Interfaith Celebration of National Day of Prayer

Much has been said about the National Prayer Breakfast that takes place in Washington, D.C. each May, critical that it is intended to foster a “Christian nation,” which the United States decidedly is not.

For the past 16 years my own local interfaith group, Marin Interfaith Council, has produced an Interfaith Prayer Breakfast.  I’ve described some past breakfasts here: 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2014.  Generally speaking, these local breakfasts have been diverse, tolerant, and minimally Abrahamic-centric

Featuring three religious leaders, each presenting on the same theme, these annual events have taught me much, particularly in the way of the nuances of particular denominations.  We’ve had several kinds of Buddhist speakers, many, many iterations of Christian religious thought, representatives of at least three if not four kinds of Judaism, a couple of Muslims, Bahai, Latter Day Saints, and, in 2011, Gardnerian Witch Don Frew was one of the three speakers. 

With the exception of the year Don spoke, it wasn’t until last year that I was ever able to be more than the sole Pagan presence.  I humorously refer to myself as the “token Pagan.”  Last year we were three: Don Frew, Kemetic Matt Whealton, and myself (a Witch at Large).

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As near as I could tell, the theme for this year’s speakers to address were oppression and suffering, prayer and meditation.

Zahra Billoo,[1] J.D., Executive Director of the SF Bay Area Council on American-Islamic Relations[2] who is also a civil rights attorney, spoke first.  She explained that prayer in Islam in personal and ritualistic, and can be done alone or in a congregation.

She spoke of two kinds of prayer, one being petitionary the other being an act of worship.  She stated that the sole purpose of Islam is to worship.  Muslims pray five times each day.  She also explained that prayer requires cleanliness of clothes and person, which is why one can observe worshippers washing before entering the mosque and beginning their prayer.  God is the center, and all other things must fit in.

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Dr. Johnathan D. Logan, Sr., Pastor of Cornerstone Community Church of God in Christ (Pentecostal) in Sausalito, California, advised us to “Look through the eyes of another” so that you can “fine-tune who you are.”  He said that “prayer is essential” and that we should[3] develop a “prayerful lifestyle”

He described the expression of prayer in his congregation as involving tingling and dancing feet, and being accompanied by a Hammond organ.  As a Pagan from two ecstatic traditions, I can really get behind this form of spiritual expression.  I like dancing and sweating our worship.  This lack of decorum and reliance on a much freer form of expression appeals to my heretic heart.

Dr. Logan also said that praying is two-way communication -- something happens and we get “God’s feedback.”  I can appreciate this perspective, except for the monotheistic assumption.  In my own experience, sometimes I learn from Brigit, and others times I learn from Kali Ma.  Or if not “learn,” at least sense their presence and feel their blessings.

Using the acronym made from the name of the book of ACTS in the New Testament, the speaker explained prayer thus:  Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication (intercession).

He explained that prayers in Pentecostal Protestant practice are used for (a) asking favor, (2) adoration, (3) recitation of sins, (4) asking forgiveness, and (5) interceding on behalf of others.  Prayer can bring one a sense of calm and a sense of peace.

Again, speaking from my Pagan perspective, I don’t hold much with the concept of sin and redemption when it comes to an other-than-human agent.  For me, forgiveness, redressing wrongs committed against another, and restoration of healthy relationships are the responsibilities of those who transgressed to those they offended.  I hold forgiveness in high regard, although I find that in reality it’s often a difficult state to achieve.  I feel that forgiveness must be followed by atonement, not in the Christian theological sense, but rather in the sense of reparation for a wrong or injury.

He claimed that (his) God is immutable, in total contrast with my view that “She changes everything She touches, and everything She touches changes.”

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Last to speak was Rabbi Susan Leider, Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kol Shofar (Conservative) in Tiburon, California, the host community for this breakfast.  She stated that prayer focuses on joy and gratitude, not on suffering and persecution.  A rather refreshing attitude, I must say.  She said that only personal prayers are petitionary, and that community prayers are not.

The “Amidah,” The Standing Prayer, is said aloud three times a day in Jewish tradition.

Blessed are You, Adonai, Shield of Avraham.

Blessed are You, Adonai, Who causes the dead to live.

Blessed are You, Adonai, The Holy One.

Blessed are You, Adonai Who sets Shabbat apart.

Blessed are You, Adonai, Who causes His presence to return to Zion.

Blessed are You, Adonai, Whose name is good, Who is fit to praise.

Blessed are You, Adonai, Who blesses His People Israel with peace.

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I want to explain how this report on my interfaith activity differs from past reports.

In interfaith environments, it’s common to encounter what I will call Yahweh-centrism, which of course is an assumption of monotheism, a single creator god.  Welcoming prayers and benedictions at the conclusion of interfaith events generally refer to “the one” in some way.  I remain silent and respectful, but I have to say I don’t really relate to those blessings.  I accept their sanguine intent.  I try to overlook the monotheistic assumption with which they are offered.

But I have to say it does get to me after a while.  After one event a few years ago when this attitude was especially prevalent, I asked one of my Zen colleagues how she, as a non-deist, dealt with it.  Being a mellow Buddhist, she seemed able to just let those assumptions roll off her back.  She suggested I speak to the executive director of the Council. 

I just didn’t feel I wanted to pursue it, at least not at that time, because I suspect that I, as a single, solitary Pagan member, with no “community” (church, synagogue, congregation of some kind) behind me, would more likely than not be viewed as a malcontent.  Which is not to say that my participation in many Council activities hasn’t been both solicited and appreciated; it has.  I do believe my MIC colleagues are generally fond of me as a person.  I believe that are glad I’m involved and that they consider me a peer. 

So instead I backed off a bit from my involvement.  I withdrew from a committee on which I’d served for a few years, the Justice Advocacy Team.  I attended fewer events, and I only contributed my time, energy, and expertise to those events if and when invited to do so.  I didn’t volunteer.

I nearly blew off this most recent Interfaith Prayer Breakfast, mainly because I could see from the list of announced speakers that the program was entirely Abrahamic.  Then it turned out only the week before the event that both of my other Pagan friends who’d attended last year, Don and Matt, were planning to come again this year.  Well, after about 15 years of being the only Pagan in the room, I found this likelihood encouraging.  It fortified my resolve to remain engaged.  Three Pagans in the same gathering where heretofore I’d been the sole presence!

However, at this point as a representative of Paganisms in the interfaith arena I do feel the need to go beyond simply recounting what was presented, and to express my disagreement with some of the presenters’ assumptions.  In past reports I have mentioned things where I feel a resonance, but not where I dissent.  That makes this report different from previous reports.

I don’t seek to dispute anything that’s said in sincerity by practitioners of other religions.  I don’t seek to offer any kind of case that my worldview and practice are superior to or “more right” than theirs.  What I do hope for, though, is some understanding on the part of my Abrahamic colleagues that their assumption of monotheism excludes many of us other religious folks.

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[1]   The same evening I saw the last minute of an interview with Ms. Billoo on All In with Chris Hayes.

[2]   Some years ago I sat on an interfaith panel at Napa Valley College with another colleague from CAIR.

[3]   I have a lot of trouble with statements that include the word “should.”  They reflect an attitude that religious professionals somehow have more authority over each person’s choices than we individuals do.  I disagree.  This is one reason I dislike notions like a pastor (shepherd) and his flock.

MIC’s Annual Interfaith Prayer Breakfast

Don Frew, Macha, Matt Whealton, Carol Hovis

What’s a Witch to do when her interfaith council’s 15^th Annual Interfaith Prayer Breakfast, which occurs on the first Thursday in May, falls on Beltane?  Well, she sings up the Sun with the Berkeley Morris Dancers at dawn, then hustles across the bridge to Tiburon with her Wiccan (Gardnerian, to be specific) interfaith colleague, Don Frew, to rendezvous with Matt Whealton, a practitioner of Kemetic religion from the Temple of Ra, at his first foray into interfaith activities.

I attend this event every year.  MIC began hosting its own truly interfaith prayer breakfast on the same day that conservative Christians hold a breakfast meeting in Washington, D.C., with the President in attendance.  National Day of Prayer was established by Congress and signed into law by President Harry Truman in 1952, although it has antecedents that go back as far as the Second Continental Congress in 1775, when citizens were supposed to observe “a day of publick [sic] humiliation, fasting, and prayer”… and to bless our rightful sovereign, King George the Third...” I daresay that, considering that their 2014 theme is “Lord, hear our prayer!” the factions who created the day have not evolved to appreciate the religious diversity found in the U.S. today, in 2014 C.E. (Common Era).

MIC’s breakfast, though it is partly about and does include prayer, celebrates religious diversity.  The breakfast customarily features three different speakers from three different religious traditions speaking about that particular religion.  Three years ago Don Frew, representing Witches, spoke, along with a Buddhist and a Mormon.

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This year we heard two other speakers, in addition to the three featured religious teachers:  Annie Reynolds, MIC Board member and Tamalpais High School Senior, announced a youth program later in the month.

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Heidi Kühn

I was most moved by the reports of Heidi Kühn, Founder and CEO of Roots of Peace, “a nonprofit, non-religious NGO turning mines to vines – replacing minefields with bountiful vineyards and orchards worldwide.”  Heidi told us of having her home in Kabul attacked by Taliban fighters just last month.  As it turned out, the attack had been focused on the preschool next door to her home.  Cowards shooting at five-year-olds!!!  Heidi said that the Afghan forces who were supposed to be protecting them, as American peace workers, resisted the Taliban forces for an attack that lasted four and one-half hours!  Ultimately the Afghani forces succeeded and the fighting ended. 

This is not just high-minded talk.  This is real people doing real work to benefit the lives of our

fellow humans.

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Note pentacle and Nile goddess.

Speaking on behalf of the Bahá’í faith, Darrell Metcalf of the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’í of San Rafael, explained that the religion was founded in Persia on May 23, 1844, and now claims more than seven million followers worldwide.  Darrell spoke of three core principles of oneness:  “unity of God,” “unity of religion,” and “unity of humanity.”  He said, “Like mirrors, we tend to reflect what we give attention to.”

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Lama Palden Drolma

Third to speak was Lama Palden Drolma of the Sukhasiddi Foundation, “founded in 1996 … [to] provides a vehicle for the teaching and practice of Vajrayana Buddhism in the West. … emphasizing “the cultivation of deep realization and understanding – even in the midst of our ordinary lives – so that wisdom, compassion and loving-kindness can open and flourish within us.”

Sukhasiddhi Foundation’s Core Values

• Honoring the feminine principles of openness, relatedness, peace, harmony, natural unfolding, embracing, nourishing, unconditional love, and wisdom;
• Embracing the masculine principles of clarity, one-pointed concentration, grounded strength, skillful activity, organizing, discernment, and creativity;
• Bringing the inner feminine and masculine principles into harmony, fruition, and union. Integrating spirit, psyche, and body and integrating practice with everyday life;
• Practicing being a good world citizen by: caring for our mother earth, ourselves, and each other; honoring the equality of all being; practicing generosity towards all beings; and acting with integrity, truthfulness, and honesty;
• Facilitating the unwinding and releasing of unhealthy habitual patterns, as well as taking responsibility for our own body, speech, and mind;
• Developing courage, self-reliance, confidence and flexibility;
• Facilitating the bringing to consciousness of the student’s own innate wisdom; and
• Cultivating a conscious spiritual community within an environment of support, friendship, and mutual respect that encourages open, direct and loving communication, and enhances compassion, loving kindness, fulfillment, gratitude and joy.

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Bill Englehart

The Rev. Bill Englehart from Unity in Marin told us that Unity, founded in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1899, was part of the New Thought movement, that also includes Christian Science, Seicho-no-Ie (in Japan), Divine Science, and other iterations.  Bill stated, “As we think, so we experience life.”  He articulated the Five Principles of Unity:

• There is only one Presence and one Power active as the universe and as my life, God the Good.
• Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good. This God essence was fully expressed in Jesus, the Christ.
• We are co-creators with God, creating reality through thoughts held in mind.
• Through prayer and meditation, we align our heart-mind with God. Denials and affirmations are tools we use.
• Through thoughts, words and actions, we live the Truth we know.

Bill stated, “Prayer is primary.  Prayer changes us.  We become like the god we worship.”

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Some interesting facts I note is that of the composition of speakers about three different religions represented at the breakfast this year: (a) only one was Abrahamic; (b) two were monogamous; (3) two, being fewer than 250 years old, were New Religious Movements; and (4) one was non-deist.  I’m proud to be a member of an organization that welcomes and respects people of all religious persuasions and spiritual expressions.

11th Annual Interfaith Prayer Breakfast

Today my local interfaith group celebrated National Day of Prayer in a more ideal form than many have come to expect. By more ideal, I mean in a truly diverse and tolerant way, respecting all religions. With over 200 in attendance, many for the first time, we had 21 tables, each with a table captain to facilitate discussion. I was one such table captain. The question for discussion was in what ways you use prayer in your life. Due to the size of the crowd and the noise of people getting their breakfasts from the buffet tables, our conversations were limited to those few sitting on either side of us instead of involving all seated at a table.

After a welcoming by our director, the Rev. Carol Hovis, and an opening prayer, the Marin Interfaith Singers sang "Dona Nobis Pacem," a song I really love.

The Rev. Linda Ruth Cutts, a Zen Buddhist priest from Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, said that although prayer is not a term used in Buddhism, "everything we do is prayer." She said Zen practitioners do have words/language similar to what others might consider to be prayer, such as the words they say when offering gratitude for a meal and all the life forms, sunlight, soil, cultivation, preparation, and such that went into the meal. She said that monasteries and in some private homes altars are erected outside the restrooms for the users to take a moment to acknowledge their interdependence on all things. She differentiated between seated meditation and active meditation (out in the world), followed by a brief seated meditation for all of us.

David Stevens, Christian Science practitioner and teacher, although he is an accomplished speaker, articulated his Christianity with a degree of certainty that I found less appealing. His prayers were understandably limited to appeals to a single god, with the assumption that all his listeners shared this perspective. He reminded us that prayer is unconfined, it's portable, and it's natural. He claims that prayer "replaces fear with confidence" and "confusion with clarity." I agree it can.

He concluded with a reading of the Christian Lord's Prayer. He had a colleague reach each line in the familiar language from the King James Bible, followed by his reading the interpretation of the same line as found in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Personally, I did not resonate with these words.

The final speaker was Sister Mary Neil of the Dominican Sisters. Sister Mary holds a Ph.D. and taught religious studies and theology at the University of San Francisco for many years. Now retired, she is a very young-looking 77 years old. (That's Sister Mary on the left in the photo. The woman in the center is my friend Sister Colleen McDermott, a member of MIC's Board of Directors.)

One of the first things Sister Mary did was apologize to anyone who may have been hurt by her church, and then to ask whom of those present was ever hit by a nun. One woman raised her hand. Sister Mary asked her to come up, and then asked her to hit her and with that hit, to let go of the hurt. The woman's slap was weak, so Sister Mary asked her for a stronger one.

She said that prayer isn't something you really think about very much; rather, when you are in crisis, you cry help! Prayer is "remembering who I am." She claims prayer is difficult because it demands intimacy and it demands truth.

She says she feels a strong pull towards Buddhism, particularly for its development of meditative techniques. She explained a chakra meditation she does in which she applies scriptural words and phrases to each chakra as she meditates upon it. For instance, at the throat chakra she speaks of the hunger and thirst for God, and at the crown chakra, she says Jesus' final words, "into thy hands I commit my spirit."

I think it's really interesting to recall that it was due to the participation of the Hindu Swami Vivekananda at the first Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 at the Chicago World's Fair that opened the world of Eastern religion to the West, and here we are today, more than a century later, listening to a Roman Catholic nun speak of applying the chakra system to her Christian meditation and prayer.

Before I even got this, this article about the event appeared in the Contra Costa County Times. (Contra Costa is across the SF Bay from Marin County.)