Parliament of Worlds Religion 2009 Melbourne Australia

Author(s): Parliament of the World’s Religions
Publisher: USA Parliament of the Worlds Religions

Page 221

PROGRAM
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Sri Chinmoy International Music Group Open Space Concert
Sri Chinmoy International Music Group Room 216
This Open Space concert will be based on the music of Sri Chinmoy, which includes the quotations of the Lord Jesus Christ, set to music, as well as other songs written about the Lord Christ and songs composed for the Lord Buddha by Sri Chinmoy, as well as spiritual songs and mantras written in English and Bengali. The group is composed of musicians and singers with expertise in the presentation and arrangement of Sri Chinmoy's music spanning over 30 years. The group has recorded and performed concerts in New York, Europe and Asia.
Mr Prachar Stegemann, conductor and arranger of Sri Chinmoy International Singing Group for over 18 years, will lead the group. The group will also include: Ms Sushmitam Rouse, cellist; Mr Christopher Willis, acoustic guitar and voice; Mrs Marion Gray, harmonium, singer, and musical arranger; Mr Pushpendra Uppal, oboe; Ms Phoolanjaya, piano and flute; Mr Marichi Clarke, electric guitar and voice; Mr Veeraja Uppal, singer; Ms Ankhi Elliott, singer: Ms Hariratna Monro, singer.
Multifaith Perspectives on Interreligious Holidays and Celebrations
Georg Ziselsberger
Norman Habel
Jorge Veiga e Castro
Deirdre Pulgram Arthen
Room 217
Interactive Workshop
Whether celebrating Earth Day, the Season of Creation, or any number of local holidays, developing an interreligious celebration that includes a wide range of traditions can be challenging. We will use this time to discuss ways to create a ceremony that celebrates both the occasion and our diversity-one that attempts to include as many groups as possible by paying special attention to language, symbolism, history and style. We will then design a peacemaking ritual together, which we will share as a morning observance later in the week. Participants are invited to bring liturgy or songs they feel might be relevant to either the conversation or the celebration.
Georg Ziselsberger SVD is professor of Theology at Ateneo de Manila University and President of the GeoChris Foundation, which advocates biological, cultural and spiritual diversity by working with Indigenous peoples for a living planet. He is co-leader of the ECEN Working Group Creation Time' and organised the Teilhard Asia 2006 International Conference and Teilhard Asia Annual Lectures.
Norman Habel is currently professorial fellow at Flinders University. He initiated and edited the five-volume Earth Bible' series and the more recent work 'Exploring Ecological Hermeneutics'. He has been active in a range of social justice and eco-justice areas, including a school for Dalits Untouchables) and Tribals in Tamil Nadu. He has initiated and promoted the Season of Creation in Australia, a new season of the church year that is now spreading to other countries.
Jorge Veiga e Castro is founder and President of the Portuguese Yoga Confederation. In 2001, he proposed to UN and UNESCO the creation of the first worldwide holiday, to be celebrated on the Solstice of June 21st.
4:30-6:00pm OPEN SPACE
Rev Deirdre Pulgram Arthen is the Director of the EarthSpirit Community, a religious and educational organisation dedicated to the preservation of earth-centred spirituality, particularly the Indigenous European traditions. She has been a leader in the Pagan community in the United States for thirty years and is known as a ritualist, musician, teacher and spiritual counsellor. She has offered presentations at the 1993, 1999 and 2004 Parliaments.
A Listening Place Each Day
Kristen Hobby Lynette Dungan Bernie Miles Kava Schafer Jill Manton Nola Vanderfeen
Room 218 Interactive Workshop
We welcome you to a safe place where you can simply be. This is a quiet place where you can sit and meditate or reflect on what has touched or challenged you throughout the day of the Parliament of the World's Religions. Spiritual directors will be available in this room; you may talk to them if there is anything you would like to share. Spiritual directors are trained to listen in a non-judgmental and respectful way and are available for people of all faith traditions.
Educating Religious Leaders for a Multi-Religious World: Practical Initiatives and Examples of Multi-Religious Education
North American Theological School Students Room 219
Panel Discussion
In this session, we want to look carefully at concrete examples in which learning about or engaging with religious others have been successful. We also want to learn from efforts that have not been so successful and ask why. We will gather practical initiatives of interreligious engagement from different categories and contexts of encounter: 1) Examples of everyday living together: the experience of living together as members of different religions in the same neighbourhood, village or school. How do people 'naturally or spontaneously deal with their differences? How do they create communities that still honour diversities? 2) Examples of interreligious study: methods of enabling people to grasp and learn from the texts and teachings of other traditions. How can this be done in a way that opens strange new worlds in an engaging manner but also in an assuring, non-threatening manner? What are the 'pedagogies of interreligious education? 3) Examples of sharing in each other's religious practices and spiritualities. What are the possibilities and limits, the hopes and the fears, of actually sharing each other's spiritual practices of prayer, meditation and celebration? 4) Examples of interreligious action: How have reli
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