As we enter winter months, please keep our neighbors in need in mind. Local food pantries, such as SHARE and Food For Others can always use donations and manpower.
In addition, our friends at FACETS sent out an appeal this week for their annual holiday gift drive:
We need your help! With local families struggling to make ends meet, we have received over 600 requests for gifts and toys. We are hearing from many parents and families who have never reached out to us before for assistance.
For years, our amazing community has ensured that the children, families and individuals served by FACETS can celebrate the season with their loved ones.
This year, we have been very blessed to have many of you step up as Angel Tree donors to fulfill holiday wishes. However, the requests are still coming in – and these new families need all of us.
With gratitude in our hearts, we are asking if you can please help provide toys, presents and gift cards for our community’s most vulnerable.
Ideally, all unwrapped gifts should arrive at FACETS’ main office by Wednesday, December 15th at 12 noon so our elves from SERCO can wrap them that evening.
- Monetary Donations: Make a donation to FACETS, and we’ll do the shopping for you! To donate online, CLICK HERE. (Please indicate “Holiday Gifts” in the Special Instructions field.) To donate by mail, please send checks made payable to “FACETS” to FACETS, 10700 Page Avenue, Building B, Fairfax, Virginia 22030.
- Donations of Toys, Gift Cards & Presents: Download our list of needed gifts and add something to your Christmas shopping to drop off this week. Donations can be dropped off Monday – Friday, 9am to 3pm, at the FACETS Main Office: 10700 Page Avenue, Building B, Fairfax, Virginia 22030.
- Virtual Shopping via our Amazon Wish List & Amazon Smile: You can also ship gift cards and toys directly to FACETS by using our Amazon Holiday Gift Wish List. And, when you buy from Amazon Smile and select “FACETS Cares” as your charity of choice, a percentage of your purchase price goes back to support the children, families and individuals served by FACETS’ programs.
- Angel Tree: Angel Tree wish lists are still available. If you are your team are interested in “adopting” a child or family this season, please reach out to Tessa at trobinette@facetscares.org.
Thank you!! We are so very grateful to you all! Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Tessa at trobinette@facetscares.org or 703-352-3268.
As we enter fall and winter months, have you been thinking about starting or joining a book club? Here are reflections from a book club at my church on books they read on an important topic and how they went about organizing their book club.
Over the past year, a group of Redeemer Lutheran members met to read and discuss books focusing on social justice. One member volunteered to set up the zoom meetings and then summarized the discussion in an email back to the group before the next meeting. The emails deepened their experience and helped them retain important parts of the books. They met weekly and discussed assigned chapters of the books and found this pattern allowed them to discuss the contents more thoroughly.
They are sharing their experiences with the congregation, first by providing a list of the books they read. They are also building a lending library they hope to offer soon.
Here is a list of the books they explored together, with a brief description:
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson: May have been the most influential book our group read in that it challenged us to think about how our entire social structure is an unrecognized caste system.
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem: Written by a licensed clinical social worker who explores the complex effects of racism and white privilege on all races. Provided many exercises to work through our own reactions to racial trauma.
Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King: The winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction: A historical account of how Thurgood Marshall (before he became a Supreme Court Justice) and the NAACP brought civil rights cases to courts throughout the country. It highlighted the huge legal challenges that took place to correct injustices, how fragile some of those victories were, and how it could have all gone wrong.
His Truth is Marching On by Jon Meacham: A biography of John Lewis. We were moved by his unwavering bravery and commitment to civil rights, as well as his deep Christian faith.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates: A moving account of how a young man felt about growing up Black in America, written in the form of a letter to his young son.
Dear Church, a love letter from a Black Preacher to the whitest Denomination in America (ELCA) by Lenny Duncan: A very challenging book which made us consider our own implicit racism and what our responsibility might be to address it in our church and in our neighborhoods.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett: Our only novel. It introduced the subject of colorism and what sacrifices people make to integrate into the dominant society and what it costs to leave your family behind.
I am grateful to the members of my church for sharing their experience. I’ll be picking up a couple of these titles soon.
In the Tysons region, there are excellent non-profit groups serving the needs of the population. Many of our faith communities partner with these non-profits in their work. A list of some of these great groups can be found at the bottom of the Tysons Interfaith website Resources page.
As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, our thoughts turn particularly to people in our community who are experiencing food insecurity. FACETS, one of the non-profits listed on our Resources page, is sponsoring a Thanksgiving Food Drive with the goal of ensuring that 450 of our neighbors have food on their tables this Thanksgiving. They are collecting food and gift cards through Tuesday, November 16. To learn more, please visit: http://facetscares.org/thanksgiving1/.
Other local organizations who distribute food for families and individuals who are experiencing hunger are SHARE of McLean and Food for Others.
As we continue to emerge from the Covid Pandemic and disruptions to supply chains, it is critically important that we deliver food to our neighbors. What better time to do this than November, the month when we pause to give thanks for our many blessings? On my list of things to be grateful for are the Tysons area non-profits doing such dedicated and important work, and deserving our support.
Reading an account of a dialog between a pagan clergyman and a pastor from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (‘We’re all interconnected’: Pagan, Christian clergy urge interfaith understanding (religionnews.com)) reminded me of some reflections on “Pentecostal Theology,” particularly as it applies to churches like the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, one of the largest in the world.
In his article, “The Contribution of David Yonggi Cho to a Contextual Theology in Korea” (Journal of Pentecostal Theology, 12.1, 2003), Allan Anderson rejects both liberal and conservative critiques of the church’s founding pastor, who recently passed away (Korean pastor David Yonggi Cho, founder of one of the world’s largest churches, has died (religionnews.com). These critics use either the American “prosperity gospel” or what some call “indigenization” to explain the growth of Cho’s church and Pentecostalism more generally outside of Europe and North America and assume that the Christian message is the same in all cultural contexts.
Even as Pastor Cho criticized the Buddhism of his youth – he had particularly harsh words for Zen – he also talked about a “fourth dimension” akin to the miraculous “healing” powers of Korean shamanism, Buddhism, yoga, and Japanese religions like Soka Gakkai. Cho also talked about an “evil spirit world” that he placed “under the power and authority of almighty God,” a view that enraged many non-Korea evangelicals. While Cho clearly distinguished Christian revelation from the traditional Asian religious view, his “experience of this Asian religious spirituality and its element of the miraculous” can be seen as the basis of a theology in which visions and dreams act as language, drawing the nascent believer in to what he called a process of “incubation” or “pregnancy” as a foundation to faith.
To develop his view of prosperity and the gospel, Anderson avers that Cho did not borrow from the North American “health and wealth” preachers. Rather, he relied on his personal experience of South Korean poverty and inequality, still depicted in movies like the Academy Award-wining “Parasite” and the new Netflix hit series, “Squid Game.” Cho preaches that prosperity “as an end in itself is evil, for God blesses his people only so that they may meet the needs of the poor and the needy.” And Cho criticizes western churches for becoming too secularized, particularly in their obsession with entertainment.
This is all pretty much foreign to many Americans, even people like me who have had extensive experience in Korea and China. But the great Christian philosopher, St. Anselm of Canterbury (aka “The Second Augustine”) noted that while unbelievers strive to understand because they do not believe and believers strive to understand because they do believe, both have the same object. For Anselm, faith plays the part of experience and precedes all reflection and discussion concerning “religious things.”
The conversation between the pagan and the pastor is scheduled to be repeated at the upcoming Parliament of the World’s Religions (October 16-18), which will be held virtually for the first time since it initially convened at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago 2021 VIRTUAL | Parliament of the World’s Religions (parliamentofreligions.org) In the worlds of the pagan preacher, it’s a matter of being “interconnected” and “inseparable.” For “regardless of a difference of one God or many gods, we are still — at least to us theists — children of the divine, be it a single parent or a divine family that kind of watches over you.”
This blog post is the expressed opinion of its writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tysons Interfaith or its members.
On a recent October Sunday, the Reverend Fran Gardner-Smith and people of St. Thomas Episcopal celebrated the Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi with an outdoor service attended by about 50 people and 11 dogs! Following this service, Rev Gardner-Smith shared the following communication with her congregation:
“Francis is known for his love of all creatures and for creation. At our outdoor service, we heard this reading from one of Francis’ sermons entitled “Peace, birds, peace!”:
‘My brother and sister birds, you should greatly praise your Creator and love him always. He gave you feathers to wear, and wings to fly, and whatever you need. God made you noble among his creatures and gave you a home in the purity of the air, so that, though you do not sow nor reap, he nevertheless protects and governs you without your least care.’
At the service, our choir sang one of my favorite choral pieces, “For the Beauty of the Earth” arranged by the English composer John Rutter. You can hear youth from the Milwaukee Vocal Arts Academy singing it here.
I hope you can find a small way to honor St. Francis today. Take a walk outside. Admire some leaves that are beginning to turn color as we move into October. Snuggle with an animal who shares your home. Whatever your day holds, may you find beauty. “
On that same October Sunday, across town at Redeemer Lutheran, Pastor Sandy Kessinger delivered a sermon also reflecting on this beautiful time of the year and on Psalm 8 that is excerpted here:
“O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”
On this important topic Pastor Kessinger had this to say (summarized from her sermon, full text can be found here.):
“Who are we that God is so mindful of us? A better question is – Do we value ourselves as much as God values us? How quick we are to look at our faults and not see our gifts.
We need to look up at the heavens and the sky, the moon and the stars, the mountains, and the oceans, and place ourselves among the manifestation of God’s glory. God orders all things and gives us infinite value and worth in spite of ourselves.
Who are we? We are children of God, a little lower than the angels, and crowned with glory and honor. And in his infinite wisdom God also gave us partners so that we do not need to go it alone. May we live into what God intended for us when God created us in his image.”
As the trees begin to turn, I will reflect on Rev. Gardner-Smith and Pastor Kessinger’s messages. I will give thanks for the beauty of the earth, my sometimes silly and beloved animal companions, and the wonderful friends I have made through Tysons Interfaith – all members of the same human family, valued and partners in spiritual living.
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In terms of population, the “hundred pound gorilla” in the Tysons area is the McLean Census District, home to 50,000 people according to the latest numbers, about twice that of the next largest district, Tysons. Like Vienna, Wolf Trap, and Great Falls, McLean is older and “whiter” than most of the area, three out of every four households identifying as white. Median house values and incomes are a bit lower than in Great Falls, but higher than in Vienna or Wolf Trap. The percentage of foreign-born persons is about the same in these areas, around 24 percent.
A founding member of my church used to live in central McLean when he first moved into the area in the 1950s. He rented a wood-frame house next to the Old Fire House and told me that what is now the parking lot of the Giant Food Store used to be a field of beautiful wildflowers tended by his landlord.
Many other changes have occurred over the years. St. Johns Episcopal Church, for example, used to be downtown but moved to its current site on Georgetown Pike long before Langley became a suburb. I once carpooled with a colleague whose family broke the Catholic “bans” on Kirby Road; he told me that in the late 1950s Langley was nothing but farmland and he used to ride his bicycle up Lemon Road to swim in a quarry in Pimmit Hills! More recently, the McLean Islamic Center (MIC) moved from an office building in central McLean to its current location right on the edge of Tysons west, off Route 7.
My neighborhood near McLean High School was developed in 1959 but is changing as the old houses are knocked down and replaced by much larger units. Still, it retains a lot of history, like the old McLean Fire House, which is now a youth center. You can see photos of old McLean at the Dolley Madison Library or at my barbershop on Chain Bridge Road or at these neat websites: research.fairfaxcounty.gov/local-history/mclean-history-portal and www.oldmclean.com/index.html.
Chain Bridge was built before the Civil War and was crossed by the Union troops as they twice crossed the Potomac to meet their doom at Bull Run (Manassas).
McLean has many different neighborhoods that sport an interesting variety of street names I enjoy reading as I cycle through the back roads. All the streets in McLean Hamlet, which borders Tysons on the south side of Lewinsville Road, have references to Shakespeare, my favorite being Agin Court! On the northwest side of McLean across Dolley Madison in the Churchill Road area, there are names like Dead Run, Capitol View (I doubt they can really see the Rotunda), and apropos of Congress and not a few lobbyists who live in the area, Carpers Court. (I have hoped in vain but never found a Cavil Lane.)
And the district encompasses all of Langley and the Scotts Run Forest Preserve, including the CIA, and the entire extent of Balls Hill Road, which as it approaches the Potomac affords some excellent rolling hills for cyclists and is lined by some of the most luxurious properties in the district. Closer to my neighborhood, there is perhaps the most apt, yet politically incorrect street name, Wasp Lane. Just so you know, there’s also a Hornet Lane, so that’s what the developers were thinking when they came up with it.
Closer to my church at the corner of Brook Road and Lewinsville, the likes of Washington Capitals superstar Alexander Ovechkin have taken up residence, right beside a home built by the former congregant of my church mentioned above. His home went through a second owner before it was purchased and expanded by a current member of my parish vestry. That said, many of the members of my church come from outlying areas like Reston, which the large McLean Census District nearly reaches, extending all the way down Route 7 to Difficult Run. You can find the map here: www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/map/mcleancdpvirginia/PST045219
My wife and I recently drove west, toward the Shenandoah mountains, to enjoy the beautiful early Autumn weather and the scenery.
On our return, we stopped at the parking lot of Trinity Episcopal Church in Upperville to stretch our legs and admire the architecture. Tacked on a wall near the church entrance was the following appeal to people of all faiths, as we collectively work through the pandemic:
- May we who are merely inconvenienced remember those whose lives are at stake.
- May we who have no risk factors remember those most vulnerable.
- May we who have the luxury of working from home remember those who must choose between preserving their health and paying their rent.
- May we who have the flexibility to care for our children when their schools close remember those children who will go hungry with no school meals.
- May we who have to cancel our trips remember those who have no place to go.
- May we who are losing our margin money in the tumult of the economic market remember those who have no margin at all.
- May we who settle in for quarantine at home remember those who have no home.
- As fear and divisiveness grip our country, let us choose love.
- During this time when we cannot physically wrap our arms around each other, let us find ways to become the loving embrace of God to our neighbor.
This community of faith is not exactly a poverty-stricken rural parish. I was therefore especially moved by the words on the slightly weathered sheet of paper reminding me to be mindful of the needs of others.
When things are not going well for me personally, I become upset with the world around me and complain – under my breath or to whoever will listen. The above phrases remind me, however, how fortunate I am. My personal “woes” are mostly self-centered and trivial in view of the realities faced daily by the women, men, and children alluded to above. I must not forget them in my haste to serve myself.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly declaration “International Day of Peace.” The purpose of the International Day of Peace was and still remains, to strengthen the ideals of peace around the world.
In 2001, September 21st was set as the annual day of commemoration – not only as a time to discuss how to promote and maintain peace among all peoples but most remarkably, as an annual 24-hour period of global ceasefire and non-violence for groups in active combat. https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-peace
The International Day of Peace reminds us of our commonalities. Regardless of where we come from or what languages we speak, we are more alike than we are different. Honoring those commonalities makes peace possible. Life is better in a world where peace exists. We draw on the wisdom and experience of the peacemakers and peacekeepers to learn how we can individually and collectively be catalysts for peace – how we can manifest a world that works for everyone, everywhere. Nations and communities around the world struggle with poverty and disease, severely limited access to education and healthcare, particularly in areas where violence is common.
There is something here much bigger than our day-to-day routines. We have the opportunity to transform the world so that our loved ones can live in sustainable peace. To achieve this we are called to step outside our comfort zones. Until we are willing to soften our own perspectives so we can catch a glimpse of someone else’s experience, peace will remain beyond our reach.
Peace is possible. The impact of each small act is immense. Imagine: If we were all simply kind and respectful of one another, how different life would be. We can all contribute to the worldwide culture of peace through generosity of spirit, prayer, advocacy, education and ensuring access to clean water and health resources. Every small effort makes a difference.
Throughout history, dating back to the Peace of God (989 AD) and Truce of God (1027 AD) we see movements that arose from the desire to curb violence by limiting the days and times nobility could practice violence. Most societies have lived in peace most of the time. Today, we are much less likely to die in war than our parents or grandparents. Since the establishment of the United Nations and the creation of the Charter of the United Nations, governments are obligated not to use force against others unless they are acting in self-defense or have been authorized by the UN Security Council to proceed.
Centers for Spiritual Living selected United Nations International Day of Peace in 2016, to conduct a ceremony at the Home Office in Golden, Colorado, to dedicate a Peace Pole and to formally recognize the Collective Meditation for Peace Initiative as an integral and essential element of our organization. The Heart of Peace Initiative coordinates weekly online Collective Peace Meditations and numerous events throughout the year.
At a Centers for Spiritual Living event in 2016, Rev. Dr. Kenn Gordon reminded everyone that every day must be dedicated to peace – that the consciousness of humanity must be uplifted to abiding in and as peace moment by moment. As he said, a Peace Pole is a material replica of the intention that has brought it into form, just as the actions we take demonstrate Spirit’s call to do our part to manifest a world that works for everyone. World peace is a product of what is in the hearts of individuals. To achieve world peace, we must begin with the individual. In order for us to experience and express peace, we must first reveal that peace from within us – to remove all obstacles to the free flow of peace and love.
Religious Science has always been a powerful presence for peace, a core attribute of our philosophy of Oneness. As Dr. Ernest Holmes explained in Spiritual Awareness, “When we become conscious of our existence as an idea in the Mind of God, we shall find that we are walking in pathways of peace; that something within us acts like a magnet to attract that which belongs to itself. This something is Love, the supreme impulsion of the universe.”
Today more than any other time in history, peace relies on the commitment to not only achieve equality, but to secure equity for all persons – to fulfill our vision of a world that works for everyone, everywhere.
Did you know that 1 in 5 US adults and 17% of US youth (ages 6-17) experience mental illness, more so since Covid?
In recognition of this growing problem, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors designated September 2021 as Suicide Awareness Month. Fairfax County resources for suicide prevention can be found here: https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/community-services-board/prevent-suicide.
Immanuel Presbyterian, a member of Tysons Interfaith, has also provided these resources:
- If you or someone you love is struggling with thoughts of suicide, please call 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to 741741. Help is available.
- Life Line for Veterans is a branch of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for veterans. Call: 1-800-273-8255 and Press 1; Text to 838255; or Chat online 24/7/365.
- You Matter is for youth between the ages of 13 and 24. It is a safe space for sharing and supporting one another. It is monitored by the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
- The Trevor Project is a national organization that provides suicide prevention and crisis intervention for LGBTQ+ people ages 13-24.
- The Alliance of Hope for Suicide Loss Survivors is a nonprofit organization that seeks to offer support and hope to survivors of suicide loss.
- Compassionate Friends is a national organization that offers support and resources for those who’ve lost a loved one to sudden, violent death.
In solidarity with the effort to raise awareness about mental health and suicide prevention, Tysons Interfaith will host a Zoom session with the Northern Virginia Chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) on Sunday, September 26 from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm.
Representatives from NAMI will relate personal experiences with mental illness and discuss how to detect mental illness in yourself or family members and how to help those with mental health conditions. NAMI is the leading national organization on mental health issues. Please join us for this important and valuable presentation. The link to sign up is here: NAMI Ending The Silence
When I first moved to the area, I was told that Tysons Corner Shopping Center was one of a handful in the country that is “recession-proof.” During the crash of 2008, for example, Tysons continued to thrive. That recession and the latest pandemic-caused downturn proved more difficult for Tysons II, but my sense is that even that less successful space will thrive as it becomes more of an entertainment than a shopping venue.
The reason for this resiliency becomes apparent when you visit any of the shops on a weekend or even a weekday, although COVID-19 has changed things a bit. The number of different languages and cultures represented is astounding. Many are visitors to the Washington area, but increasingly they are residents, which the data from the 2020 census shows is truly the case.
Foreign-born persons represent a whopping 45 percent of the population in Tysons, higher than in Pimmit, Idylwood or the other heavily Hispanic areas that abut Tysons, and “Asian-alone” households make up a third of the total. “White-alone” households are a minority at 48 percent, and over half of all households speak a language other than English at home. The Hispanic population is only 7 percent.
One of the founding members of my church was an original owner in The Rotunda, purchasing a spacious end unit more than 50 years ago when he could stroll leisurely around Tysons without a care in the world. When his family finally sold the property just a year or so ago, things had totally changed. Tysons is now a dense urban space, which is attractive for people who are used to living in apartments in large cities and where the amenities are upscale. Another attraction is education. I don’t have the data, but my perception is that a lot of the Chinese and Korean families who move into the area want their children to go to the BASIS School, one of the finest in the country, or any of the great public schools that surround the district.
Another interesting fact, which may rebut my contention that some families move into Tysons to take advantage of education, is that the average household size is the lowest in the area, hovering just above 2 persons per household. That would seem to confirm the view that Tysons is attractive to young couples that have no children or older, “empty nesters,” the “donut hole” in the population. Persons above 5 years old and under 18 years old represent only 17 percent of the people living in Tysons, which is the lowest in the area. Seniors over 65 represent 12 percent, higher than in Pimmit or Idylwood but lower than in McLean.
Tysons is a dynamic place and second in population size only to the sprawling McLean Census District, which will be featured in the next post in our series.