Dear Friends,
I am sitting here in the Garden, grateful for its birth and the seeds of generosity now planted and growing and growing. In a few hours we will celebrate, together with our SSS community and our many friends and benefactors, the Dedication of the Interfaith Peace Garden of the Sisters of Social Service. Its 50th Jubilee vision was birthed in 2005 and regret has never taken the place of the dream. Thank you.
Many of you know the Garden to be the little piece of land nestled among the oaks within the larger acreage that is the central home of the Sisters of Social Service and of Holy Spirit Retreat Center in Encino, CA, USA. You also know that it is an emerging ministry of the SSS community, the mission of the garden being focused on interfaith realities, the religious roots of violence in our world and alternatives to violence, and the interconnectedness and wellbeing of all life on earth. This facet of the emerging collaborative ministry will happen on the Encino campus and elsewhere. The program and names of speakers and participants for today's event are posted elsewhere on this website.
The Interfaith Peace Garden is a work in progress. As we pioneer into the future, the vision will flower and bloom.
A. Our Garden is and will be literally a little piece of land, holy ground, sacred space where anyone of any faith tradition may come to walk or sit and quiet themselves and meditate, pray, be blessed surrounded by the spare beauty of this small spot on the globe -- at the same time conscious that this local is global and the global is local.
B. Our Garden also is envisioned to be a ministry of education, collaboration, and action. Such education, collaboration, and action is intended to engage "interfaithness", "peace and non-violence", and "ecospirituality" and the integrity of the earth.
C. Our Garden has a website (
interfaithpeacegarden.org) and an email address (
interfaithpeacegarden@Gmail.com) that have reaches and links all over the world.
D. All this is rooted in the desire that collaboratively we may know that which is not limited to our individual and collective egos. The vision of the Garden offers hope that together we can transcend distinctions between progressive and conservative, liberal and traditional, and offer moments in which we find common ground, share common weal, and are inspired by the common Creative Spirit of us all.
In closing then, we of the Interfaith Peace Garden wish you PEACE.
Sister Anne Field SSS
"Sunrise" music courtesy of Steven Johannessen
Letters from the Garden ©
