Parliamania!

Dear Friends,

The pace of the Parliament is frenetic ~ even for a hyperactive multitasker such as myself. There are 6 sessions per day, running from 8am until 10pm. There are about 30 choices for each of the 6 time periods! Plus special events, exhibitions, and performances throughout the day and night. The program book of workshop descriptions (which we need to study every night) is 390 pages long!! It is so intense here!! There are 8,000 people from countries all around the globe, many dressed in traditional religious and cultural attire. It's stunning, really.

I don't know how we'll ever find the time or space to try to put our experiences and insights into words. We'll fit in a little more blogging while we're here, then we'll spend the rest of our lives trying to make sense of everything we've seen and heard. We hope that we can share our experience in such a way that you get a sense of the insights and challenges we've heard.

For lack of time to give a full narrative, I thought I'd share some quotes that have captured some of the lectures, panels and conversations so far. I hope you enjoy them:


"If everyone believes that they are going to heaven and everyone else is going to hell... This creates hell for everyone." (His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar)

"Don't let religion be a time capsule. Let it be a time line." (Peta Pellach)

"Giving a lecture about dialogue is like giving a ballet about opera." (Rabbi Jeremy Jones)

"To listen to another's soul into a condition of disclosure and discovery may be almost the greatest service that any human being ever performs for another." (Douglas Steere)

"When people ask us 'Are you Shia or Sunni', we all agree to respond: 'we are sushi.'" (Muslim man from Michigan)

"Relationships are the places where love exists and without them it doesn't get in." (Vijay, a Hindu chaplain from Edinburgh University, Scotland)

"Let's start where we want to end... in FREEDOM!" (Sri Sri Yoga instructor)

"When I was a young adult, I didn't even know there was 'a within'." (Phyllis Curott, wiccan priestess)

"The only thing we can control is our awareness." (Venerable Karma Lekshe Tsomo)

(On sexism in the Church) "The Western world sees with one eye, hears with one ear and thinks with half a brain. And it shows!" (Joan Chittister)

(On women leaving the Catholic Church) "If you are going to leave, don't leave quietly. If you are going to stay, don't stay quietly." (Joan Chittister)

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. The purpose of life is to matter - to make it matter that you lived at all." (Ratin)

"When people are staring at my hijab (headscarf) I smile as a form of charity." (Muslim woman of Indonesia)

"We are not all the same! And that's a good thing." (Brad Hirschfield)

(On the story of the Tower of Babel) "When everyone speaks the same language and speaks the same thoughts, no one is learning anything." (Joan Chittister)

"Religion is like fire - it can warm your home or burn it down." (Brad Hirschfield)


That's it for now. I'm heading to a great workshop on Interfaith Work in Higher Education - in India, Indonesia and the US.

Peace to all,
~Lynne