PEACE THROUGH WISDOM CIRCLES

Here is the first Peace Through WISDOM Circle news. WISDOM is anxious to hear back from any of the circles that were formed at our July 8th event. One of our circles has registered with the Peace X Peace website and gotten connected to a sister circle in Kenya. This is the first e-mail that was sent to Kenya, and they are awaiting a reply.

"Hello Kenyan sister circle!! My name is Paula and I am participating in the sister circle because of our parent organization, WISDOM, a women's interfaith network in the Detroit, Michigan (USA) area. I'm happy to be in touch with interested "sisters" in Africa, since I spent two months in Namibia and Botswana in February and March of 2007. I loved my experience and contact with African people. I haven't been to Kenya, and only know about it from friends who have visited there.

I'm a retired teacher of Humanities and Comparative Religions at a community college in the Detroit area. I have two grown sons, Chris and Doug, with their wives, Rae and Ann, and a little granddaughter who is four years old named Denice. My Mom is still living and she's 89. I just left Indiana where I was visiting her for the weekend. I'm healthy and I love to travel, especially to foreign countries. When I retired from teaching, I coordinated multicultural and international programs for my college for a year and a half, and then I quit to do some travel teaching for the Baha'i Faith in Africa. I enjoy participating in all kinds of interfaith efforts since my faith practices the "unity of humankind." You can't have unity without getting to know one another, so I'm interested in knowing about you. How long have you been interested in interfaith activities (if at all) and what have you done to promote them? What are your other interests?

I think that's all for now. My sister circle is looking forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Paula

AUGUST, 2007 WISDOM UPDATE

WISDOM is going to be one of the sponsors for The Faith Club. The three women authors (one Christian, one Jewish, and one Muslim) will be presenting at the West Bloomfield Jewish Community Center's Book Fair on Tuesday, November 13th at 7:00 PM. (6600 West Maple Road) We would like to make this our November WISDOM event. Please mark your calendars. More details to follow.

Gail and Trish will be presenting WISDOM at the Harvard University seminar entitled "Women's Interfaith Initiatives After 9/11" on September 28th and 29th. They are working on a Powerpoint presentation that they hope will be posted on the website for all to see down the road. WISDOM is one of five groups presenting at this conference. The authors of The Faith Club are another group.

On March 30th, Sunday WISDOM will be hosting an Educational Day about Judaism at Congregation Beth Shalom in Oak Park. We will have lunch and interfaith activities in addition to the educational component. More details to follow

We are looking into the possiblity of showing the documentary "White Rainbow" which deals with the plight of widows in India. This would fit into the general topic of building interfaith efforts to stop violence and discrimination against women. The documentary should be out in November. We have reserved Sunday, Jnauary 20th for this event.

The Ninth Annual World Sabbath of Religious Reconciliation is planning a Sunday service for interfaith solidarity for World Peace on January 27th from 4:00 - 6:00 PM at Christ Church Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills. We would like WISDOM supporters to show up at this event. The focus will be on our youth getting involved in making a difference in our community by working towards world peace. Children of various religious schools in Metro Detroit will be making peace banners and participating in the service. If you have a 3rd through 7th grader and would like your child(ren) to get involved, please contact your child's religious school director and encourage him/her to connect with Gail (gailkatz@comcast.net). Also if your church, synagogue, temple, mosque, gudwara, has a choir, dance group, singing trio, etc that you think might be interested in participating in our interfaith service, please contact Gail as well.

The WISDOM Steering Committee is working on running another "Peace Through WISDOM" event in the near future. If you missed the last event and did not get connected to a sister circle, or if you think your place of worship might be interested in participating, please connect with Gail. Future date and place to be announced.

Enjoy the rest of the summer!!