Pondering the connections between breathing and the divine certainly helps us, in turn, to remember that breathing, that most natural and essential of impulses, is also an engagement with something beyond ourselves.
The Arizona Interfaith Movement (AZIFM) holds the Golden Rule Banquet each year where people and organizations are honored for upholding the principles of the Golden Rule. I had the pleasure of attending the 14th annual banquet on Thursday evening, April 11, at the Mesa Convention Center and found it an awesome and inspiring evening. Those of us attending from Beatitudes Campus, besides myself, were Sybil Eppinger (whose husband Dr. Paul Eppinger founded the AZIFM), Karen Shannon, Cammy Clevenger, Bob Van Riper and Nancy Splain.
When we arrived at the Mesa Convention Center, we were greeted in the courtyard by hosts at several booths providing information about different religions. At the Sikh booth, I met Rani Sodhi, the brother of the man who was murdered in Mesa right after 9/11. Mr. Sodhi has spent all of the intervening years since then, travelling all over the United States and beyond, working to build bridges of understanding among people of different faiths and backgrounds.
At 6:30PM, we joined the over 800 other attendees inside for the evening program and banquet.
The evening started with the sounding of the Jewish Shofar followed by a welcome from Anita Rangaswami, Vice President of the AZIFM Board and a representative of the Hindu faith.
Pat McMahon, radio personality and Hall of Fame Broadcaster, was Master of Ceremonies for the evening.
Opening prayers were given by a Christian, someone from the BahaIi faith tradition, someone from Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, and a Buddhist. Each prayer ended with the statement of the Golden Rule as expressed in their respective faith traditions.
Mesa’s Mayor, John Giles, and AZIFM’s Executive Director, Rev. Larry Fultz, each then welcomed us, and dinner was served. During dinner, we were treated to an impressive musical performance by Taiko drum artist, Ken Koshio, and his son.
After dinner, the awards were given as the next part of the program. This year’s Golden Rule Awards recipients were as follows:
The Serving the Children Award went to Sunshine Acres, a home for children with no place to go.
The Humanitarian Award went to members of the Japanese American Citizens League made up of Japanese Internment survivors. This group talks to schools and encourages the breakdown of fear and hatred and the empowerment of kindness.
The Community Building Award went to the East Valley Community Builders. This group encourages interracial and social activities between citizens and police to encourage mutual understanding.
The Media Award went to AZTV and its director, Lynn Londen, for programming focusing on the positive qualities of our community, including airing a teenage group which does a media show on kindness and helpfulness.
The Darl Anderson Award went to Nick Lowery, the Hall of Fame Kicker of the Kansas City Chiefs. He started the Nick Lowery Youth Foundation that assists homeless youth.
At the end of the award ceremony, to bring the evening to a close, AZIFM Executive Director, Rev. Larry Fultz, called his family members in attendance to the stage. Assembling on the stage were a husband and wife from Nigeria (the husband had been a young student sent by his father to study in America who had lived with the Fultz’s during that time), a Jewish rabbi, Rev. Fultz’s brother and his Russian wife, a son with his Japanese wife, and a grandson with his Pakistani wife. Each gave a prayer or blessing to us all in his or her native language, followed by his or her spouse’s rendering the prayer in English. What a powerful visual.
The family closing was a magnificent end to a very inspiring evening.
The discussion of leaving a legacy has come up in conversations I have had lately among my friends and family. All of us want the opportunity to make a difference in the world and leave a legacy. We all want to be remembered and to feel that we’ve contributed something to the world.
For most of us, we will leave a legacy that doesn’t necessarily change the world but does leave a lasting footprint that will be remembered by those whose lives we have touched. I think of all the blessings I have in my life and I try to be mindful of sharing with others the richness of my life.
I also am considering what kind of charitable legacy I want to leave. Throughout the years I have supported people and causes that are important to me and to the people in my life. I support Beatitudes Campus because I want to invest in its mission to welcome people of all faith traditions and to commit to a holistic model of wellness.
You don’t have to be wealthy to leave a charitable legacy – you just have to do a little bit of planning. Your legacy and support for Beatitudes Campus can help ensure that we inspire future generations of seniors. Whatever you want your legacy to be – providing support to people who are struggling through no fault of their own, supporting innovative programming, helping to expand arts and music programs, creating a welcoming environment in which seniors can thrive, supporting tomorrow’s workforce – it is all possible through a planned gift.
What, exactly, are planned gifts? They are, quite literally, what they sound like. The term “planned gift” simply means that you have planned to give a gift at a later date.
As you read this article, Chaplain Andrew and I will be in Chicago at the 7th International Conference on Aging and Spirituality which began in Canberra, Australia in 2000 and until the 2015 Conference, all were held in countries of the British Commonwealth: Australia, New Zealand, England and Scotland. This is the second time it will be held in the United States and Andrew and I are excited to attend. These conferences include voices from many parts of the world, voices from the domains of the academic and the aging services, voices from various faith traditions and voices representing the “spiritual, but not religious,” and they include a mixture of keynote speakers, workshops and papers of interest to those coming from a faith based approach and to those approaching spirituality from a secular viewpoint.
We will be meeting at the historic campus of Concordia University, Chicago which has a Center for Gerontology (the study of aging and older adults). The conference theme is “Transition and Transcendence: Transforming Aging through Spirituality.” Together we will explore navigating the transitions of aging, how transcendence is experienced in times of change, and how the experience of aging and our understanding of it can be transformed. “How do we, as persons who are growing older ourselves and who serve older adults, encourage ourselves and encourage them to find the spiritual paths and practices that will sustain them – and us – through hard change and loss? And how does our spirituality help us to move from focusing on our own needs and pains to seeing ourselves as part of a wider world, where, in spite of limitations, there is still much we can offer and needs we can meet? How do we engage the wider cultures in which we live in conversation about the possibilities and promises of aging in the midst of all these transitions? In short, how can we harness the power of the spirit available to all of us to transform aging wherever we live?”
It is exciting that Andrew is one of the presenters speaking on: “The Road Goes Ever On – Viewing Aging As A Step On Our Spiritual Pilgrimage.” In his presentation, Andrew will be using the experiences of many people here at the Campus to demonstrate how beneficial it is to see aging not as a dilemma, but rather as an essential and beneficial part of our life-long quest for self-understanding and spiritual growth.
Having never been to Chicago, I am looking forward to seeing new sights and learning new insights. Plus, I’ve heard they have some pretty good pizza! Look for a future article in which we will share about our experience.
*By the way, the word “ageing” in the title is not a typo. The Conference comes from other parts of the world, where they spell it as “ageing” rather than how we spell it here in the United States – “aging.”
