Peace Sunday  December 9th, 2007

A call to all peace loving people in this Holy Day Season to celebrate and invigorate the quest for peace, justice, environmental sustainability, and interfaith harmony. Let us open our hearts and rekindle our souls.  Let us come together to help create a world that works for all. 

Honoring the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Stage Program Performers:

• International Peace Choir
• Stephen Longfellow Fiske and friends
• Los Angeles Baha'i Choir
• The Luminaries, conscious rap
• Mitra and Rama, Persian songs/guitar
• Dwight Stone, pianist
• M.S.S. Krishna Kaur Khalsa

• Elizabeth Kucinich, wife of Democratic Presidential Peace Candidate, Dennis Kucinich
• Salam Al'Marayati, Executive Director, Muslim Public Affairs Council
• Rev. Leland Stewart, Founder, Unity-and-Diversity World Council
• Georgia Sanchez, Representative, Los Angeles Baha'i Center
• Sherry Simpson-Dean, Executive Director, United Nations Association Pasadena
• Rev. Albert Cohen, Exec. Dir., So. Cal. Ecumenical Council; environmentalist

Interfaith Candlelighting Ceremony 
with celebrants representing the world's religions

Love Offering: $10 suggested donation

Co-sponsors: Addicted to War, American Friends Service Committee, Baha'i Center L.A., Brahma Kumaris Raja Yoga Center L.A., Buddhist Sangha Council of So. Calif., Citizens for Global Solutions, Council for Parliament of World's Religions-So. Calif., Dept. of Peace L.A., Earthways, Fiske Music, Flag InterGlobal, Global Assembly Dialog, Hollywood Church of Religious Science Foundation, Institute of Noetic Sciences L.A., IslamiCity, Rosemead Buddhist Monastery, Sikh Dharma of Southern California, South Coast Interfaith Council, Southern Calif. Ecumenical Council, United Nations Association Pasadena, United Religions Initiative Intl., Wallenberg Institute of Ethics, World Interfaith Network So.Calif.

For information or displays, contact sponsor Unity-and-Diversity World Council, Phone (310) 391-5735, email udcworld1@yahoo.com; website: www.udcworld.org
 

Flyer: download flyer

Bringing together faith and community groups, plus interested individuals, to help build a unity-diversity global community where peace, justice, and a sustainable environment prevail.  This Peace Sunday includes an award ceremony, an interfaith candle lighting, displays, refreshments, and time for networking.

Speakers:

• Randolph Dobbs -- Director, Los Angeles Baha'i Center
• Rev. Albert Cohen -- Exec. Dir., So. CA Ecumenical Council
• Prof. Linda Groff -- Cal State University Dominguez Hills
• Dr. Ananda Guruge -- Professor, University of the West
• M.S.S. Shakti Parwha Kaur Khalsa -- Sikh Dharma Minister and Mother of 3HO
• Jonathan Parfrey - Exec Dir Physicians for Social Responsibility
• Rev. Jeffrey Utter -- L.A. Rep., Parliament of World's Religions

• Interfaith Choir -- led by Kristin Barnes, Dir., LA Baha'i Choir
• Stephen L. Fiske -- singer, song writer, peacemaker
• Mitra -- Middle Eastern singer, recording artist

A first of its kind Humanitarian Awards Ceremony will honor representatives of organizations, as well as outstanding individuals, for their humanitarian work.

Another first for Peace Sunday this year is the formation of an interfaith choir.

Table displays of literature and materials will be presented directly following the program from 5 to 6 p.m.  If your organization would like a table, contact Unity-and-Diversity World Council now.  All arrangements must be completed by December 4th.

Love Offering: $10 suggested donation

Co-sponsors: 

• Baha'i Center L.A.
• Brahma Kumaris Raja Yoga Center L.A.
• Citizens for Global Solutions
• Culver City Area Interfaith Alliance
• Institute of Noetic Sciences L.A.
• San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council
• Science of Mind Center of Hollywood
• Sikh Dharma of Southern California
• South Coast Interfaith Council
• Southern California Ecumenical Council
• Southern California Interfaith Network
• United Nations Association Pasadena
• United Religions Initiative Intl.
• Wallenberg Institute of Ethics

Information:  For further information or input, contact Unity-and-Diversity World Council at the above address, call 310-391-5735, or email udcworld1@yahoo.com.

This is a new cycle of human power.  It is the hour of unity among all peoples, and of the drawing together of all races and classes.
                 --Baha'i Faith, Science and Spirituality, p. 170

Peace Sunday takes place on December 10th, just one week away.  Its theme is "Creating a World That Works for Everyone".   It is being held at the Los Angeles Baha'i Center, 5755 Rodeo Rd., Los Angeles (at the corner of La Cienega).  The event will begin at 2:30 p.m. with registration and the visiting of table displays.  The program will be from 3-5 p.m. and will include a number of unique features: a first-ever humanitarian awards ceremony, seven brief speakers (four on current issues before the human race, three on spiritual awakening and some specific solutions), and an interfaith choir.  Following the program will be an hour to visit displays and have refreshments.

Most of all, we need to look at the purpose of Peace Sunday.  It is intentionally held during the Holy Day Season, a season for all faiths and all peoples to celebrate the most powerful season of the year.  We are called to look for inspiration and the sense of fulfillment in our lives, as well as to find cooperative ways to meet the challenges that lie before us as we enter into the Year Seven of the emerging global civilization.  With all of the talk of Christmas vs. the holiday season, UDC offers a more forward-looking way to see this unique occasion as a time that includes all human beings and all life. 

The climax of that period of inward search and realization is the arrival on January 1st of the New Year, symbolic to UDC as the further emergence of the new civilization.  Just as Jesus Christ needed forty days and nights for his inward looking, and Gautama Buddha took a much longer time in his search for enlightenment, so the Holy Day Season offers a full week to do our search for a more meaningful life for the coming year. 

This year's Peace Sunday does not gloss over the many crucial issues that face all of us in the New Year.  Four specific areas are brought to our attention: challenges to U.S. democracy, nuclear proliferation, global warming, and human rights.  At the end of the event, three brief speakers focus on science and spirituality, youth and education, and finally an overview of what can lie ahead if we tune in to our spiritual nature.  The event begins with the interfaith choir singing the "Earth Anthem" and concludes with "Let There Be Peace on Earth…", sung by the choir and joined in by the people present. 

Check your copy of the flyer, or visit our website udcworld.org, for more details about Peace Sunday.  If you have seen our website previously, you will be very surprised at the many updates.  If you are seeing it for the first time, kindly look over the various sections to add to your awareness of UDC and its many dimensions.  If you are in the greater Los Angeles area, we hope you will come to Peace Sunday.  If not, we wish you a happy Holy Day Season and a glorious New Year.

In the Spirit of Unity-and-Diversity!!!

PEACE SUNDAY: Creating a World That Works for Everyone

Our present world works for only a few.  However, by shifting our consciousness, then our culture and institutions, we can create a world that works for all.
     -- Sharif Abdullah, central theme of his book by same title

Peace Sunday is set for Sunday, December 10th, just two weeks from today.  Its theme is the subtitle above, which is almost identical with the title of Sharif's book.  Peace Sunday is being held at the Los Angeles Baha'i Center, 5755 Rodeo Rd., Los Angeles (at the corner of La Cienega Blvd.). 

This Peace Sunday is making a special effort to bring together individuals, groups, and networks who belong together in the task of helping to establish a morally and spiritually awakened world.  In the forty-one years of the Unity-and-Diversity World Council, many of these people have touched bases, but we are still very much learning how to combine our energies in areas where we can do much better together than separately.  Included in the event will be a Humanitarian Awards Ceremony, which is designed to honor those people who have rendered outstanding service to humanity and all life through their individual and group participation. 

This effort is reaching out worldwide, so not all of the people can be present, but since Peace Sunday is also the initiation point of a Global Assembly Dialog, it is a natural follow-up to what this year's Peace Sunday is all about. 

The missing element in what is taking place in our present world situation is an effective assembly of individuals, groups, and networks who are addressing the needs of a planet sorely out of harmony.  With every day that passes, the need increases to change the direction in which we are headed and find some clear and convincing guidelines for our future evolution. 

We have started in this direction by publishing two books that are just beginning to get themselves out into the general public: World Scriptures and Science and Spirituality.

The former aims to represent the essence of the scriptures of the world's religions plus those of a number of more recent religions and spiritual movements.  The part that has yet to be added to the published material is what I am calling a "Testament for a Unity-and-Diversity World".  This will include the Declaration of Interdependence and a number of scriptural materials from ancient and modern sources that strike a note of global harmony and understanding. 

The latter book has short readings from all religions as well as other sources both ancient and modern.  It also has appropriate music, a civilization timeline, articles on relevant subjects, and three documents that were created recently to help establish a meaningful climate for "unity-and-diversity among all peoples and all life".  These documents are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Global Ethic, and the Earth Charter.

Most of all, the United States of America needs to discover its correct role in relation to other nations and peoples, where Americans set an example of peaceful living and respect for all races, cultures, religions, and forms of life.   Nonviolence needs to be our national policy, as war becomes more and more obsolete.  We have had the longest time to learn the ways of democracy, so it is our responsibility to show to the world the real advantages of people-to-people government and non-governmental cooperation.

The sooner we get on with our real task, the sooner others can establish a safe and sane way of life for themselves around the world.  May this coming year be a time for a major step forward toward the global civilization that "creates a world that works for everyone".

In the Spirit of Unity-and-Diversity!!!

P.S.  The UDC Special Events Committee would like to hear from you regarding your plan to come to the event and also your efforts to tell others about it.  If you do not have the flyer, please ask for one or more copies.  If your computer can access color attachments, then we will send you a copy in that form.  As we enter the Holy Day Season, Peace Sunday represents our best effort to offer ways of resolving conflicts and creating the new person and civilization that lie ahead.  We do appreciate your help in this regard.

Unity-and-Diversity World Council, Inc.
P.O. Box 661401, Los Angeles, CA USA 90066-9201
Phone: 310-391-5735; Fax: 310-827-9187 (contact UDC first)
Email: udcworld1@yahoo.com; Website: www.udcworld.org 

In 1978 the United Nations held its First General Assembly Session on Disarmament.  Irving Sarnoff, co-founder of Friends of the United Nations, was asked about what he thought should be done to commemorate the occasion, and he said at once, "Hold an event in the Hollywood Bowl".  At first it seemed hard to believe that this could be done, but Irving persisted, and all of a sudden the possibility became a reality. The event was planned out of the offices of the Unity-and-Diversity World Council and with its nonprofit status.  It had more than sixty co-sponsoring organizations and an excellent planning committee.  The event, which was called "Survival Sunday", came to fruition in May of that year, with 12,000 people participating.

The first Peace Sunday by that name was held in the Pasadena Rose Bowl on June 12, 1982, with 85,000 people participating.  It was held in support of the Second Special Session of the United Nations on Disarmament.  It was a very powerful event, and it sent a unique message to the world that nuclear disarmament in particular was to be of the highest priority, with the eventual goal of eliminating nuclear weapons altogether.  Clearly, that goal must continue to be a top priority for the global community.

As a follow-up on Peace Sunday, a much smaller event was planned in 1988 under the sponsorship of an organization which became the Interfaith Council for the United Nations.  The event was good, especially in that it stimulated the formation of the above Council.  Somehow the ICUN, as it was called, had a rocky existence and has since ceased to function as it did for several years.

In 1998 the Agape International Spiritual Center in Culver City was chosen for a December meeting of the World Interfaith Network (WIN), a Specialized Affiliate of the Unity-and-Diversity World Council, which holds interfaith celebrations on a monthly basis.  This became the first in a series of numerous Peace Sundays at the Agape Center.  Each one was outstanding in its own right and was supported by Agape with committee and program help.  Often Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith would be a speaker, and the Agape International Choir would sing, led by Dr. Rickie Byars-Beckwith.  Please note that the sponsorship of Peace Sunday shifted from WIN alone to UDC, which meant that it was for the faith communities and also everyone else.

In 2002, Peace Sunday was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, where about 2,000 people took part.  It was a full-day event, culminating in the late afternoon with a stage presentation including presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich and Representative Barbara Lee of Oakland, California.  Much more elaborate technology was included in this event, and the expenses were also much greater.  Stephen Longfellow Fiske was the producer of that event.

In 2003, Peace Sunday returned to the Agape Center, where a successful event was once again held.  Then presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was the keynote speaker, who is best known for the advocacy of a Department of Peace in the United States government.  While Mr. Kucinich did not win the presidency, he is continuing today with his efforts to get the Department of Peace established, with emphasis on nonviolence as national policy.

In 2004, the Peace Sunday Committee decided once more to venture out into a more general venue, namely the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where the event was held in October for the purpose of being relevant to the 2004 presidential election in November.  That year the event became a full two days, so it was called Peace Festival.  The producer of that event was Bill McCarthy of U.N. involvement in San Francisco. 

Peace Sunday returned as a name in 2005, and the event came back to its December roots of the Holy Day Season.  On December 18th, at the Community Room in Santa Monica, there were four excellent speakers plus a DVD presentation of  "God and Allah Need to Talk", led by film producer Ruth Broyde-Sharone.  There were no choirs, due to the smaller venue of the Community Room, but there were several very talented musicians.  An interfaith candlelighting meditation was also held, led by Rev. Elizabeth Stewart.  Participants were encouraged to become involved in peace-related activity throughout the year, so that the many social and political concerns before the human race can be handled from a moral and spiritual perspective.

Message from UDC Board member Rene Wadlow for Peace Sunday 2007.

Dear Friends,

         I can be with you only in Spirit for this important Peace Sunday when we  open our minds and hearts to planetary awareness. I would like to share with you the advice of the spiritual leader Howard Thurman (1900-1981) who wrote "Look well to the growing edge.  All around us worlds are dying, and new worlds are being born.  All around us life is dying, and new life is being born...Look well to the growing edge."

    Our work together is based on the knowledge that we can and do create our political realities with our attitudes, thoughts and actions. We understand how majestic is the creative impluse of thought and therefore each thought must be directed to the common good. Our work together is based on this knowledge that it is possible for women and men to integrate their individual self interests with the greater common good.

    Our politics is that of the heart and the spirit - of finding the best ways for people to live together.  Politics is a way of serving and giving to the needs of the community.

    Today, as we grow into Planetary consciousness, we are aware that service is necessary at all levels - the local, the regional, the national and the world society.  Thus we can say with pride "We are Citizens of the World".

    Rene Wadlow, Representative to the United Nations, Geneva, of the Association of World Citizens

About Know Thyself As Soul Foundation (also known as Sant Mat path) (Written In Service by Laura Joyce Hunter)

Words could not justly describe GOD'S WONDROUS LOVE.  How would a Parent feel whose Child went out to play and got lost, a Child that was too old to be bossed, but one still young enough not to keep from getting tossed on the jagged rocks of this world's treacheries around each corner waiting?

Any Parent's heart would ache to know they could help, but on deaf ears their offer falls.  WE ARE THE CHILDREN.

Yet by the grace of the MAKER OF ALL CREATION, the ONE full of MERCY, FORGIVENESS and GRACE, though not allowed to show outwardly all power in this earthly place, still found a way to the Lost Child say:

COME HOME WHERE THERE IS PEACE, SAFETY AND ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD EVER NEED.  I have thrown down two ropes.  One is made of Holy Light, another of Holy Sound.  Just grab onto them.  Just let Me, through the true Messengers I send, reach out now to take Your hand.  Let Me show you the meanings of "Enter in at the Straight Gate, and If Thine Eye Be Single, Thy Whole Body Will Be Full Of Light."  

OUR MAKER WOULD NOT CHARGE US—FREE INFORMATIONAL CLASSES OFFERED WEEKLY.  For details please call 310-821-3321 or go to www.lasantmat.com.

Unity-and-Diversity Contact Information

Leland P. Stewart, B.S.E., B.T., 
       Founder/Central Coordinator
P.O. Box 661401
Los Angeles, CA USA 90066-9201
Phone: 310-391-5735
FAX: 310-827-9187 (contact UDC first)
Email: udcworld1@yahoo.com
Website: www.udcworld.org