On Saturday October 25, the 13th A Common World Alberta Interfaith Dialogue took place at the Al Ameen Masjit in Edmonton. Seventy-six Muslims and Christians gathered to explore together the shared story of Abraham/Ibrahim welcoming the strangers/visitors/angels. Six of the Christians present were Edmonton Mennonites.
We opened with a Quranic reading read by the Sheikh of Al Ameen Masjit. This was followed by a land acknowledgement and an Indigenous teaching offered by Candida Shepherd, one of our teachers at our annual dialogue in 2023 on the topic of the medicine wheel.
The speakers this year were Imam Jamal from Al Rashid Mosque for the Muslim voice and Pastor Suzanne Gross from Holyrood Mennonite for the Christian voice.
The theme was hospitality, sharing together how we are called through this story to be hospitable in a world full of fear of each other. Christian representation included Catholics, LDS, Anglicans, Mennonites, and non-churchgoers who grew up Christian. Anke Jessen, one of the Mennonite participants who attends Lendrum Mennonite Church had the following to share:
“It was a wonderful event and I enjoyed it and learned a lot. At my table I had participants aged mid-teens to at least mid-70s from & 6 co-nationalities (if you count the young Christian woman who joined us after the main program & who grew up in Dubai and is of Chinese descent). One woman had been part of the group from its origins, while two heard about it for the first time from Eventbrite. And before that I met an engaging couple originally from Turkey at my original table. The warmth and variety of people I met was further enhanced by the great programming a delicious food!, of course! I will do what I can to encourage more Christians to participate next time! We were definitely outnumbered đ It was a rich experience and I hope more folks take part in it next time!”
Saturday, October 26, 2024 1:30 – 4:30 p.m. Hosted at Al Rashid Mosque
A Common Word Alberta (ACWAB) Annual Interfaith Dialogue is approaching. We warmly invite you to join us again this year to build on the journey of expanding our circle and allow us to find interconnectedness and learn about Lessons from Prophet Jonah (Younis).
Our guests will have four opportunities to discuss what we are learning in small groups. Our time together will conclude with reflections from local guests.
We invite you to share this opportunity with your friends and relations so that we can all learn together what it means to contribute the best of ourselves and our faith traditions. May God guide us in his infinite mercy and peace.
On Saturday, October 28, a group of individuals representing Edmontonâs interfaith and intercultural community gathered in the beautiful fellowship space of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church of the First Peoples.
A Common Word Albertaâs 13th Annual Dialogue consisted of Christians, Muslims and Indigenous teachers coming together in a spirit of learning and for setting a foundation of reconciliation. This dialogue took place as global events have brought news of untold suffering and an incomprehensible destruction of life. The Planning Committee wondered how these feelings of dismay and despair be integrated with our invitation to others to learn. By the grace of God, and with the help of Indigenous ceremony in the form of the opening smudge and land acknowledgement, we were brought into the present moment to absorb what we were meant to learn that day.
We were in the care of Indigenous Elder, Fernie Marty, and his helper, Candida Shepherd. Building on last yearâs dialogue on the theme of âExpanding the Circle,â we gathered to further explore the intersections of land, history, displacement from oneâs land and oppression and the impacts on the Indigenous people. We learned about our roles and our responsibilities as people of faith living today on Treaty Six land. The theme for the gathering was âHelp me to be teachable today.â Fernie Marty is an Indigenous Cree Elder tasked with passing on Indigenous Cree teachings, and holds much knowledge about Good Medicine, medicine that contributes to our well-being including herbs. Yet, with all of this knowledge, Elder Fernie had shared that he wakes up every morning and prays, âLord, help me to be teachable today.â
The goal of our learning was threefold:
¡ to understand the history that led to the Truth and Reconciliationâs (TRC) 94 Calls to Action (2015)
¡ to begin to understand the Medicine Wheel as a tool to help us live into wellbeing for ourselves and every living thing around us
¡ to see where we are being invited to do the work of reconciliation through the unending circle of the Medicine Wheel
The Medicine Wheel can help to heal us and the world. As Elder Fernie taught, we engage each day with the cycle of life in the medicine wheel. The four directions of help bring awareness to the four aspects of our human life experience that contribute to our wellbeing: our mental health, our physical health, our emotional health and our spiritual health. Our awareness is the first step to helping us rebalance these when one or more is out of synergy.
For the Sacred Heart Catholic Church of the First Peoples, the cross, in the context of Christâs great love or âSacred Heart,â is at the centre of the Medicine Wheel. All of our attention to experiencing the cycles of life, the cycles of planting, growing, harvesting and resting, contributes to our ability to rebalance our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health. And all of this comes from and goes out from the centre which is our One God â our Creator.
The Medicine Wheel is a way to balance our inner and outer world. When we reflect on the Medicine wheel, we are invited to consider many moving parts of the cycle and the circle â things happening all at once, all the time. The medicine wheel helps us leave the temptations that pull us out of the center of the circle. For our current collective work, the medicine wheel helps us interact with the TRC, since all of the calls to action fall into either mental, emotional, physical or spiritual incompleteness for our Indigenous peoples. We learned that CBC is tracking the progress on the 94 calls to action at the Beyond the Calls website. This website can help us remember, and encourage our government to play its role in the reconciliation we want to see.
May we use this powerful tool of reconciliation as we remember our collective past here on Treaty 6 land, as we free people who have been harmed by the settler history of this land to speak their truth. Dennis Saddleman shared his truth in a poem about his Residential School experience called âI hate you Monster â — 2022 — where he compares the residential school building to a monster who is hungry to devour culture, language, confidence, and children. The poem ends with a vision of transforming our monsters to reclaim our dreams and stories of tomorrow. As we listen to the truth expressed by our children and elders and everybody in between, may we contribute in ways that allow for all those whose dreams and stories have been snuffed out to reclaim what we all long for as believers in One God.
A Common Word Alberta (ACWAB) Annual Interfaith Dialogue is approaching. We warmly invite you to join us again this year to build on the journey of expanding our circle and allow us to find
interconnectedness and reconciliation with the First Peoples of Treaty Six.
During our time together, we will be guided by our special guests Elder Fernie, and Helper Candida. They will teach us about the Cree Medicine Wheel of Life. Cree Medicine is the element that contributes to a holistic philosophy of health and healing where our well-being is at its fullest and emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental experiences are interconnected.
Our guests will integrate this medicine wheel with the Calls to Action from the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission report to help us, as settlers, including newcomer settlers, understand our role in the reconciliation process. We will have four opportunities to have a dialogue in small groups. Our time together will conclude with reflections from Dr. Christina Conroy and Imam Sadique Pathan.
We invite you to share this opportunity with your friends and relations so that we can
all learn together what it means to contribute the best of ourselves and our faith traditions to reconcile with our Indigenous brothers and sisters. May God guide us in his infinite mercy and peace.
Refreshments and a light lunch will be served.
Saturday, October 28, 10 a.m. â 1:30 p.m. at Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples (10821 96 Street).
Written and edited by Suzanne Gross and Naz Qureshi
On October 29, 2022, A Common Word Alberta hosted its 9th annual dialogue. Individuals representing the Muslim and Christian faith traditions gathered in-person and virtually at the All-Saints Anglican Cathedral to engage in dialogue. Scott Sharman and Naz Qureshi opened with the following context for this yearâs theme of âDrawing the Circle Biggerâ:
âWe are asking our speakers to help us understand how our call into dialogue as Muslims and Christians also calls us to broaden the dialogue further. In particular, the way that Christians and Muslims living in this land we call Canada each have a responsibility to pursue right relations with the First Peoples in whose traditional territories we live.
This topic was chosen in part because of the recent visit of Pope Francis to Canada as part of a penitential pilgrimage among the First Peoples. It also has a special urgency because of the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that address religious communities. While some of these calls to action are directed in particular ways to Christian churches and institutions, there are also interfaith dimensions. â
The guest panelists were Christina Conroy, a professor of theology at Ambrose University in Calgary, and Imam Sadique Pathan from Al Rashid Mosque in Edmonton. Four main questions were used to guide the reflections of the panelists, as well as the table discussions where participants shared insights from their experiences and perspectives:
1. What in your respective scriptures/stories from your faith traditions encourage us to take collective responsibility for âsins of the pastâ?
2. Can you reflect on the overlap between the Truth and Reconciliation process in Canada and messages and examples of reconciliation from your faith traditions?
3. Are there scriptures/stories from your faith traditions that illustrate âdrawing the circle biggerâ to include everyone as worthy of the mercy or love of God?
4. Many Indigenous Peoples teach that all of us live in a wide web of relationships â to other humans, certainly, but also to lands, to waters, and to what are often called non-human relatives (which includes plant and animal life, and various kinds of spiritual beings). These relationships always come with mutual responsibilities. Please share a similar concept of relationship and responsibility from your own faith tradition and reflect on how it is relevant to dialogue and reconciliation.
The panel discussion from the two panelists was thought provoking and engaging. After each table discussion, a representative was asked to share key insights. Collectively, a few themes emerged that are summarized below.
Although our different scriptures do not all include a concept of collective guilt or collective sin, the concept of collective responsibility emerged as a guiding principle as we navigate oppression or injustice from the past. Having settled in this land, those who are not of Indigenous descent, inherit the social constructs and complexities that have arisen from the past. Christina shared the Christian concept of Jubilee, which is striving to address inequity economically, including returning of land, and Sadique discussed the Islamic concept of justice, and being accountable for our actions. Both concepts invite us to lead lives with a spirit of recalibrating or rebalancing for justice to prevail.
The Quran starts with us as individuals, encouraging believers to be critical thinkers when it comes to judging or discriminating against others. It calls the faithful to stand firm for justice, even it if is against yourself or your next of kin. The idea that reconciliation is the core work of a Christian can be found in writings of the apostle Paul, in Colossians.
Reconciliation starts with an acknowledgement of wrongdoing and apology but does not stop with simple validation. As Canadians, we need to convey intent that âwe stand with you; what do you need or how can I help?â when it comes to reconciliation with our Indigenous brothers and sisters.
On the topic of overlap with Indigenous teachings about care of and responsibility for the natural world, our Christina reflected on how Jesus often referred to nature using natural plants and phenomena in his parables. Who was Jesusâ teacher in all of this? Likely his mother Mary. Both traditions have stories of caring for the environment, nature, and all created beings. Sadique shared stories from the Islamic faith on the treatment of animals and how in the Quran, everything created praises God the creator â even the rocks â a concept echoed in the Hebrew and Christian Bible as well.
An observation shared from a participant was that our governments seem to get stuck on apology and are unable to move to taking meaningful action that helps restore justice. One table participant commented: âIf government is the obstacle to addressing the systemic issues that keep us from moving from apology to justice, maybe these interfaith dialogues are even more important! â
While a sensitive topic, it was one that needed to be broached, and it was done so in a beautiful manner.
For the past nine years, ACWAB has played a quiet but impactful role in our community in getting Christians and Muslims face to face in a non-threatening environment for conversation. In a time when it has come to our corporate attention that our communities are fragmented and we have a real problem with islamophobia, we have found face to face interactions between Muslims and Christians are effective in building peaceful, respectful and loving relationships between differing faiths.
We invite you and interested community members to join us this year in our annual Dialogue Event on October 29, 2022, 10:00am -2:00pm. The venue this year will be All Saints Anglican Cathedral.
For the past eight years, ACWAB has played a quiet but impactful role in our community in getting Christians and Muslims face to face in a non-threatening environment for conversation. In a time when it has come to our corporate attention that our communities are fragmented and we have a real problem with islamophobia, we have found face to face interactions between Muslims and Christians are effective in building peaceful, respectful and loving relationships between differing faiths.
We invite you and interested community members to join us this year in our annual Dialogue Event on October 30, 2021, 9:30am -1:00pm. The venue for the in person component this year will be Al Rashid Mosque. There is a zoom option to join. Either way, participants will be welcomed and given an opportunity to interact on the topic of âDoes Faith Matter?â We will hear from four (younger) individuals from both faith traditions, followed by facilitated table discussions on this topic.
Though there are some new videos
portraying the biblical story of Jesus with the exact words from the
Bible, there are Muslim sentiments against viewing a human portrayal
of any prophet, of which Jesus is one of the most important. So I
am suggesting a dramatized audio version of the life of Jesus
starting with the story of Mary and continuing on to what happened
after Jesus was no longer with his followers.
