St. Paul by Oleg Korolev
Upcoming Events
- radio interview
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“Center of the Storm” with Katy Byrne on KSVY 91.3 Sonoma
Wednesday January 31 from 2–3 pm PST
Past Events
November 30, 2006 (Vancouver, BC)
Banyen Books hosted a free interfaith peace dialogue for the Canadian book launch event at the Vancouver Public Library (Alice McKay Room, 350 West Georgia St.) on Thursday November 30 at 7:30 pm.
The topic of discussion was “How do we develop empathy for people of other spiritual paths?” The critical and timely topic included input from:
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Bishop Michael Ingham from the Diocese of New Westminster,
Anglican Church of Canada - Victor Chan founder of the Dalai Lama Center for Peace
- Tony DuMoulin from Canadian Jewish Congress
- Nafees Shams from the Muslim-Jewish Feed the Hungry Program
- Bhupinder Singh, a Sikh representative, and
- Mohamad Rachid from the BC Muslim Association
Often violence has at its core a failure to see other person as equally human. You can understand someone and still kill him. However, if you empathize with another person, even if you don’t understand him or disagree with her, you will find a way to coexist. But what is empathy and how is it achieved? The interfaith panel explored this issue along with participation from the audience.
Laura Partland, a Vancouver vocalist and lyricist, started off the evening by performing original songs from her CD “The Flowering,” a mystical and musical exploration about coming into being — the soul’s flowering. Bonnie Nish, of Pandora’s Collective, read her poem “Crying Out Loud in Jerusalem.”
a Review of the Event by the Canadian Jewish Congress
As book launches go, it was perhaps one of the most unique the Vancouver Public Library has ever held. A panel of seven members of different religious groups came together to discuss the issue of empathy with an audience of about 150 on behalf of the book Illuminations.
Rather than have a typical book-signing, Tompkins decided to hold the panel discussion in order to “advance the cause.” He selected the topic “How do we develop empathy for people of other spiritual paths?”
Speaking on the panel were Bishop Michael Ingham of the Anglican Church of Canada, Victor Chan, founder of the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace, Tony DuMoulin of Canadian Jewish Congress, Nafees Shams from the Muslim-Jewish Feed the Hungry Program, Bhupinder Singh, a Sikh representative, Mohamad Rachid from the B.C. Muslim Association and Acharya S.P. Dwivedi from the Global Hindu Foundation.
Dwivedi said that Hinduism’s perspective is that the whole universe is one family. ‘The moment you start thinking about the world in this way, you will affect change,’ he said, adding that he thought Illuminations would be a good companion to the Bible in hotel rooms around the world.
Illuminations featured…
- in Canadian magazine Common Ground
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“Recently, Common Ground attended a book launch and interfaith peace dialogue at the Vancouver Public Library co-hosted by Banyen Books and Mark Tompkins. The event featured speakers from myriad faiths with the aim of promoting empathy for people of different spiritual paths, inspiring Common Ground to offer these moving excerpts in our first issue of the New Year.”
[read the excerpts] - on the Peace Alliance website
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The Peace Alliance website exists “solely to create much needed funds for the Campaign for a U.S. Department of Peace”. The Peace Alliance is “an historic citizen lobbying effort to create a U.S. Department of Peace. There is currently a bill before both Houses of Congress (House Resolution 3760 and Senate 1756). This landmark measure will augment our current problem-solving options, providing practical, nonviolent solutions to the problems of domestic and international conflict.”
[order the book from the Peace Alliance website]