Galloway
Spiritual Director
Sacred Center NY

Article submitted by our task force leader in Montana: Maggie Lough

UPDATES FROM JAN CHASE IN POMONA, CA

UPDATE FROM THE CENTER FOR SPIRITUAL LIVING LAS VEGAS

We recently posted our 9/21 Celebration of Peace on the calendar. We will use the AGNT video meditation on Peace. Additionally, our involvement with the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada provides us an opportunity to support and participate with the 9/11 Observance: "9/11 touched Americans of all faiths. This unique multi-media observance will feature participation from many faiths in our community through the sharing of reflective readings and songs that will take participants through a range of emotions culminating in an affirmation of those values we all share in common. Keynote speaker will be Maureen Peckman, dynamic business leader and member of the Nevada Commission on Homeland Security. Program Chair, Rabbi Sanford Akselrad. Open to the entire community at no charge." In a larger venue, and with greater community outreach, the Interfaith Council of Southern Nevada begins the Interfaith Forums, a 4 week event offering panel discussion of pre-selected topics with audience questions addressed throughout the evening. The week following the last Forum is the Sunday prior to Thanksgiving and includes the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service hosted by a local faith community.

We have a new Youth and Family Education leader who is very interested in exploring SPAN activities, so we will probably see an increase in programs for our young folks.

~Rev. Cyndi DeLong