Month: July 2020

Shabbat in time of Quarantine

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Shabbat and the Loudspeaker

Shabbat observance fulfils a special purpose in nursing home settings. In the residence where I serve as cantor and hospice chaplain, Shabbat marks a unique kind of transition. The week, structured with activities and sessions, makes way for a quieter time of simple togetherness. It also signals the weekend, when spouses, children, and grandchildren, off from work and school, visit their loved ones and provide companionship.

Above all, Shabbat is an anchor that connects people to a past they may fear they’re forgetting and helps shape the identities of those whose lives look different in their new surroundings. Here, we talk about our Jewish Shabbat Prayer in time of quarantine.

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Silent reminder of Indigenous deaths in custody

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Indigenous deaths in custodyShepparton Region Reconciliation Group members together with members and supporters of Shepparton’s indigenous community have organised a silent vigil in which 437 stakes bearing messages will be placed around Victoria Park Lake marking the number of indigenous people who have died in police custody since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody ended in 1991. The “Line of Remembrance” will commence at 10:00 am Saturday, 11 July 2020.
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Meditation, prayer, perspective: How faith is helping some through the struggles of coronavirus

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Overhead shot of Shu Xian Leong reading Bible on grass.Shu Xian Leong has spent most of the year in a small Sydney apartment, thousands of kilometres from her family in Singapore. “Being in isolation kind of took a toll on me,” the third-year design student says. “I was in the same space that I was working, eating and resting, and that ultimately made me feel really lonely.”

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Buddhism: Meditating on Whiteness

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white buddha idolDon’t think for one moment that the Buddha was white. Don’t even think that Jesus was white, much less the avatar Krishna. (Krishna means “the dark one”.) White privilege is insidious and lays a fundamental challenge to our place in the world. While we may be good people, good citizens and take up community service, what is our appreciation of whiteness vis-a-vis people of colour? Here, an American Buddhist practitioner engages in meditation and reflections on whiteness and its impact on the community.
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Black Lives Matter Exhibition: Goulburn Valley Voices

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Black Lives MatterThere will be a silent Community Voices Exhibition at Victoria Park Lake Shepparton on Saturday 13 July 2020 from 10:00am – 4:00 pm. Social Distancing will be strictly enforced at this event. This event is not a gathering at one place; it is an opportunity to walk and reflect, walk and learn: 437 deaths to reflect upon.

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Statement from Victoria Police

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Victoria Police
Victoria Police is aware of recent media reporting and online community discussions suggesting that certain communities are to blame for the latest rise in confirmed coronavirus cases.

We know this may cause many people to feel that they are being unfairly targeted. We want the community to know that we stand by you.

If you have been racially abused or are the victims of a prejudice-motivated crime then please speak to police.

Racism and discrimination have no place in our society. Every Victorian has the right to feel safe and secure in the community. Incidents of racism, discrimination or vilification based on religion, culture or ethnicity not only have direct impact on individual victims, but also the whole community.

We take all reports of this nature seriously, and we are here to support you. Anyone who experiences or witnesses these crimes is encouraged to report them to their local police station.

For more information on prejudice motivated crime, please visit the Victoria Police website. In an emergency, please call Triple Zero (000).

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Statement on Islamophobia

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The Islamic Council of Victoria logoThe Islamic Centre of Victoria has recently produced a Statement on Islamophobia. The statement explains Islamophobia, violent extremism and countering violent extremism. The statement has significant support from public leaders and the religious communities of Victoria. We provide a truncated summary of this document.
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Lockdown and Mental Health: Meditation and The Sanctuary Experience

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Mental healthIn times of lockdown – and hard lockdown, mental health is most important for those living in lockdown – especially hard lockdown. The Brahma Kumaris commumity of Australia has produced a series of meditations which may be of help in bringing peoples to inner stillness. We take a look at The Sanctuary Experience and how it can help people in lockdown.
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Covid-19 Racism is not acceptable

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Covid-19 Racism is not acceptable

The Australian Government is currently running an information campaign to support and inform multicultural communities in response to an increase in reports of racist behaviour targeting people of Asian appearance in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the campaign we are reaching out to the most affected communities through community leaders such as you.

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Self-Care Is Not Selfish: 7 Jewish Reminders for Caring for Yourself

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lotus flower

A tale is told of a well-known 17th-century Chasidic rabbi named Zusya, who, when he died, went to stand before the judgment seat of God. As he waited for God to appear, he grew nervous thinking about his life and how little he had done.

He began to imagine that God was going to ask him, “Why weren’t you more like Moses, a great leader?” Or, “Why were you not wiser, like King Solomon, or braver, like King David?” But when he faced the accounting before God of his life, God simply asked him, “Why were you not more like Zusya?”

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The N-word of God: Envisioning the image of Christ

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Our Lady of Ferguson

(RNS) — In the New Testament’s Letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood” — or race? — “but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.” Could these things that Paul opposes be ideas and systems of human oppression that deny the knowledge of a God of justice and love?

In this time of mass protest and reexamining of America’s racial past and present, I’ve been thinking about art and especially how Christian images can contribute to, or hinder us from, processing our national discourse about social justice and Black Lives Matter.

I am African American. I make Byzantine-influenced icons. Taking a cue from the jargon of Orthodox Christians, I like to call myself an “iconographer.”

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From Islam to Buddhism, faiths have long encouraged stewardship of nature

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UN Environment Programme

In most major religions there is scripture encouraging the protection and care of nature. From Buddhism to Christianity, Hinduism to Islam, faiths recognize the need for environmental stewardship and urge followers to be caretakers of the planet and its biodiversity.

Spiritual leaders play an important role in sharing religious practices and passages so that followers can live a more sustainable lifestyle respecting the 8 million species we share our planet with.

That message was echoed by World Environment Day 2020, which fell on 5 June. The celebration cast a spotlight on the services nature provides us—from food to medicine—and highlighted that, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, life on earth would not be possible without nature’s bounty.

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Transformational Resilience in Times of Crisis

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Initiatives of Change Australia logo
On World Refugee Day, 20 June, with nearly 80 million people worldwide currently homeless, Professor Rajmohan Gandhi addressed a Zoom audience, which included Brisbane community leaders, on the theme Transformational Resilience in Times of Crisis. Nigel Heywood, Community Development and Research Manager at IofCA moderated the event, which brought together over 100 participants.
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‘If you want anything done, get the Sikhs’: Sikh community wins admirers for bushfire and Covid aid

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sikhs giving free food

When Amritvir Sekhon and eight other Sikh men and women drove into Bairnsdale in the middle of the worst bushfire crisis in decades, locals didn’t know what to think.

“They had never seen turbanned men with long beards before – we probably looked pretty alien from them,” Sekhon says.

They were from the United Sikhs, a global aid organisation associated with the UN, with a growing presence in Australia.

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You and Me — It’s All One Thing

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LGBTIQ and religion has had an uncomfortable relationship in religion, if not open hostility. Many find a welcome in Buddhism. What follows is a story of the emergence of a trans child in the Buddhist context. It is compelling, compassionate reading.

Confusion around questions of identity, sexuality, and gender may seem acute and, to some of us, new, today. But James Ishmael Ford finds that an ancient Zen story’s wisdom speaks quite well to that confusion.

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