Peace Activities Coming Up in the Los Angeles area

January could be considered interfaith peace month, with Martin Luther King Day in the midst of it, inspiring us with his example and his prophetic words:

“We have inherited a big house, a great “world house” in which we have to live together – black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other. This means that more and more our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. We must now give an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies.”

There are so many excellent MLK events in LA it is hard to choose which one to attend. I will highlight just a few that I am personally involved with.

First, there are two MLK events coming up this weekend:

1) On Sunday, Jan 16, from 3-5 PM there is one in Long Beach, sponsored by the South Coast Interfaith Council, and featuring a Chumash Indian leader named Deborah Sanchez.

2) On Saturday, Jan 15, from 9 AM-noon there is an MLK event in Irvine, sponsored by the Parliament of the World's Religions. It includes workshops and a keynote speaker named Dr. Mark Waldeman, a neuro-scientist specializing in peaceful communication.

For details about both these events, see: http://quakeruniversalist.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/martin-luther-king-and-universalism/.

Other interfaith peace events coming up in So Cal include: a traveling art show sponsored by the AFSC (afsc.org) , a series of screenings of "War Made Easy" sponsored by ICUJP (icujp.org) , and training in nonviolent activist by Rev. Dr. James Lawson, a colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King. All of these are listed below:

Upcoming AFSC event

Saturday, February 19, 2011 - 7:00pm - Sunday, March 13, 2011 - 12:00 am. AFSC is sponsoring Windows and Mirrors, a traveling exhibit that provides an opportunity to see ourselves in depictions of the war in Afghanistan through the eyes of artists and children. See http://afsc.org/event/los-angeles-windows-and-mirrors-exhibit

2011 ICUJP "Cost of War" Program

Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace (icujp.org) is coordinating a season-long campaign to raise awareness of the costs, in dollars and lives, of the wars in which the United States has been so long engaged. Events in the campaign include:

Screenings of "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death"

Thursday, January 20, 4 p.m.: Community Coalition: 8101 S. Vermont Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90044

Sunday, January 30, 3 p.m.: Peace Sunday. Unitarian Universalist Church, 1260 18th StreetSanta Monica, CA 90404-1206

Sunday, February 20, 3 p.m.:St. Camillus Catholic Center: 1911 Zonal Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90033-1032

Friday, February 25:Islamic Center of Hawthorne12209: 12209 Hawthorne Way Hawthorne , CA 90250

Friday, February 26: Islamic Institute of Orange County 1220 North State College BoulevardAnaheim, CA 92806-1504 (I will be a panelist at this event.)

Friday, April 1, 11 a.m.: Church Women United. Location TBA

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A Nonviolence Workshop with James Lawson

Date: Saturday, January 29, 2011

Time: 9:00 AM to Noon

Location: Holman United Methodist Church, 3320 W. Adams Blvd., L A

This is a free event. Refreshments will be provided.

Contact: Gloria Bailey: bailey2523@sbcglobal.net 323-296-5942