Voices of Faith for the National Museum of Mental Health Project

The National Museum of Mental Health Project is a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that both researches and develops exhibits to transform society’s understanding of mental health. A brief story from a Metrowest weekly about my co-developer, and the formation of NMMHP can be found here: Hudson resident helps launch National Museum of Mental Health Project (communityadvocate.com)

Our exhibition, I Get It, is launching this year on our website and on social media. I Get It is a mosaic of realizations, experiences, skills, perspectives, etc. about mental health and wellness.  It will serve as a safe place for creative exploration, shared understanding, inspiration, and emotional learning. Leave a piece. Take a piece. Build better mental health. https://www.nmmhproject.org/i-get-it
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We are presently seeking "first voices" for the exhibition before it goes live and it is in this context that I reach out to you. We feel it is important that the first group of voices in I Get It include individuals for whom faith, and faith practices, are important to their mental health. A flyer for our call for submissions is attached. Download the flyer below.
i_get_it_flyer_final.pdf
File Size: 231 kb
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Active Bystander's Training Now Available

The Metrowest Interfaith Dialogue Project is collaborating with The Jewish Family Services and Open Spirit Interfaith Center to offer Active Bystander's Training to faith communities and other organizations and individuals. Using the Quabbin Mediation Model, the Training Active Bystanders (TAB) program helps participants recognize when they are bystanders, analyze situations, and evaluate the consequences for everyone involved. TAB heightens bystanders’ power. It teaches how bystanders can interrupt harm-doing and generate positive actions by others. Active bystandership does not mean aggression against the harm doer. It means taking responsible action to help people in need instead of remaining passive and becoming complicit. Bystanders gain the competencies they need if they decide to take action when they witness something they feel is unfair, or wrong, or troubling.

    Contact us for more information

Swami Tyagananda of our Dialogue Team Gives Keynote Address to the Parliament of World Religions 2018 in Toronto

Metrowest Interfaith Dialogue Project in the Local News

Dialogue that Crosses Faiths

Twelve members of faith organizations in MetroWest, including Our Lady of Fatima Shrine in Holliston, work on a regular basis to make their communities more inclusive. They called it the MetroWest Interfaith Dialogue Project (MIDP).
“Our hope is to the honor the religious and nonreligious diversity of our communities and neighborhoods by creating an interfaith community within communities of different faiths. We focus on three goals: Foster opportunities to come together in order to come to know one another and the faiths that inspire us; Gain insight on how much we share in common through our faiths and values; Discover how interfaith dialogue and action can make a difference in our communities and neighborhoods and helps us all flourish together,” he said.

Interfaith Book Club of the Islamic Society of Boston Presents Interfaith Presentation on Forgiveness

​Webinar: The Role of Mary in Christianity and Islam

Sponsored by Hartford Seminary, Hartford, CT

Multifaith Panel on Resilience

On December 16, 2020, a group of more than 40 people gathered on Zoom for a Multifaith Panel on Resilience with respected leaders of different faith backgrounds:
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--Rabbanit Dasi Fruchter, Founder and Spiritual Leader, South Philadelphia Shtiebel
--Dr. Celene Ibrahim, Author and Scholar
--Rev. Mahogany S. Thomas, Executive Minister, Peoples Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC)
--Allyson Zacharoff, Rabbinical Student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, served as Organizer and Moderator (christmasandkreplach.blogspot.com)

​Questions considered included: What can different religions teach us about resilience in this difficult time? How can we personally foster resilience during the pandemic? We hope you enjoy this recording of our meaningful discussion. *This panel was supported as part of the John Paul II Center Russell Berrie Fellowship Alumni Grant Program, and by the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) Alumni Leadership Fund. We are grateful to both groups for their support in bringing this project to life.
This was an ACWAY (A Common Word Among the Youth) project. ACWAY is an international network of young people committed to bringing multifaith projects to their communities.

Interfaith Prayer with Some Members of MIDP, December 9, 2020 for Hartford Seminary, CT

The time has come to examine Gothic in the same way, since Cram never realized, along with Americans and Europeans in general, that key elements of Gothic architecture — the pointed arch, the trefoil arch, ribbed vaulting, and many other features — were born, not in Europe, but further east, often evolving from styles that were associated with a completely different religion.
Even Eurocentric architects cannot deny that the pointed arch had its origins in Islamic architecture. It appeared in the 7th century Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, built as the first Muslim shrine by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik, and was then further developed under the Abbasids in Baghdad

Fr. Tomas Keating - A Life Surrendered to Love

The Virgin Mary: Bridging Muslims and Christians

Carl Chudy, SX
Xaverian Missionaries USA

The Journal of Social Encounters has published Fr. Carl’s comparative study on the description of Mary in the Gospels and the Qur’an that “opens us up to the profound mystery of God that transcends the boundaries of both of our faiths…” Access the Journal here.
DOWNLOAD THE ARTICLE HERE

Dehumanizing and Demonizing Language and How to Confront It