Annual Day of Prayer Held in Westfield - "Praying for Peace in the Midst of Violence"

On Oct 7, 2015, the second annual Union County Day of Prayer was held at the First United Methodist Church in Westfield. This year's theme was "Praying for peace in the midst of violence".

The Day of Prayer is an interfaith gathering of faith-based, nonprofit and government communities intended to unite people from throughout the county. In addition, it is intended to promote awareness of the support services that are available to adults with disabilities as well as to youth served under the Department of Children and Families.

Faith leaders led prayers for unity and social justice and for the support of youth, senior citizens and elected officials. The Venerable Duk-song Sunim of So Shim Sa Zen center in Plainfield was among those who addressed the audience with a prayer. "The Buddhist teachings are based on kindness and love of all living creatures. The Buddhist view is we are all part of the larger community", he was later quoted as saying.

The event was sponsored by Community Access Unlimited, an Elizabeth-based statewide nonprofit organization providing the above services, and by the Union County Interfaith Coordinating Council.

Words about words

In the near future, we’ll talk about chanting. But I thought it appropriate to first talk about words. Words can be fun, like a toy, we can play with them. “I went to a diner the other day, and order the chicken catastrophe, and eggs overwhelming.   The chicken was so undercooked that it walked down to the end of the counter and tried to beat up my cup of coffee. The coffee wasn't strong enough to defend itself. ” (paraphrased from a Tom Waits song.) Words are tools, descriptive tools. A group of us gets together, and we agree on the meaning of the word and we agree that this thing (word) is going to point to that thing that is the real article. I’m holding up a cup right now. I’m drinking “water”. I’m drinking “aqua”. I’m drinking “mool”, I’m drinking “woda”. Regardless of the word for water, in Spanish, Korean or Polish, the word itself just points to a thing. After all, we cannot drink the word “water”. Like a finger pointing to the moon. Don't get stuck on the finger or ...

Founder's Day 2023 (Abbot's Address)

I have, from time to time, on the rarest of occasions, been accused of being...verbose. I know! I was as shocked then as you are now. So, we are in imminent danger of the lunch getting cold. Yet, I don’t have the words (imagine that!) to express how fortunate we are to be in the mere presence of a Dosa. This is the stuff we each have to stick our head through the mystical curtain of mystery to glimpse. So, we won’t go there now. I thought to myself… if I absolutely had to, choose a single quality of IlCho Dosanim that I would want to highlight. What would that be? And of course, we go through the usual list: wisdom, compassion, knowledge, patience, etc. Yet, as much as all of these are true, today they won’t do. And so, I went on, sifting through and I think I found it. So here it is, the single most impressive quality of Il-Cho Dosanim, for me….expressed in a single word… succinct. Succinct. Never have I met someone who can distill the esoteric and the complexities of our human condit...

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