RRC Student Joins Tent of Abraham, Hagar and Sarah

RRC Student Leslie Hilgeman spent last weekend attending a retreat organized by the “Tent of Abraham, Hagar and Sarah.”

Here is her report….

Transforming Interfaith Activism

By Leslie Hilgeman

Each year we are still at war in the Middle East, Memorial Day feels less and less like a holiday I want to celebrate at the beach. Instead, this year I got to spend my Memorial Day Weekend at a conference dedicated to fostering peace.

I attended the “Tent of Abraham, Hagar and Sarah,” an annual summit of US interfaith leaders and scholars, organized by Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman of the Shalom Center. Meeting since 2004, this year the group gathered for three days at the Pearlstone Center in Reierstown, Maryland.

RRC sent me, a first-year rabbinical student at the college, to learn about the growing Interfaith movement in the US. I expected to see difficult political discussions on the Middle East. Table pounding! But most of the weekend was spent quietly together building relationships as Americans of Faith. You can read more about the Tent of Abraham philosophy here.

And this was what we did: We each told stories about our spiritual journeys. Each of us offered prayers or meditation over the course of the weekend that we all participated in. This pushed us out of the role of being a distant observer of someone else’s tradition and allowed us to share it, albeit for a moment. After that, I experienced the group in a different way.

We did eventually get to politics, but it was introduced gently. We had a reading and discussion about how to hold productive interreligious dialogue. When we did talk about political interests, we had already built some trust. People could ask questions or speak up when they disagreed. And when we decided to undertake a project together – holding a conference on renewal of religious texts and traditions – it felt truly representative and compelling.

I returned to Philadelphia feeling really moved. Sure, I had learned some things about Muslim Salaat prayer or the Christian practice of Lectio Divina. But more importantly I learned a model for transforming Interfaith activism, using Faith. By holding the vision, respect and commitment to hear and trust the Other – and perhaps to be touched by the Other – we can pass through the discomfort and risk of Difference, and move towards healing, collaboration and peace.

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All I want for Mother’s Day….

…is a sane gun control policy in the city where I live.

One of the gifts of being part of the grassroots  group that creates our annual Philadelphia Interfaith Walk for Peace and Reconciliation is getting to know the amazing women  from Mothers in Charge. The first time I heard the founder Dorothy  Johnson-Speight speak was two years ago at a Peace Walk meeting.

This year, the Mothers in Charge proudly participated  in the Walk with their own contingent.  These women provide  education, support and advocacy around issues of violence in Philadelphia, especially related to young people who are so often the perpetrators and the victims.

Comprised of impassioned mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters, these women are all about bringing the peace movement into their own neighborhoods. For many residents of our city,  the “war zone” is not several continents away.

If your mom is like me,  forget the flowers this year and take a step(however small) to reduce gun violence where you live.

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Evangelical for Social Action to Vist RRC Salon “Praying with your Feet”

Tomorrow night, our RRC salon “Praying with your Feet,” will be hosting Kristyn Komarnicki, the editor of Prism Magazine. Prism is the national periodical of Evangelics for Social Action.  Recently, the Utne Reader had the following to say about Kristyn.

“I’m drawn to bad news like a moth to a summer porch light” confesses editor Kristyn Komarnicki in the November/December issue of the evangelical Christian magazine Prism. Komarnicki’s confession seems like dreary reading, but her unflinching interest in bad news is tempered by a faith “in God’s power to… transform us through every drop and sliver of anguish that life can hand out.”  The news that fills Prism’s columns isn’t easy reading… Behind the doom and gloom, however, the magazine’s evangelical message points toward concrete solutions. No matter how audacious the challenge, evangelical Christians are willing to fight, buoyed by a faith that lives and struggles have meaning. You don’t need to be an evangelical, or even a Christian, to appreciate Prism’s strong message of action. Even staunch atheists may be able to find inspiration in the magazine’s motivating message .”

Evangelicals for Social Action was founded by Ron Sider, a professor at the Palmer Theological Seminary (formerly Eastern Baptist Seminary) in Philadelphia, in 1978. ESA emphasizes both the transformation of human lives through personal faith and also the importance of a commitment to social and economic justice as an outgrowth of Christian faith.

Next spring, Rabbi Melissa Heller will be offering a half credit course at RRC, Hevrutah: Jewish-Christian Encounter through Text, in partnership with a professor of Hebrew Bible at Palmer.

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