As Children of Abraham, our mission is to engage in conversation in order to learn about our respective faiths, leading to actions that promote community wellbeing, and tear down walls of misunderstanding and prejudice.

“To learn in order to teach…
to learn in order to do.”
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Our Core Values statement is under construction. Thank you for your patience.

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Remembering Dick Osing
Arabs, Jews work together on peace, profit
Religion and Violence: Examining Our Faith Traditions

Thank you to those of you who have been attending the sessions at Christ Episcopal these past few Sundays.  There won't be a session March 16 since the DVD hasn't arrived. However, we'll resume the discussions on a larger scale at Coe College on Thursday 4/3. 

All forums will be held from 9:15-10:15 AM at the lower level of Christ Episcopal Church, 220 40th St. NE, Cedar Rapids. The public is invited and the church is handicap accessible.

Thursday April 3, 7:00-9:00pm
Kesler Lecture Hall Coe College
We will be continuing the forum on "Religion and Violence: Untangling the Roots of Violence" with video from the recently held conference of the same name in New York City. 
Greetings.
The COA Steering Committee members met Tuesday August 21 at Temple Judah after a pleasant summer break.  Members present included Chris and Gen Seeman, Gary Goldstein, Rabbi Aaron Sherman, Dianne JohnSmith, Bob and Laurie Silber, Timothy Hyatt and our newest member, Charles Crawley.
We recalled the last public COA event at Coe College which included a discussion of the distinct and shared core values of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths.  We agreed we should continue to develop simple topics and events for the COA community while also having larger scale events that could touch on more complex issues.
See the invitation below in bold concerning an invitation to join the Muslim community to break fast during Ramadan.
Bullet points of matters discussed include:
  • A return to more frequent large group open topic gatherings which continue to foster comfortable, productive learning experiences.
  • Solicit and strongly encourage input and involvement of general COA community for future topic development and event planning.
  • Consideration of future joint community outreach projects and picnics.
  • A discussion of how diversity dialogue groups worked in the Boston area where the youth also held their own sessions and how to evolve our own youth discussion or activity groups (e.g. start by bringing youth of all ages to general discussions).
  • Dr. Bob talked about an 8/16 Interfaith Youth Corps episode found at www.speakingoffaith.org which he and Laurie found inspiring.  Dr. Bob will explore having Elboo Patel (who founded the Interfaith Youth Corps in Chicago) come to Cedar Rapids.
  • Dr. Bob will be exploring the possibility of an interfaith concert with Rick Recht from St. Louis who has done this for interracial and interfaith ( including Muslim ) audiences / themes.  Such an event could be incorporated into a fundraiser for a local charitable cause such as the Community Free Medical Clinic and/or may coincide with Coe's annual observance of the assassination of Martin Luther King.Jr.
  • Future grant opportunities for international involvement (Professor Chris Seeman).
Future events:
  • Timothy Hyatt extends an open invitation for all community members to join the Muslim community to break fast at sunset during Ramadan (which starts 9/13/07 and ends with Eid Ul Fitr 10/13/07) at the Islamic Center of Cedar Rapids 2999 1st Ave SE.  Evenings to choose from are Tuesday 9/18, Wednesday 9/19 or Thursday 9/20.  **Please consider this as the formal invitation and RSVP by email to Timothy Hyatt (timhyatt@msn.com) for him to determine the approximate numbers for each evening and send follow up information to those interested parties about possible potluck items, if needed, to bring based on those numbers.  For those who respond with an intention to attend, please meet at the Islamic Center by 7:00 pm on the referenced evening dates.   If members would like to choose another date, please contact Tim.
  • There may be a pending invitation to the general community to join the Jewish community at Temple Judah for their Sukkot holiday on Friday 10/5.
  • Gary Goldstein offered to contact a Rand Group speaker to come concerning political Middle East peace solutions in late November after Thanksgiving.  See www.rand.org/palestine
  • Charles Crawley will look into obtaining materials from a scheduled January 2008 Religion & Violence interfaith dialogue to replicate here in March/April 2008.
The Steering Committee will meet again Tuesday 9/25 at Temple Judah around 7:00 pm to discuss all of the above again and more!
 
Thanks,
Timothy Hyatt

 


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