For the fourth year in a row, the Interfaith Center and the Arkansas House of Prayer are hosting a prayer event meant to foster interfaith relations.
The event, "Love Thy Neighbor: Meeting at the Well," will be at 6 p.m. Thursday at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 1000 N. Mississippi St. in Little Rock, and will include speakers and musical performers representing several world religions, time for prayer and silence, and an interfaith food festival.
The event started as a way to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with a service of peace and prayer. Originally held on the grounds of the Arkansas House of Prayer at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, the event was moved this year to St. Mark's so that more people could attend.
"Last year so many people came that some left because we ran out of spaces for parking. They physically left," said the Rev. Susan Sims Smith, executive director of the Interfaith Center. The center is part of the Institute for Theological Studies at St. Margaret's. Its mission is to reduce hatred and fear among followers of the world's religions, and the annual "Love Thy Neighbor" event is part of those efforts.
Sims Smith said each year the overall theme relates to living as neighbors, and this year's emphasis is on "meeting at the well."
"The basic idea is we all drink in a common well of divine love," she said. "We go into that well through different traditions ... but when we dig deeply enough we are all connecting to living water, divine love -- water that refreshes and nurtures us in every way."
Finding such commonality doesn't mean diluting one's own faith, Sims Smith said.
"It's not to say we're all alike and it's all the same, but to embrace the differences and the diversity," she said, adding that the goal is to "teach respect, tolerance, admiration, love and respect for our diverse brothers and sisters."
Event coordinator John Willis, who serves as administrator for the interfaith Arkansas House of Prayer, said the service will feature music from several religious traditions, including a performance by an interfaith choir.
Willis said music can strike a deep, emotional chord that can transcend cultural and religious differences.
"Because of the way music works with our emotions, it can help us understand things in a way listening to someone tell us might not," he said.
This year's music will draw on images of the well or of water, in keeping with the theme. The event will also feature interfaith chants for peace.
"It's nice to hear things chanted in their native language and original intonation, but also hearing something in another language allows the language processor part of our brain to shut down so we can just listen and absorb," Willis said. "Everyone will be bathed in this musical bath of prayer for peace and will absorb that energy for peace in a way that's more meditative than intellectual."
The featured speaker will be Dr. Anika Whitfield, a Little Rock physician and Baptist minister. The service will also include prayers of confession from members of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities.
"It's a moment of self-confrontation and reflection on our own faith and where our faith contributes to the problems of the world," Sims Smith said.
The service will be followed by an interfaith food festival featuring vegetarian dishes prepared by members of the interfaith community, which was a popular part of last year's event.
"It's really becoming part of what the community looks forward to and sustains itself by, as a time of joy and celebration and a time of learning," Sims Smith said. "One woman emailed me last year and said, 'I come to this event and it sustains my soul for two or three months. I draw that much love and hope from this one event.' That's the kind of thing it's becoming in the community, and in the midst of a year with really tragic things going on we can still come together and find blessing and hope."
The free event is open to the public and will last about one hour, with the food festival to follow. No child care is provided, but children are welcome.
Information is available online at interfaith.itssm.org.
Religion on 09/05/2015