Candlemas  — 2017 Feb 2 Thurs 7 pm

 World Religions Lectures — 2017 Feb 17-18 Fri-Sat

 When Even Evil Will Ordain the Good — 2017 Mar 8, 15, 22, 29
          New YouTube video from this Lenten series 

12th Annual Dialogue and Friendship Dinner — 2017 Apr 6

[ 50th Anniversary of Church founding ] — 2017 Apr 6
          This is the church from which CRES developed.

[ Table of Faiths ] - Interfaith Council Annual Dinner  — 2017 May 9 

[ CRES Intern Geneva Blackmer ] receives degree — May 10

Sacred — the movie — May 18 Thurs 7 pm 

[ A 75th Birthday ] a personal entry May 25

Interfaith Pride Service —  2017 May 31 Weds 7 pm

Chances Are Vital Conversations 2017 July 12 Weds 1-2:30 pm

Islam and ToleranceVital Conversations 2017 Oct 11 Weds 1-2:30 pm

Healing Religious Bias — 2017 Oct 25 Wednesday 9-11 am

Has Science Eclipsed Religion?  — 2017 Oct 28 Saturday brunch

Interfaith Thanksgiving Dinner — 2017 Nov 12 Sunday 4-6:30

Vital Conversations —  The Full Year

WEDDINGS of all kinds click for information We can provide a customized ceremony or direct you to a wedding chapel with low-cost package services (flowers, photographer, etc.)  THANKS to Robert and Shye Reynolds, a CRES fund to assist couples with fees for weddings  has been established, to celebrate their marriage June 19, 2002, on the occasion of their thirteenth anniverary.

FORTHCOMING BOOKS see also  our publications page in progress: KC Star, Many Paths columns and fresh essays: The Three Families of Faith and the Three Crises of Secularism       Many have asked for a compilation of columns Vern wrote for the KC Star, 1994-2012,  and the essays fatured in Many Paths. Here are tentative chapter headings for the selections:       ? The Three Families of Faith ? Faith and the Arts  ? Science and Religion  ? Teachers of the Spirit ? Ritual and Worship ? Religion and Public Policy ? Specific Faiths (Buddhism, Islam, etc) ? Comparative topics (reincarnation, gods, water, prophets, etc) ? How the column began and ended

OTHER  PROGRAMS  and SERVICES If you would  like to engage Vern  or another member  of the CRES staff  for a speech,  consultation,  or other work with your organization  or personally,  please visit  www.cres.org/work/services.htm or email  vern@cres.org

Vern lectures in Atchison on world religions for students in the Benedictine Sister's Souljourners spiritual formation program leading to spiritual direction ministry at the Sophia Center, 751 South 8th Street, Atchison, Kansas 66002

Vern described the three families of faith by telling stories suggesting where they typically find the sacred; epitomizing texts were studied; Buddhism and Islam were given special attention; and the benefits of interfaith exchange were celebrated.

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A LENTEN SERIES
Potluck at 6p, program 6:30-7:30.
The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer
7110 N. State Route 9, KCMO 64152; (816) 741-1136

When Even Evil Will Ordain the Good

Using themes from world religions to illumine the Christian tradition, the Reverend Vern Barnet, DMn, explores the powerful mysteries of the crucified and resurrected love of our Savior through the texts of sonnets from the "Credo" section his new book, Thanks for Noticing: The Interpretation of Desire.
      Vern wrote the Wednesday "Faith and Beliefs" column 1994-2012 for The Kansas City Star and now writes for each issue of the diocesan magazine, Spirit. He founded the Kansas City Interfaith Council in 1989. He is a very happy lay Episcopalian.

Mar 8 - The Jesus of History or the Christ of Faith? 
Mar 15 - A Paradox of Salvation
Mar 22 - The Gospel Theater
Mar 29 - The Mystic Vision

Art to illustrate the themes

Two views of an icon of Christ teaching (Mar 8) and Velazquez’s "Christ after the Flagellation contemplated by the Christian Soul"  (Mar 15)

A modern enactment of the crucifixion (Mar 22)

Dali's "Last Supper" (Mar 29)

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The Dialogue Institute Kansas City, UMKC Division of Diversity and Inclusion, and UMKC's International Dialogue Student Ass'n cordially invite you to the 
12th Annual Dialogue and Friendship Dinner
Members of different cultures join to enjoy cultural diversity
Global Warming of Hearts: Love and Acceptance

2017 April  6 Thursday 6-9 pm
UMKC Student Union Multipurpose Room 401
5100 Cherry St, Kansas City, MO 64110
Invocation: The Reverend Vern Barnet, DMn

Host Committee: Peggy Dunn, Mayor of Leawood; Carl Gerlach, Mayor of Overland Park; Ron Slepitza, President of Avila University; Marvin Szneler, Executive Director of JCRB - AJC; Jeremiah Morgan, Stake President- the Church of Jesus-Christ of LDS; William B. Rose-Heim, M.Div, Regional Minister and President Christian Church of Greater Kansas City; Sheriff, Calvin H. Hayden, Sheriff, Johnson County

The evening featured Eve Levin, PhD, as Keynote Speaker, chair, History Department, University of Kansas. Donna Ziegenhorn presided over the evening with music by Cindy Novelo, remarks by Ron Slepitza, and awards given to Dr Jospeph Sopich, the Down Syndrome Guild, and Cornerstones of Care. Music was provided by Cindy Novelo

The Invocation by Vern, wearing a stole with symbols of many world religions, appears below.

SPIRIT OF UNDERSTANDING,
called by different divine names in diverse languages and faiths,
You include us, you gather us together tonight, 
a sundry concentration from many connections,
our hearts seeking to warm the globe with variation.

SPIRIT OF UNDERSTANDING,
We are joined in our journey
As a flower is joined with earth,
As a river is joined with the ocean,
As a bird is joined with the sky.

SPIRIT OF UNDERSTANDING,
You have made us differently,
just as the stars and the waters,
  and the land, and the air
are different elements of being,
though we are united without being the same.

SPIRIT OF UNDERSTANDING,
You do not make us regimented, nor copies of each other.
we are not given identical dispositions,
for we have different gifts, all sacred, for one another,
no one of which alone adequately points to your infinite and awesome glory.
For where there is no awe, there will be disaster.
For where there is no gratitude, there will be selfishness and self-deception.
For where there is no love of service, there will be grasping and disintegration.

Save us, O SPIRIT OF UNDERSTANDING,
and may this inclusive evening together,
as we delight in conversation with one another,
as we giver thanks for our food, our cooks, and our servers,
as we learn from our speakers,
as we are cheered by our musician,
as we applaud the insights and labors of 
the Dialogue Institute, the sponsors, and our honorees,

May you, O SPIRIT OF UNDERSTANDING,
dwell more fully within us
as we, in the splendor of the world's manyness,
celebrate love and acceptance in a global warming of hearts.

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#170507
Shawnee Mission Unitarian Universalist Church
Observes 50 years

Vern was the congregation's second minister, 1975-1984. He appears in the middle of the top row of the church's archive wall of photographs of former ministers, with the incumbent, Rose Schwab, shown in the final picture, who graciously recognized her predecessor during the celebration 2017 May 7. It was in the seventh year of Vern's ministry that the congregation encouraged Vern to begin CRES.

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#170509TableOfFaiths
TABLE OF FAITHS

Sophia Kahn, MD, was this year's recipient of the Steve Jeffers Leadership Award, shown here in the middle with some of many friends and admirers. She was recognized for her efforts in many fields, but on this occasion particularly for or inspiring leadership in "KC for Refugees." Previous recipients include Queen Mother Maxine McFarlane (2010), Donna Ziegenhorn (2011), Mayor Sly James (2012), Bambi Shen (2014), the Rev Dr Wallace Hartsfield Sr (2015) and Shakil Haider (2016).

Congratulations to CRES intern Geneva Blackmer on completing her bachelors degree! Athens State University President Robert K Glenn hands Geneva her diploma at the 2017 May 10 graduation ceremony.  And Geneva was inducted into Theta Alpha Kappa, the National Honor Society for Religious Studies and Theology!

Sacred immerses the viewer in an exploration of spirituality across cultures and religions. At a time when religious hatreds dominate the world’s headlines, this film, sweeping in global reach and yet intensely intimate, explores faith as primary human experience: how it is used to navigate the milestones and crises of private life. Directed by Academy Award® winner Thomas Lennon and shot around the globe by 40 filmmaking teams.

Milestones of a  Spiritual Life      At a time when religious hatreds dominate the world’s headlines Oscar-winning director Thomas Lennon commissioned 40 independent filmmakers from more than 25 countries to explore faith as a primary human experience and how people turn to sacred traditions to navigate the milestones and crises of daily life.      The result is an immersive exploration of spirituality across cultures and religions sweeping in global reach and yet intensely intimate. Told without narration, without experts and, for long stretches, without words at all, the film draws the viewer into a string of private moments, sometimes for just seconds, at other times in depth. Each filmmaking team contributed a single scene capturing a unique moment in a key passages of life - from a young Muslim father in Egypt chanting the call to prayer for his baby who is only minutes old to coming of age moments in Spain, India and Israel,      The film arcs through marriage and the trials of adulthood through to the rites to those ways which we remember and treasure our dead. An epic and kaleidoscopic cinematic experience.

As folks entered the theater, they were given a handout:

    Involving many faiths and cultures, a world-wide collaboration: "Sacred"
    After the movie, Alvin Brooks, Donna Ziegenhorn, Sunyananda Dharma, and Vern Barnet, moderator, join the audience in the discussion.
  Some questions to explore:
  1. What does “sacred” mean to you —  before and after seeing the movie?
    2. What delighted or challenged you unexpectedly?
    3. What is “sacred” in your own life?
    4. What would you ask the panelists?

Jamie Rich, who runs the Spiritual Cinema Series, introduced Vern who named the panelists. Vern said that in his 47-year career, no word has intrigued him more than "sacred" as a key to understanding paradigmatic experiences for others as well as for himself. The film episodes were organized into in three segments (initiation, practice, passage), in each third, scenes from Mt Hiei, home of the "Marathon Monks," appear, where Vern studied as a young man. Vern concluded, "What is sacred? -- Many answers are suggested by the multiple scenes we are about to witness. You may find some puzzling; some may touch your heart."

Vern noted that since there movie offered no overarching narration, the movie was an unusual approach for discussion. The movie opened and closed with birthing scenes. In between, a Muslim father singing the Call to Prayer to his newborn child, a Holi festival, a live crucifixion with real nails during Holy Week, the Hajj, rewrapping of ancestral bones, a bris, a boxing match and sermon in prison, group Tai Chi practice, various forms of prayer (including one who methodically prayed for others), a Buddhist initiation, a couple visiting a fertility shrine and on a porcelain phallus writing their hope to see their first child soon before placing the object on a prayer shelf, a half-sari ceremony, a baptism, workers in protective gear removing dead bodies in the Ebola crisis who think that the disease proves God is angry, an Apache dance, a wedding, a Muslim boy affirming that suicide-bombers go to hell, and dozens of other largely unexplained scenes.

What great panelists! -- Al Brooks, Donna Ziegenhorn, and Sunyananda Dharma. Each had previewed the movie and responded to a couple questions Vern asked to begin the discussion, and then to audience responses. Examples: Al discussed the importance of faith for those in prison and cited an innocent prisoner who waited  thirty years for freedom. Sunyananda explained why Buddhist boys had finery placed on them as part of their initiation into monkshood before their heads were shaved, and how mala beads are used and what they mean, demonstrating with his as he spoke. Donna lamented that the movie did not display folks of many faiths joining together, which let to a celebration of the opportunities we have in Kansas City.

From his experiences in Africa and the Philippines, an audience affirmed the sincerity of practices that may seem strange to those of other cultures and called for our respect of them. The conversation ranged from to comparing the crucifixion to the Sun Dance (quite a sophisticated comment from an audience member). The last question led to a discussion of what assimilation means, and Vern reminded the audience that free Kansas City "Interfaith Passports" were available at the rear of the auditorium.

Perhaps this movie creates an appetite for a less haphazard and more informed movie to explore how different folks and cultures experience the sacred; and with the insights of the panelists, the audience was enabled to envision both personal and social ways in which our lives can be more frequently and more powerfully touched by the sacred. 

Although expectations were for about 100, some estimated the crowd at twice that size, most of whom remained after the movie for the discussion.

May 25 is also the birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He would be 214 years old. Emerson lasted three years as a Unitarian parish minister; I served fifteen, for which I am grateful; thereafter my career status as a Unitarian Universalist minister changed from “parish” to “community” minister, and now “retired.” Like Emerson, I have read beyond Christian literature, with most of my work devoted to interfaith activities. I would have argued with him about lots of things, including communion, which he felt he could no longer administer with integrity. His doubts about Christian beliefs were modern of the sort perverted by the Enlightenment. A Transcendentalist and a Romantic, his individualistic themes have helped to bring us less the development of character and more the Gospel of Greed and Ayn Rand and now Donald Trump. If Emerson had understood the Eucharist better as the loving and just sharing of divine grace, maybe the benefits of his influence would have been less likely to have been ccorrupted. May his birthday encourage me to be ever self-critical and benefit from learning from others. My own sins should make me more understanding of others; and even if God may have forgiven me, I need to be mindful of past and potential wickedness lest I become untethered from the earthly realm in which the joy of duty best fulfills.

Speaking of the Eucharist: my day’s highlight was attending Mass at the church where I am a member, Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral (Episcopal). The liturgical calendar this year gave my birthday the extra blessing of the Feast of the Ascension.(See Acts 1:9, Mark 16:19--an appendix not in the oldest manuscripts, Hebrews 4:14, and an interpretation of Psalm 110 and Daniel 7:13; Luke 24:51-52 is doubtful; clearly the story is a later tradition influenced by cultural patterns, and the feast developed even later.) The sixth of the Cathedral chancel windows depicts this final episode in the story of the earthly life of Jesus. I love the entire set. Christ, at last untethered to the earthly realm, is that freedom in the mystics’ raptus beyond distinctions, or, to use a Buddhist phrase, “entering the gate of the not-two doctrine,” an ecstasy to be enjoyed but not possessed; as the disciples could not cling to Jesus, the mystic may be changed by the experience, but must not cling to it. One must let it go.

One of the 154 sonnets in my book, Thanks for Noticing,  is called “Ascension.” It refers to a painting by El Greco, “The Holy Trinity.” It looks like an Ascension theme to me, but it is unlike the typical magisterial portrayal of Christ ascending into the heavens from the earth. Instead we see the dead-like body of Jesus lovingly embraced by the Father in heaven, with the Holy Spirit hovering as a dove. I think it is useful to look at the Ascension not only from the human point of view, but also the divine, and surely one of the things we can imagine the Father seeing at the moment of Ascension is the horrible affliction wrought upon His Son, which is his very Being. (As a father, I have an inkling of what it is like to see a son damaged.) And thus the model and sacred story of redemption in compassion. 

Ascensions, assumptions, and other risings (sometimes with apotheosis) into heaven are common in Judaism, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman ancient religions and of course the Hellenistic culture (my favorite is, of course, Ganymede, but Hercules also deserves mention), alchemy, shamanism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Mesoamerican traditions, Daoism, and other faiths. Two thousand years from the Christian story’s setting, we know you can’t find God above the clouds anymore than you can find him below; that above 30,000 feet, oxygen is pretty thin and you’ll shiver and die; that we have airplanes and spacecraft of various sorts to leave the ground; and the message of the Christian story may be less an astronomical tale than a paradigm image of the exaltation of the Savior as divine, the mystical union with God, and for us below to do the healing work of love He has given us to do here right on earth.

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Vern engaged with the Cultural Competency Collective of Greater Kansas City. The group's mission is to create a sustainable community process to provide culturally appropriate care and reduce disparities in service to clients, students and peers. CCCofGKC members are largely human service providers – mental health, behavioral health, social welfare, education and more. 
     Vern provided an overview of world religions, discusses their representation in Kansas City, offers a working definition of bias, and presents best practices in providing culturally competent service. This program design offers great interaction activities.

Our community and the world can be healed from its religious prejudice and fragmentation by learning how to talk with others about their faith perspectives. This session includes information, theory, and practice. 

Learning Community Session Objectives:
At the end of this session, participants were able to:
     1. Identify typical attitudes toward other faiths and common misconceptions about religion such as "All religions believe in God."
     2. Appreciate where the three families of world religions find the Sacred: nature (primal faiths), personhood (Asian traditions), and the history of covenanted community (Hebraic religions). 
     3. Practice interfaith conversation skills for safe, meaningful, two-way discussions.
     4. Identify basic local resources.

Advance Reading
* “The Three Crises of Our Time,” adapted from Thanks for Noticing: The Interpretation of Desire (1 page) download PDF
* “Harmony in a World of Differences: Interfaith Works” (3 pages) download PDF
* Excerpt from The Essential Guide to Religious Traditions and Spirituality for Health Care Providers (7x2 pages) download PDF

Dr Vern Barnet outlined (1) the interplay between science and religion since the Renaissance leading to the desacralization of the world. (2) He then asked how to recover the sense of the sacred — in nature, personhood, and society, with Primal, Asian, and Monotheistic faiths to restore us with nature, heal the self, and find community in covenant. The lecture concluded with a story from the Khassidischen Bücher of Martin Buber via Heinrich Zimmer via Vern's teacher, Mircea Eliade. These notes cover the first part of the lecture. 

For a short time 2017 Aug 21, the moon eclipsed the sun, but while the sun disappeared from sight, its gravity persisted. Since the Reformation, science has come to eclipse spirituality (breathing with a sense of the sacred) and religion (folks living with a sacred focus), but religion’s power remains, obscured by secularism. The sacred is the non-dual reality on which our lives depend. We usually do not see it since we are embedded within it, as we often do not notice the air we breathe around us. 

Science as a separate activity is similarly embedded in our broken and fragmented world. But from a religious, holistic, sacred perspective, science is an unacknowledged religious activity, and accountable to religion. Here I cannot show how technological evils (such as the bomb and environmental threats) arise because science has been spilt off from faith, but I do outline how we got to this peril.

Beginning with Plato, and developing with 1620 Francis Bacon’s natura vexata and 1637 Descartes’ dualism and mathematical paradigms, nature was severed from faith, nature objectified in categories, controlled, and used. Consider the changes from reading aloud, to adding spaces between words in written texts, to reading silently, to movable type, to the spread of literacy, to the Reformation’s focus on the word over sacred images (in extreme cases, actual hostility to such images), to the categories and quantifications of the Enlightenment and its Modernist development. Anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) has been particularly harmful for his "scientific" focus on religion as explanation, and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) offered a particularly influential reduction of religion to mere psychological processes.

Religion — arising from wonder and mystery, expressed in thanksgiving, and matured in service — has been seduced by scientism to ignore the sacred, and faith is now often also conceived in terms of facticity, categories, partialisms, and literalism, even fundamentalism. The change in meaning of the word “believe” illustrates this: the word now often means accepting a statement or proposition such as “I believe the earth is round.” But originally it meant commitment, affection for, loyalty to, participation with, as in “I believe in my spouse.” The word is related to the German, liebe, love; even into the early 17th Century, “believe” meant more like “belove.”
     (The 1549 Book of Common Prayer relies on even earlier sources for its famous "Collect for Purity," which appears in the 1979 edition as "Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen." Note the phrase "thoughts of our hearts"; nowadays we distinguish head (thoughts) from the heart; but one of the virtues of the early 17th Century English "metaphysical poets" identified by T S Eliot is that they wrote before what he called the "dissociation of sensibility" affected our language and culture.)

Religion degenerates with the development of language. It is redeemed only when language points, rather than describes. (Consider Vico.)

In Christianity (the dominant Western faith), the paramount example of this desacralization is the Zwinglian doctrine of Communion as simply a memorial. Placing Communion in the category of sign rather than the experienced mysterious sacrifice of Christ — with the change of the bread and wine into His very body and blood — was a momentous advance in the tyranny of scientific literalism as reality. 

Even Cranmer, who defended the practice of reception of the elements by kneeling, did, perhaps forced to do so, add the “black rubric” to the second Book of Common Prayer and changed “altar” to “table.”   Indeed, the utter extremity, and almost laughable literalism of the “black rubric” is in its conclusion: “For it is agaynst the trueth of Christes true natural bodye, to be in moe places then in one, at one tyme.” 

While it can be argued that implicit in the medieval distinction between the accidental and substantial natures of the bread and wine is the seed of literalism, it took the rise of printing, Protestantism, and scientism to complete the degeneration of language about the Eucharist. 

Gregory Bateson contrasts Catholic with  Protestant views of Communion as the difference between metaphor (“Watch out for him, my friend; he is a fox”; “This is the body of Christ”) and simile (“Watch out for him, my friend; he is like a fox”;  “This is like the body of Christ”). The metaphor is a mythic or poetic equation— While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke  it and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take and eat; this is my body.” This is metaphor, myth; but a simile is a literal comparison. The literalism of the extreme Reformers ignores the performatory nature of language and the ecclesial, contextual meanings of “the Body of  Christ,” some of which Hooker may have sensed in his latitude, moderating some Enlightenment-like discrete categories.

Fortunately the Anglican tradition of “real presence” can elevate the experience of the communicant above the categories of thought which can divert the Christian from the enjoyment of, and transformation by, the Mystery. One is welcomed with any theological understanding of the Eucharist, or none; the experience, not the theory, counts. 

The Reformers who scoffed at the Catholic teaching of transubstantiation as superstition were deeply corrupted by the incipient literalism in the air, as are those today who find Hindus worshipping idols to be silly and stupid, rather than advanced intellectually and spiritually. If you think that material objects are mere signs or empty symbols, or vague memorials, consider those who are willing to die for a piece of cloth called the flag. 

Instead of the childlike playfulness of “I am the Cookie Monster!” or our willing suspension of disbelief when an actor tears out our hearts when he cries, “Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little,” scientism gives us facts. We are moved by stories — myths — which can be enacted as rituals. When Oklahoma! begins and Curly sings, “Oh, what a beautiful mornin’,” it is no longer night; we enter into a potent reality though art that sensitizes us to what is genuine in human life. Thus Episcopal Bishop James Pike said, “I can sing the Creed, but I can’t say it.”

Alas, the desacralization, the literalization of Christianity has infected other faiths through Western imperialism. Islam is a particularly painful example, for even this extraordinarily beautiful faith has been corrupted by Western hegemony, and in rare cases reflects the iniquity of our own violence. 

Here are some contrasts to consider:

Alexander Pope’s brilliant epitaph for Isaac Newton placed Newton’s signal achievements in exploring the nature of light and other physical phenomena, in the context of the first chapter of the Bible stories of creation. But what a perceptive contrast! is William Blake’s rejoinder emphasizing the participatory nature of perception, anticipating certain quantum mechanical interpretations of our time.
 

The lecture began with a personal account of how science and religion became Vern's preoccupations from his teen years, and concluded with an overview of world religions with their keen, though in our culture, eclipsed, perceptions of where to find the sacred, as a way of recovering from the desacralization of our age.  In 1958, Vern (age 16) spent all his summer earnings to print his Fundamentalist tract to hand out to his high school friends. Shortly after the school year began, he read Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason and then Bertrand Russell’s “Why I am not a Christian,” became a militant atheist, and dumped boxes and boxes of 5,000 tracts into the trash. Finding literal lies in religion, he turned to science for the truth, found also to be a house of cards. Further study revealed what is the sacred is what is genuine.

Although this event is no longer sponsored by CRES, we list it since its "Vern Barnet Interfaith Service Award" is named for the CRES minister emeritus, who founded the Interfaith Council in 1989. The text below is by the ADL and the Council.

Since 2010, this beloved annual event has been sponsored by the Heartland Chapter – Alliance of Divine Love and the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council, in cooperation with the interfaith community.

Heartland Chapter – Alliance of Divine Love announces that the 2017 Vern Barnet Interfaith Service Award, named in recognition of the lasting contribution of Rev. Vern Barnet to our vibrant interfaith community, will be presented to Sheila Sonnenschein, past Chair of the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council and a long-time director of the Council, as well as co-chair of the annual Table of Faiths in 2006 and 2007.

Sheila has devoted her life to interfaith action and understanding and is active in several educational, Jewish and interfaith organizations. Besides GKCIC, she is also a board member of KC for Refugees and the Kansas City Interfaith Youth Alliance. She started the Table to Table program for Yachad, the Kosher food pantry, and, with husband Ken, started Mitzvah Gardens in St. Louis and Greater Kansas City. She is deeply involved in interfaith activity, helping to form the Kansas City Women’s Interfaith Circle; is a former member of the Festival of Faiths committee; chaired Peace by Piece featuring Noa Baum in September 2005 and started the Facebook online initiative Mothers on the Side of Peace. She is a firm supporter and member of The Sisterhood of Salaam/Shalom; she is a member of the national advisory board and travels around the world with that organization.

Sheila was the first non-Muslim board member of the Crescent Peace Society, a former board member of the National Council of Jewish Women and a former board member of the Kansas City Press Club. Her articles have been published in The Catholic Reporter, Outlook Magazine, The New Light, Being Jewish, Suburban Journal of St. Louis, The Kansas City Star, and, the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle.

The 2017 Annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Dinner will be hosted at the new Islamic Center of Johnson County, located at 9005 West 151st Street, Overland Park, KS 66221. The Islamic Center of Johnson County serves the spiritual, religious and communal needs of Muslims in the cities of Overland Park, Leawood and Olathe through this new, permanent center and also serves the larger Kansas City Metro community through outreach, charity work and civic engagement.

Heartland ADL is also pleased to announce that the 2017 dinner marks the beginning of a partnership with Episcopal Community Services, 501c3 nonprofit, as caterer for the dinner. Episcopal Community Services has been serving the Greater Kansas City area since 1989 and operates the Kansas City Community Kitchen, a novel approach which blends various food-related programs, including training for culinary careers, food pantries, and community garden projects. ECS is nationally known for restaurant-style food service, which provides dignity, as well as food. In recognition of this new partnership, Episcopal Community Services has been selected as the recipient of donations from this year’s dinner.

For the past 12 years, Shelia Sonnenschein has been a beacon of light in the Kansas City interfaith community. She has volunteered diligently to build relationships among people of different faiths, especially Jewish and Muslim women.

Her volunteer work is recognized by many in the interfaith community. On Nov. 12, they will recognize it publicly when Sonnenschein will be presented the Vern Barnet Interfaith Service Award at the annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Dinner.

Sonnenschein’s involvement in the interfaith community began by happenstance. She took a writing class in January of 2002, after she and her husband, Ken, returned to the Kansas City community. 

“In that class I met an American Muslim woman, Mahnaz Shabbir,” Sonnenschein said. “I saw that we had a lot in common. We each had four kids; our husbands were psychiatrists; and we both knew what it felt like to be targeted because of our religions. We met people from our respective communities. That’s what started my multi-faith journey in Kansas City.”

The journey has taken Sonnenschein all over the world. But first it led to her involvement in the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council. Shabbir took Sonnenschein to her first meeting in 2005, as an alternate.

“Soon after, I became a Council director,” she said. “I have been on the board ever since.”

She has served as a director of Kansas City for Refugees and the Kansas City Interfaith Youth Alliance. She helped found the Table to Table program for Yachad, the Kosher food pantry. As a member of the interfaith community she was involved in the Festival of Faiths committee; started the Facebook online initiative Mothers on the Side of Peace. She also helped to start chapters of the Sisterhood of Salaam/Shalom in the Kansas City area. She is the first non-Muslim board member of the Crescent Peace Society and is a former board member of National Council of Jewish Women, Greater Kansas City Section, where she helped with their interfaith luncheon.

Among the friends she has made during her interfaith activities is Inas Younis, who was born in Iraq but now lives in Overland Park. Younis, who was the Muslim woman behind bringing Sisterhood of Salaam/Shalom to Kansas City, says this about Sonnenschein: 

Sheila is “is a social engineer with an intuitive capacity to bring people together who would have otherwise never crossed paths. Never cynical, always earnest, Sheila practices what most of us only preach. She takes conscious steps to ensure that everyone feels included and valued. She is a credit to our interfaith community and I am proud to have her as a friend.”

The Sisterhood of Salaam/Shalom (SOSS) takes up much of Sonnenschein’s time now. She has helped with the formation of two more sections. Three are now active in the Kansas City area. She also has been to the SOSS annual convention at Drew University in Madision, New Jersey, where women of both faiths come together to share and learn. This year the meeting was held Nov. 3-5.

She has traveled to Albania to meet with interfaith communities. And she has brought the information she learned back to Kansas City. Two years ago, she was part of a group who arranged for the movie, “Besa,” (Faith) to be shown in Kansas City. This movie is about an Albanian Muslim family who safeguards religious books of a Jewish family during the Holocaust. The besa, promise or faith, is to one day return the books to the family.

“I think it’s important to listen to each other,” Sonnenschein said. “I encourage adults and youth to attend programs that promote getting to know people of other religions and cultures. … Interfaith Youth Core (IYC) founder Eboo Patel says that if we catch people when they are young so they don’t fall into the hands of extremists, we can do a lot of good for our world.”

The Heartland Chapter — Alliance of Divine Love (ADL) and the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council are sponsoring the dinner. The Heartland Chapter-ADL “is part of an international interfaith ministry, which recognizes and honors the validity and wisdom of all faith traditions,” according to its website.

The event will be held on Sunday, Nov. 12, at the new Islamic Center of Johnson County in Overland Park. The organization preparing the meal is NourishKC, which is a nonprofit that provides restaurant-style food services in community kitchens. All donations from this year’s dinner will benefit NourishKC.

Cost is $15 for adults and $10 for students. Tickets can be purchased at http://interfiaththanksgiving2017.brownpapertickets.com.

A Vital Conversation Coffee

Vital Conversations monthly schedule 2nd Wedneday of the month 1-2:30 pm MidContinent Public Library Antioch Branch 6060 N Chestnut Ave, Gladstone, MO 64119 (816) 454-1306

2017 January 11
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd. According to the National Women's History Museum, "Sarah Moore Grimke and Angelina Emily Grimke' were the only white people of either gender who were born in the upper-class South, but rejected that luxurious lifestyle to fight against slavery. They also were among the very first to see the close connection between abolitionism and women's rights." In this novel, based on their story, boundaries are crossed, friendships are made, cruelty is revealed, and hope survives.

April 12
Silence by Shusaku Endo. It is the story of a Jesuit missionary sent to 17th century Japan, who endures persecution in the time of Kakure Kirishitan ("Hidden Christians") that followed the defeat of the Shimabara Rebellion. The recipient of the 1966 Tanizaki Prize, it has been called "Endo's supreme achievement" and "one of the twentieth century's finest novels." Written partly in the form of a letter by its central character, the theme of a silent God who accompanies a believer in adversity was greatly influenced by the Catholic End?'s experience of religious discrimination in Japan, racism in France, and a debilitating bout with tuberculosis.  The movie based on this book was released in January of 2017.

May 10
Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas.  Six degrees may not sound like much, but as this sobering, engrossing, up-to the minute book warns, a six-degree rise in Earth’s average temperature would be enough to reshape our world almost beyond recognition. Mark Lynas explains the processes and examines the effects of this unprecedented phenomenon, drawing on the full range of state-of-the-art research and sophisticated computer models that show conclusively that today’s climate change is a new and different challenge.

June 14
The Wolf at Twilight:  An Indian Elder’s Journey through a Land of Ghosts and Shadows by Kent Nerburn.  Some journey's take a lifetime to complete, especially when you are on another person's time. The author returns to visit an Elder Indian friend who has a strange but delicious request. First is the burial of his dog and second is to find out about a long-lost sister. Kent's commitment to assist in the long search results in a deepening understand between friends and a growing respect for another culture. Something’s we will never understand, but lack of understanding need not hinder love and compassion.

Click on this book cover to download an OCR'd PDF of the final chapter with Vern's highlights in red. July 12 In David's absence at Vital Conversations,  Vern leads the discussion. See the report below. Chances Are… Adventures in Probability by Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan.      This fascinating layman's trek through probability theory, from its roots in dice games in the seventeenth century to its role in modern-day thermodynamics, tackles humanity's innate need to seek order in even the most chaotic phenomena.       The authors, a mother-and-son team, address simple problems (How many shuffles make a deck of cards truly random? At least seven) and more complex ones (Can time move backward? Yes, but it's unlikely).       They do not avoid mathematical equations, but both have backgrounds in the humanities, and their sense of whimsy—"Once you know that daisies usually have an odd number of petals, you can get anyone to love you"—allows them to draw stimulating conclusions.   The New York Times March 31, 2006 Books of The Times | 'Chances Are . . . ' Wonders Are Possible. Alas, the Odds Are Another Story. By WILLIAM GRIMES Life is a gamble, and the English language reflects it. It's common to speak of betting the house, rolling the dice or going for broke. The language of the roulette table and the poker hand apply to all sorts of situations, because uncertainty and risk haunt nearly every human decision, from crossing the street to investing in the stock market. In "Chances Are," Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan look at the role of chance in human affairs, and the efforts of the best minds to measure and tame it by constructing a science of probability. Their freewheeling tour takes them from the dice tables of ancient Rome to the offices of maritime insurers in London, who, like their predecessors in ancient China and Renaissance Italy, make their living analyzing and managing uncertainty. So do military strategists, weather forecasters, prosecuting lawyers and the fascinating Gordon Woo, a terrorism expert at a risk-analysis company. All are united, as the authors nicely put it, in a great human endeavor, "the endless struggle against randomness." Who knew? Mr. Kaplan, a former producer and director at WGBH television in Boston, and Ms. Kaplan, his mother, an archaeologist who runs a foundation called the Math Circle, have hit on a great subject, and they explore it, down through the centuries and across the globe, with an enthusiasm that borders on glee. You can almost hear the chalk on the blackboard as the equations and the word problems fly by at top speed, and the action moves from the earliest attempts to predict the odds of rolling certain numbers with a pair of dice to current ideas about entropy. It's a dizzying, exhilarating ride. The authors choose their examples cleverly and explain them through arresting metaphors. Take Bayes' theorem, a highly influential formula to measure confidence in the probability of a single event based on the experience of many events (say, the probability that the sun will rise tomorrow). Presenting the theorem entails a fair amount of math, as do many of the ideas in the book, but after unloading a page of equations, the authors explain the complexities of weighted probability combinations this way: "Casanova's chance of seducing the countess depends on how swayed she is by charm times the likelihood that he will be charming plus how repelled she is by boorishness times the chance that he will be a boor." Bayes' theorem, like the bell curve, turns up in unexpected places, most strikingly the courtroom. "Chances Are" includes a chapter on efforts to apply probabilistic reasoning to legal argument and to the presentation of evidence to a jury. Many intriguing case studies follow, most showing that lawyers cannot be trusted with numbers, and that juries cannot understand them. Doctors are not much better. In a dismaying test of probabilistic reasoning, doctors and hospital administrators were asked to grade four cancer-screening programs. Program A reduced the death rate by 34 percent, Program B produced an absolute reduction in deaths of 0.06 percent, and Program C increased the patient survival rate from 99.82 percent to 99.88 percent. Under Program D, 1,592 patients would have to be screened to prevent one death. The doctors and administrators strongly recommended Program A, but, in fact, the four sets of numbers describe the same program. Before scoffing, chew on the now famous Monty Hall problem, named after the host of "Let's Make a Deal." A contestant knows that concealed behind three doors there are two goats and one new car. The contestant chooses Door No. 1. The beaming host opens Door No. 3 to reveal a goat, and then asks the contestant if he would like to change his choice to Door No. 2. Two doors add up to a 50-50 proposition, obviously. So why bother? Because the odds have actually shifted. The chances are now two out of three that changing to Door No. 2 will obtain the car. In the 17th century, governments took advantage of the average citizen's inability to assess probability by selling annuities, a type of insurance policy in which the buyer, in essence, bets that he will live longer than most other people. As with all casino bets, the house held an edge. The government possessed mortality statistics, regarded as state secrets, and used them to rig the odds. It also relied on basic psychology, "the instinctive belief that everyone dies at an average age — except me." The Kaplans cover a lot of ground very quickly, but they have a finely tuned sense of where the general reader is likely to lose a grip on the math, or on the complexities of an argument, and adjust accordingly. A timely example, or a well-placed quotation, relieves undue pressure on the brain, and the fast pace helps reinforce one of the book's central points, that questions of probability surround nearly every aspect of our daily lives. A strategy of "calibrated incoherence," for example, can lead to victory in a game of rock/paper/scissors, and police departments are quite interested in probabilistic algorithms that allow them to map crime patterns. In the end, of course, virtually nothing is certain. The best-formulated theorems of probability have failed to pick winning stocks consistently. But, as the authors point out, "some forms of uncertainty are better than others." That's probably true. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company   #170712report Vital Conversations Report  [the preview appears here] Jerry Grabher makes a point as Temp Sparkman and the group listen. Vern began the session by quoting Ecclesiastes 9:11–12: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all. For no one can anticipate the time of disaster.”       He then proposed that the book for this month's discussion is a book on theology disguised as a history and exposition of statistics. After all, Pascal (1623–62), the first to imagine that chance could be studied to find patterns in chance, was concerned not only dice but also with saving his soul, a concern which is now known as Pascal's Wager. Then each person took a turn responding to question A; then a second round with question B. A. When in your life did you take a chance, and how did it turn out? B. About what are you certain, and why are you certain? Then, from a "deck of cards," each one of which contained one of the following quotations from the book, each participant, in random fashion, took two cards which formed the basis of the ensuing discussion.  We search for certainty and call what we find destiny.  p1 Everything is possible, yet only one thing happens—we live and die between these two poles, under the rule of probability. p1 Conviction enough [Gorgias taught], since nothing actually existed; or if it did, it could not be known; or if it could, it was inexpressible. p3 Einstein famously remarked that he did not believe God would play dice with the universe. The probabilistic reply is that perhaps the universe is playing dice with God. p11 Rene Descartes [believed] that staying in bed until noon [so he has become] the hero of every well-read adolescent . . . p21  People not only see patterns; they cannot resist them. p 80 De Moivre saw God revealed in the pattern of randomness. p38  We need betting to remind us of our habit of drawing conclusions from insufficient evidence; we must remember that being too sure of anything is likely to end [poorly]. p82 The law of averages rules each play [in a game of chance] much as the Tsar of All the Russias ruled any one village; absolutely, but at a distance. p63  . . . the golden rule of religion, “Bear ye one another’s burdens. p86 [A]ssuming it is well-shuffled, there is no Probabilistic reason that any one pack of cards should be in the same order as any other that has ever been dealt in the entire history of card playing. p65 Absolute certainty can never be achieved . . . ; the aim is what Bernoulli called “moral certainty,”—in essence, being as sure of this as you can be of anything. p88 There were three doors available; now there are two. I don’t know what’s behind either door, so its an even split whether the [prize] is behind door 1 or 2.  p72  [As forms of insurance developed,] there was a general worry about what seemed like betting on the will of God. p94 [Of Napoleon:] If you want to interest him, quote a statistic. p116 “What usually happens” is a concept that slides all too easily into “what people like us usually do.” Christ’s parables employed likelihood in the first sense . . . p179 Throughout the eighteenth century, population and mortality were considered state secrets. p128 Justinian had intended to give the world law; unintentionally, he gave it lawyers. p 181 The true foundation of theology is to ascertain the character of God. . . . . The study of statistics is thus a religious service. — Florence Nightengale, p 138  If, in the absence of all other evidence, we agree to odds of 1 in 73 million against two cases of SIDS in the same family, what . . . are the odds against two cases of infanticide? p195 [T]he mean life span of English monarchs was shorter than that of their gentry, indeed so much shorter as to suggest the counter-efficacy of prayer. p141  We can continue to err, as long as we err in ways we find familiar. p197 The doctors were baffled; a third of them decided the probability was 90 percent; a sixth thought it was 1 percent. It would have made a big difference to the [patient]. p 170  The great defender Charles Darrow sought out Congregationalists and Jews, but strove to purge his juries of Presbyterians. p204 . . . History’s most dangerous men are those who believe they know how the game ends, whether in earthly victory or in paradise. p276 Nothing in physics requires that we live from past to future; its just a statistical likelihood. p286  What are we doing when we describe the world — but creating an algorithm that will generate those aspects if its consistency and variety that catch our imagination? p289 In the world’s casino—this place of danger  and pleasure we leave only at death—we place our different wagers, each at his chosen table.  p291 Our senses are not wonderfully sharp; what’s remarkable is our ability to draw conclusions from them. p294  Has it occurred to you that the lust for certainty may be a sin? p300

August 9
Tribe:  On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger. We have a strong instinct to belong to small groups defined by clear purpose and understanding -- "tribes." This tribal connection has been largely lost in modern society, but regaining it may be the key to our psychological survival.Combining history, psychology, and anthropology, TRIBE explores what we can learn from tribal societies about loyalty, belonging, and the eternal human quest for meaning. It explains the irony that-for many veterans as well as civilians-war feels better than peace, adversity can turn out to be a blessing, and disasters are sometimes remembered more fondly than weddings or tropical vacations. TRIBE explains why we are stronger when we come together, and how that can be achieved even in today's divided world.

September 13
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan tells the story of those who survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Some of our parents could be a part of these stories.  After reading the book, you can further prepare by interviewing some of your elders who either remember or have stories they were told about this period in the Great Plains between 1901-1939. Timothy Egan is the same author who wrote The Big Burn which we discussed in Vital Conversations.

     We have read and discussed both these authors in the past. 

     In this short book, you are invited to join an urgently needed conversation: Is Islam a religion of peace or war? Is it amenable to reform? What do words like Islamism, jihadism, and fundamentalism mean in today’s world? 

     Ahmed El-Sherif, prominent Muslim and interfaith leader, joins us for the discussion, shown here offering the Adhan at the Rime Buddhist Center. A bio sketch appears at www.cres.org/pubs/ahmed.htm. Ahmed will Skype an authority on Islam in Mecca, Dr. Abdullah Alleheedan.

December 12
Appreciative Inquiry Evaluation of Past Year and Planning for 2018

Selections are subject to change.  If you would like to be reminded and have additional information, contact David Nelson at humanagenda@gmail.com or call (816) 453-3835