February 2017 Philadelphia Chapter of Pax Christi U.S.A.
I believe it is Peace Walk (PW) #14 that will be stepping out on Sunday April 30, 2017. It’s been kind of a crazy year and the end result looks like we will walk to only one house of worship and a playground in this years’ walk in Philly’s West Oak Lane neighborhood. That one house of worship is the huge, warm and wonderful Masgidullah at Limekeln Pike and Washington Lane. We’ll start there … and we’ll end there, where there will be food and dialogue and networking galore. We’ve been having somewhere between 400 and 500 participants lately and I see no reason we can’t have the same number this year … maybe even more in this season of our discontent. Regardless of our issues with the issues, we will be just as adamant this year, as we are every other year that there will be no political agendas in our walk.
However in the walking time and in the dialogues we will have at the closing stop, people can talk about whatever they choose. And even as we embrace our diversity, we will not condemn others if they do not. We will NOT think in terms of us vs. them; what we will do is to “pray with our feet.”
And so we members of the PW committee will continue to meet once a month in the beautiful Al Aqsa mosque at 3rd and Germantown Avenues. When certain of my friends tell me how much more safe and secure they are with the new laws and restrictions concerning Muslims, I tell them about the kindness, friendliness, humility and welcoming we experience in one of their houses of worship each month (usually the 3rd Wednesday). Same with almost all our stops on the walks. Seeing Jews talk to Muslims talk to Christians talk to Sikhs talk to Hindus talk to secular humanists and so on n on …. does a heart good.
(There will be buses leaving Al Aqsa at 1:15 to 1:30 to take people to the walk and to bring them back after the banquet)
member of CPF is a member of the Peace Walk Planning Committee,
http://www.interfaithpeacewalk.org
Catholic Peace Fellowship February 2017
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