Religious communities will gather at 6 p.m. Thursday in a show of religious unity at the sixth annual "Love Thy Neighbor" event at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Little Rock.
"Love Thy Neighbor" is the undertaking of the Institute for Theological Studies of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church and is co-sponsored by the silent prayer and meditation establishment Arkansas House of Prayer -- a joint ministry of St. Margaret's and the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas -- and the Interfaith Center, which is a ministry of the theological studies institute at St. Margaret's.
The Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Bahai religious communities will take part in the nearly hourlong service, according to Sophia Said, the Interfaith Center's program director.
The event, which is free and open to the public, was created to commemorate the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks but has evolved beyond its original purpose, said Susan Sims Smith, executive director of the Interfaith Center and founder of the Arkansas House of Prayer.
"It's not only so that we'll get along, it's so that we'll get along and join hands and serve," Sims Smith said. "Our country was founded on religious freedom, and part of the history of this country is to be a place where people of different religions are free to worship and free to make relationships with people who are different" from them.
"It's exciting. It's very American."
According to Sims Smith, a portion of prayer during the event will be devoted to all who have lost their lives in violence related to religious hatred, including the 9/11 attacks.
The event also has outgrown its original venue. The first "Love Thy Neighbor" interfaith event was held at the Arkansas House of Prayer in 2012, and about 150 people attended. By 2015, the attendance had grown to about 300 and the event was moved to St. Mark's. This year about 400 people are expected to attend.
The interfaith peace gathering is held in conjunction with the fourth annual Interfaith Food Festival, which begins immediately after the service. Foods from cuisines throughout the interfaith community will be available, and it's a part of the evening that Danny Schieffler, rector of St. Mark's, described as "a deep pleasure in and of itself, to sample the food from all the different cultures."
Schieffler said community meals and dining together are a "huge part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and I can only imagine that it's important to their religions as well, because it's part of our humanity."
RESPONSE TO HATRED
Each year the event has a specific theme. This year's theme is "Building Bridges," which will be well represented throughout the program.
One example is the Interfaith Center's Multi-Faith Youth Group. Comprising high school students from different religions, the group will give a presentation on how young people can build bridges.
Barry Block, rabbi of Little Rock's Temple Bnai Israel, will address how people can use their faith and diverse identities to build bridges, and according to Block "there's never been a more important time for building bridges in love and diversity."
"All Americans have a common enemy in white supremacy and the sort of hatred -- deadly hatred -- that was spread in Charlottesville," said Block, referring to the Aug. 12 incident in Charlottesville, Va., in which a 32-year-old woman died and more than a dozen people were injured when a car rammed into counterprotesters at a rally protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
"Simply being together in diversity and celebrating as a diverse community is a way of responding to white supremacy and hatred," Block said.
John Willis, executive director of the Arkansas House of Prayer, said the Love Thy Neighbor committee decided on its theme after a period of reflection, contemplation on what's going on in the world, feedback from previous events as well as "what's been stirring in our own hearts."
"[Right now] there's just a really strong atmosphere of division ... and people [are] shutting down because they can't arrive at agreements," Willis said. "After some of the gunk that's come up over the last year, some of the more violent traumatic events as well as the political climate, the turnover that's happened there, we were all just discussing the need for us to find commonality, just a way to build a bridge."
CONFRONTING THE 'DARK SIDE'
Diya Chakraborty, 12, of Little Rock will open the night's music performances by singing traditional Hindu hymns, called bhajans, before performances by the Shechinotes, a Jewish women's singing group, and the Interfaith Center's children's choir.
For the past three years, time has been set aside for reflection and silence through what is known as the Litany of Atonement. Although the liturgical practice of atonement was originally included in the service as a Unitarian Universalist tradition, the liturgical practice of atonement is also recognized in Judaism during Yom Kippur, one of the religion's high holy days, and it's something that Willis said is a powerful time in the service.
"It addresses the ways that we fall short, the ways that we fail to build bridges with each other," Willis said.
After each sentence describing a manner in which people can fall short of their fellow man, a silent moment of contemplation about the transgression follows, broken in unison at the interfaith event by saying the phrase: "We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love."
"It feels very necessary to address kind of the shadow side, the dark side of things, [because] while we're looking at that as the subject of peace and how to make peace real, we have to acknowledge that we don't all the time," Willis said.
The service will conclude with a universal prayer for peace that was written by the Multi-Faith Youth Group.
For Annabelle Tuck, one of about 100 volunteers who has helped with "Love Thy Neighbor" since its inception, the youth group's performances have stood out the most and given her hope.
"They tell it like it is," Tuck said. "Being a teenager is hard in itself, and then addressing religious difference and learning about each other's religions ... I come away with a lot of hope for [our] future leaders."
Tuck, a former state Supreme Court justice and a member of Temple Bnai Israel, said she believes clinging to the familiar and fear of the unknown are byproducts of today's fast-paced society.
"I think some of the pulling into your own group ... I think it's really a response internally to how fast change is happening now," she said. "I think it means that a lot more effort had to be taken to not buy into fear ... [and] I think a lot of this [event] has to do with breaking down those walls of fear, and not just intellectually but also emotionally."
Schieffler has taken part in the service in the past and will welcome guests entering the church that night. He described the feel in the air during "Love Thy Neighbor" as one of excitement and hopefulness.
"If you've got your ears and your heart open -- and your mind open -- you will learn," Schieffler said. "There's just no way not to."
For St. Mark's, "Love Thy Neighbor" is one event in a series of interfaith efforts with which the church participates.
"We try to get out of our little Episcopal world ... and add goodness into the community," Schieffler said.
He encourages any and all who have never attended a "Love Thy Neighbor" event to show up.
"If you're feeling sort of disillusioned about the world, this is a night to have your faith and confidence in humanity restored and to be a part of something bigger than any one church, any one person, any one denomination, to feel a deep connection with God and humanity."
Additional information about the event is available at lovethyneighbordlr.eventbrite.com.
Religion on 09/02/2017