Meet the New Generation of Peace Leaders at ICUJP's Friday Forum: Shawntelle Augustine, Mark Mendez, and Dr. Susan Stouffer

 

Please join us online ICUJP Friday Forum October 29, 7:30-9:30 am Pacific Photo courtesy of SOLA Peace Programs A New Generation of Peace Leaders Shawntelle Augustine, Mark Mendez, and Dr. Susan Stouffer Join videoconference here Call in by phone: +1 (669) 900-6833* Meeting ID: 865 4014 5995 PASSCODE: 438283 *Meeting controls for call-in attendees: To mute/unmute yourself: *6 To raise hand: *9 HELP END SYSTEMIC RACISM SUNDAY, NOV 7 4-6 pm Pacific RSVP NOW and join us online to help ICUJP create an interfaith network to fight systemic racism What does it mean to walk with a generation of young people and their families as they grow into peacemakers and peace leaders? This is what we have been doing for the last 15 years through the Peace Programs of SOLA Community Peace Center in South L.A. Two of SOLA's young adult leaders - Shawntelle Augustine and Mark Mendez - will join us to talk about the impact these programs have had on their lives and answer questions. Dr. Susan Stouffer, Executive Director of SOLA and an ICUJP Board member, will also be present to discuss the programs and answer questions. Shawntelle Augustine is the Assistant Peace Camp Director and Mark Mendez is the lead Youth Teacher in Peace Camp for ages 11-13. Additionally, Mark was the Margaret Lindgren ICUJP Youth Intern for two years when he was in high school. Dr. Susan Stouffer founded SOLA in 2019, building on many previous years of work through the UUC Peace Center. The Center's mission is to offer life-transforming programs to create a more peaceful and just community and world. Young people, families, and community members, particularly those who are economically disadvantaged, are empowered to succeed in life through peace education, leadership skills, and self-development.    Schedule: 7:30 - 7:35  Log in and socialize 7:35 - 7:45  Welcome and brief introductions  7:45 - 7:50  Reflection (5 min. maximum) 7:50 - 9:15  Program and Q&A 9:15 - 9:20  Announcements 9:20 - 9:30  Closing circle and prayer ----- Start your morning with us! Reflection: Father Chris Ponnet Facilitator: Phil Way Zoom host: Rubi Omar * Link to this week's agenda. *   ** Meetings begin promptly at 7:30 am Pacific. ** ----- Here's how to join the online meeting: To join by video conference, you'll need to download the Zoom app on your computer or mobile device. Click on the link to join the meeting and then enter the Meeting ID number and passcode. You'll be able to see slides and video, as well as speakers and other attendees. If you prefer to join by phone, you'll be prompted to enter the Meeting ID number and passcode. You won't be able to see the visuals or attendees, but you can view them on the meeting video recording afterward.  If you're new to Zoom and would like to use the video option, we recommend you download the app well ahead of time. ICUJP Friday Forum 10/29/21 Time: 07:30 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada) Option 1: Join videoconference here Meeting ID: 865 4014 5995 PASSCODE: 438283 Option 2: Dial in by phone only: +1 (669) 900-6833 US (California) Meeting ID: 865 4014 5995 PASSCODE: 438283 (To find a dial-in number closer to you, go here.) ----- Please note: Our Friday Forums and other events are open to the public. By attending, you consent to having your voice and likeness recorded, photographed, posted on ICUJP's website and social media, and included in ICUJP materials and publications for noncommercial purposes. If you don't want to be photographed or recorded, please let the facilitator know. UPCOMING FRIDAY FORUMS NOV 5: Addressing California's Affordable Housing Crisis - Anthony Manousos THANK YOU to all who joined us 9/11 for Pursuing Justice and Peace for 20 Years! WATCH VIDEO View tribute book "Why Didn't the World Listen to Him?" DONATE HERE Passing the Virtual Bucket We can't pass the bucket in person, but ICUJP still needs your support. Please give as generously as you can: • On our donation page. You can set up recurring gifts too! • Use the Give+ app for iPhone or Android • Text a gift amount to 323-701-1467 • Send a check to ICUJP c/o Rod Sprott, Church-Biz, 1125 N Fairfax Ave #46836, Los Angeles 90046 Thank you! ---------- Help Support Families in Need The need for Immanuel Presbyterian's Food Pantry is greater than ever. Please donate here. Thank you! You are receiving this email because you are a part of the ICUJP Mailing List. You cannot reply to everyone through this email. If you wish to join the ICUJP discussion list, sign into Google Groups, search for ICUJP, and use the "Ask to join group" button. Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace To learn more about ICUJP, please visit our website.   Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace · 3300 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90010, United States This email was sent to interfaithquaker@aol.com. To stop receiving emails, click here. You can also keep up with Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace on Twitter or Facebook.

In Memoriam of my childhood friend Jack Robertiello

 

I was flooded with memories when I heard of the death of my childhood friend Jack Robertiello, who became a the food critic and authored Mangia: the Best Italian Food in New York City. Jack and I were neighbors and grew up in an immigrant neighborhood in Princeton,  NJ. We lived in apartments that shared a tiny back yard where we used to play together as toddlers. My mother liked to tell the story of a time when she heard Jack crying and came out to see what happened. “We were making mud pies,” I explained. “Then why is Jack crying?” my mother asked. I explained, “He wanted to eat his mud pie and I stopped him!” 

As he grew older, Jack’s taste improved. He became “an expert in the worlds of wine, spirits, and mixology,” according to the NY Times obit. My family and his were very close, and we SHARED an immigrant background in common. My mother was Scottish and my father Greek. His mother was Irish and his father Italian.  We both honored our heritages in different ways-- I studied Greek and the Classics while Jack wrote book about Italian food,.

We were close but very different. He went to Catholic school and was turned off by religion. I went to a secular school and found religion liberating. When I married the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Jack was my best man.

Jack was brilliant and received a full scholarship but dropped out of college. I completed my BA and went to graduate school. Despite a lack of higher education, Jack was incredibly well read and knowledgeable about a wide range of topics, from comic books, dance, film, music, and especially good food and drinks. As my sister noted, Jack was always interesting and fun to be around. He was charming, clever, and a “bon vivant.’ I remember learning from him the art of making mint juleps.

We often partied together when I was in grad school at the home of an eccentric actor and his wife. Jack tended to hang around “arty” people and I also enjoyed this world, which was a welcome break from academia.

I left Princeton to accept a teaching job, got divorced, and eventually became a Quaker and  moved to California, where I married a Methodist minister. 

At around the same time Jack married Andrea Mohin, a professional photographer, and moved to Brooklyn. He also found a way to use his gift for writing. He  became a food critic and consultant on fine wine and food.  We drifted apart,  inhabiting very different worlds. But I did see his family from time to time when I came home to visit my mother and sister.

When my mother was on her death bed, and I was sitting beside her, Jack’s mother Eileen came into the hospital room and I got up and hugged her. Eileen was like a second mother. As we hugged, we heard a gurgling sound from my mother—it was her spirit leaving her body. I felt my mother's presence hovering in the room  as I embraced Eileen, sobbing. I felt that this was the kind of parting my mother wanted. She left this world with her son in the arms of a dear friend.

I was saddened when Eileen and Rick, Jack’s parents, passed away in Princeton, which was too far for me to travel at the time. Jack and I never crossed paths during the past 40 years. We were Facebook friends but never communicated. I am sorry that I didn’t reach out to him while he was alive. I have been thinking what a blast it would have been to go with him to an Italian restaurant and take a journey down memory lane. I can't help smiling when imagining the look of shock on Jack's face he found out I'm a vegetarian and drink non-alcoholic wine!  I'm sure he would have had something interesting and witty to say on this subject.

I have learned an important lesson from my feeling of loss. Never take old friends for granted. Jack and his family will always be dear to my heart, and I will also remember his humor and joie de vivre. I hope that his family and friends will celebrate his life as he would wish--with good food and good wine and appreciation for a life devoted to family and to gracious living.

 

EULOGY FOR JOSEPH PRABHU, CHAMPION OF INTERFAITH PEACEMAKING

Today I was honored and humbled to give this eulogy for Joseph Prabhu, a distinguished scholar and a highly respected leader in the interfaith peace movement. I shared these words of remembrance at the Holy Family Catholic Church in South Pasadena, where Joseph's memorial service took place. If you couldn't make it and would like to share memories of our beloved friend in Christ, there will be a Zoom memorial:

Sunday, October 24^th, 2021

10am PST

 https://uclahs.zoom.us/j/95823300129

I want to thank Joseph’s family for inviting me to speak about this dear friend whom I came to know through the Parliament of the World’s Religion—an organization that he served both locally and at the international level. I’ve worked closely with Joseph over the years on interfaith peacemaking and was impressed by his deep commitment to social justice as well as to the life of the mind. He and I spent many joyful hours taking walks in Huntington Gardens and I was privileged to be at his bedside during his final days. He asked me to read from the psalms, as he had done for his friend Bill Lesher during his final days. Despite brain surgery, and shortness of breath, Joseph told wonderful stories about his amazing life. He spoke of his friends, his family, and his ideas about religion and politics. As his beloved nephew Jaideep Prabhu said, Joseph was an Olympic class talker. I would add, he was also an Olympic class thinker.

Born and raised in India and educated in Germany, Britain as well as in the United States, Joseph was an internationally known scholar, professor, and activist. He took his work but not himself seriously. He had a great sense of humor and loved to tease so I’d like to share an anecdote he told me during his final days. Joseph was giving a lecture in Belgium and decided to visit his high school principal, a Jesuit priest named Father Hincq , who was living in Brussels.

 Father Hincq was gracious and showed Joseph his year books and talked about Joseph’s classmates. As Joseph was about to leave, he decided to tease his former teacher by saying, "Do you remember how you once spanked me?" Father Hincq replied with a smile, "Not once, Joseph, twice."

Joseph also like to tell irreverent stories about being Mother Teresa's altar boy. It gets blazingly hot in Calcutta and Joseph fainted during a worship service.  As he regained consciousness, he felt a slap on the face and heard Mother Teresa say, “What are you doing, boy. Wake up!”  

Despite these awkward moments, Joseph remained committed to Catholicism all his life, although for many years he attended All Saints Episcopal Church because of its work around social justice and peace.  Joseph was profoundly influenced by Raimon Panikkar, a theologian who distilled the best of Christian and Hindu religious ideas. Like Panikkar, Joseph remained deeply Catholic while finding inspiration and value in all faiths.

Joseph was a brilliant lecturer who taught at more than seventy universities either as visiting professor or as guest lecturer in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe and the United States, including at the universities of California, Berkeley and Chicago. For fun, I looked up what students at Cal State LA said about him, and I think he would appreciate this telling comment by one of his students: “I must say I found some of Prof. Prabhu’s lectures slanted. Do not take everything he says as fact. He is crazy liberal, and it shows. Considering that I am conservative, we clashed. I still got an A.”

Another student warned: “Do not take his class of you don’t like to think for yourself... Prof. Prabhu really makes you think about what you think you already know.”

I can’t imagine a better recommendation for someone who taught in the Socratic mode. When Joseph retired, his colleagues gave him a gift he was proud to show off: a mug with the French painter David’s famous depiction of Socrates discussing the immortality of the soul with his students after he had drunk the hemlock. Only instead of Socrates’ face, the mug had Joseph’s!

Joseph’s colleagues honored him in another way, by creating the Joseph Prabhu Memorial Lectures for Peace and Justice. This was appropriate since Joseph was passionately committed to human rights, Gandhian nonviolence, and what John Cobb called “eco-civilization.”   In an article published in Today’s American Catholic in April 2021, Joseph wrote: “The interconnected challenges posed by climate change, economic inequality, racism, sexism, and militarism—to mention just the most pressing problems—demand our intelligent and thoughtful consideration and action.” In this essay, one of his last published works, Joseph lifted up two of his heroes: the German theologian Hans Kung and Pope Francis. https://www.todaysamericancatholic.org/2021/04/dreaming-with-hans-kung/

Besides being an activist, teacher and public intellectual, Joseph was deeply devoted to his family and to his wife Betty. I was very moved to see the tenderness between Joseph and Betty when he was recovering from brain surgery. During this time, he often spoke with pride and affection about his daughter Tara. Joseph raised her as a single father, and it wasn’t easy. But Betty confided to me with great feeling, “Tara was God’s gift to Joseph.” I’m sure Joseph would agree. And I’m sure that you all would agree that Joseph was God’s gift to us and to the world. He has left behind a legacy and an example that will inspire and challenge us  and generations to come.

Video I made for Joseph's final birthday in March 2021: 

Videos of lectures by Joseph Prabhu: 

"Culture of Peace": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaEqEvJBSgM

"The tasks of religion in an emergent new axial age": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsPD9XGRoNo

Testimonials by friends of Joseph Prabhu

"Joseph Prabhu's Anatomy of Wisdom," an essay by Ruth Sharone: http://www.theinterfaithobserver.org/journal-articles/2016/12/10/joseph-prahbus-anatomy-of-wisdom