As I wrote in an earlier post, Tysons can be a good if not great place for biking and hiking. But when Fairfax County shuts down one northbound lane of Tysons Boulevard to vehicular traffic beginning on July 6, you must at least try one time for yourself. Capital Bike Share station map
The Bike Share bikes are heavy, so if you procure one, you will go slow, not such a bad thing even in these pandemic times. Tysons Boulevard is not as busy as International Drive but believe me it can get a bit of traffic. So, closing it off to allow pedestrians and cyclists is a good tradition to have.
Let me remind you that in addition to access to Tysons Galleria, you can easily access one of the few trails in Tysons. Even before you enter the closed portion of the street, take a right down West Branch and then enter the trail on your left. It will take you to the (artificial turf) soccer field.
As delicious local summer and fall produce reaches its peak, you might want to check out the bounty that can be found at our local farmers’ markets. These markets offer a wide variety of locally grown and produced fruits and vegetables, flowers, dairy products, baked goods – even soaps, jams and pickles! Wear your walking shoes and bring a basket or shopping bag, because you never know what treasures you might find as you support our local farmers and businesses.
- The FRESHFARM Farmers Market at the Boro is located in the heart of Tysons in the new Boro residential and shopping district off of Route 7. You can find it behind the Loft Building at 8399 Westpark Drive on Thursdays from 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm through October 28th. Read more here.
- The Falls Church Farmers Market To Go is open every Saturday from 8:00 am to Noon. It is located at 300 Park Avenue, Falls Church. Additional information can be found here.
- The McLean Farmers Market is open every Friday through November 12 from 8:00 am to Noon. It is located at 1659 Chain Bridge Road, McLean. Additional information can be found here.
- The Vienna Farmers Market, sponsored by the Optimist Club of Greater Vienna, is open Saturday mornings through October 30. It is located at the Vienna Community Center, 120 Cherry Street, SE, Vienna. Additional information can be found here.
- The NOVA Central Farm Market is open year round on Sundays. April through December hours are 8:30 am to 1:00 pm. It is located at the Church of the Holy Comforter, 543 Beulah Road, Vienna. (The Church of the Holy Comforter is a member of Tysons Interfaith.) Additional information can be found here.
- The FRESHFARM Farmers Market Mosaic is open Sundays through December 26, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm. It is located at 2910 District Avenue, Fairfax. Additional information can be found here.
Did you know?…….. The National Council on Aging has a wonderful tool for exploring benefits that are available for seniors that they may not be aware of. According to the National Council on Aging, there are 2,500 benefit programs for seniors nation-wide. Their on-line tool enables seniors (or volunteers/family members helping them) to explore programs that may be available to them in their local area. The types of programs that exist for qualifying seniors may include medication and other health care cost assistance for items such as copays and deductions; income and pension assistance; food and nutrition assistance; housing, transportation, and utilities assistance; tax relief; veterans programs; employment tools; respite care; parks and recreation discounts and educational programs.
Not only is this a great opportunity for seniors to learn about programs that may be available to them, it is also a great tool for individuals, faith communities and others who would like to volunteer their time and talent to help our seniors access these helpful benefits.
For more information, please visit: https://www.benefitscheckup.org/
The Republic of Korea or South Korea is special in that it is the only Peace Corps-recipient country to create its own similar agency (KOICA) and because we got there late when the poverty most Americans expect to see in places we send our volunteers was disappearing. They also have more Christian missionaries around the globe today, second only to us. Here are some photos dating back to my days in South Korea as a Peace Corps volunteer: a typical bus ride; a look out from inside such a bus; a traditional house found only at museums now:
More follow of old men at Heiinsa (Buddhist) Temple, home to the oldest print blocks (Buddhist scriptures) in the world (and you thought Europe invented printing); a sign suggesting there was good reason for us English volunteers to be teaching middle school in the first place (the “23th Century” bit should read “In Year 23 of the reign of King Kong Min of the Goryeo Dynasty” — that’s 1371 CE by the way, the king and his dynasty fading away not long after); and how the typical Korean middle school student approached learning English back then:
But then look at this recent photo showing a cute elementary school girl student rapt in attention at the teaching of the hip son of a K-30 Peace Corps volunteer (we instantly date each other by our group number):
A good many years have elapsed since my days in the Peace Corps and his. But the beauty of the endeavor is still the same.
Some of us from my K group and a few others had a reunion of sorts recently enjoying each other and being unmasked in the beautiful sun of Front Royal. Lots of Korean and American food and drink. Our old Peace Corps Korea Director was there, and as our eyes rolled, he famously again lectured us on the importance of these sacrosanct Peace Corps goals:
1. To help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
There is an obvious connection to what Tysons Interfaith is about. Promoting better understanding between people wasn’t a bad idea then and it ain’t such a bad idea now, either.
It may seem strange to talk about spirituality and Chinese communism, but an article posted by a former colleague on LinkedIn recently got me thinking about my days as an economic officer in our embassy in Beijing more than 20 years ago.
Back then I often hung out in a crowded, run-down “salon” bearing the unusual name of the Unirule Institute of Economics ( 天則經濟研究所) UNIRLE (unirule.cloud) I was the only foreigner in the crowded room listening to the debates between the economists and lawyers from all over China. One day one of the founders, Mao Yushi (no relation to the Chairman and the name just happens to be spelled the same in English) invited me to his home, the first private residence I had ever seen: an apartment worth a lot of money today.
Professor Mao made some tea and we sat for a bit. At one point he said, “Let me tell you something about the Communist Party: there are ‘free thinkers’ like me who are supposed to talk to people like you and give our best advice to the decision-makers who can’t talk to you or let you know what they are thinking.” It was an epiphany.
I was saddened to learn recently that after flourishing for many years after I left Beijing, in 2013 Professor Mao got into trouble for writing an article calling for Chairman Mao to be reevaluated and for his body to be removed from his mausoleum. There’s even a Youtube video showing Party members chanting “Down with the traitors [former premier] Wen Jiabao and Mao Yushi.” And in 2019, Chairman Xi Jinping finally shut him down altogether. Well, Professor Mao did win the Cato Institute’s Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty. (The Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty | Cato Institute).
In an interview with Radio France International’s Chinese service on the occasion of his 90th birthday, Professor Mao said this (my translation): “You asked me if I’ve ever wanted to live in a different time or in a different country? Well, of course, if I had the choice I’d love to go to America. But that’s my individual concern. I’m not thinking only of myself; I’m thinking of everyone. Can everybody go to the States? Of course not. But what is possible is to reform our country so it’s a bit more like America. That is both possible and worth striving for with all one’s might.”
I never talked to Professor Mao about religion, but like all good Communists he probably considers himself a materialist. Still, it is interesting that the term “unirule” is an awkward translation of a classical Chinese concept that other famous Western scholars have translated as “heaven.” One passage in the Confucian Record of Music was translated by a renowned Scottish missionary like this:
When one has mastered completely (the principles of) music, and regulates his heart and mind accordingly, the natural, correct, gentle, and honest heart is easily developed, and with this development of the heart comes joy. This joy goes on to a feeling of repose. This repose is long-continued. The man in this constant repose becomes (a sort of) Heaven. Heaven-like, (his action) is spirit-like. Heaven-like, he is believed without the use of words. Spirit-like, he is regarded with awe, without any display of rage.
Like the Chinese Communist Party, the Confucians didn’t talk about religion, but for a guy who loves singing in the choir at my church, the passage is music to my ears. Maybe we should translate “unirule” as “oneness of humanity?”
This past month, Peter Bartholomew, an old acquaintance of mine from my Peace Corps Korea days passed away suddenly. Peter was no ordinary guy, as the attached obituary by Andrew Salmon attests: Asia Times: Guardian of Korean Heritage Passes. It’s long, but very juicy and worth reading, particularly the passage about fights between developers and preservationists. “Developers cleared Seoul’s higgledy-piggledy little alleys and tiny hanok to make way for the steel-and-glass commercial towers and soulless apartment complexes that dominate today’s city.” In a tribute to Peter, one Korean-language paper used this as the headline: “An American who loved Korea more than Koreans.” What a legacy.
We don’t have the same issues that Peter gleefully fought in Seoul, but there are some in my neighborhood who resist the “infill” taking place and the plan to turn McLean into a “mini Tysons.” They don’t want to change the “soul” of the neighborhood. Similarly, I know many are hoping that Tysons, as it develops over the next thirty years, will be purposeful in preserving natural settings and developing physically pleasing and connecting spaces for the humans who will live and work there.
I share with you this image of McLean Central Park where I walked our grand dog just the other day. Off the main path I found this amazing shrine placed there apparently by a group of teenagers.
I’m of two minds about the park improvement project, which among other things will bring us an amphitheater to compete with other venues in Tysons. I like the woods just the way they are. And wouldn’t it be nice if there were someplace in Tysons where kids could do something other than play soccer on artificial turf, maybe putting up a shrine like this, even if it’s to an anime character?
Buddhist holidays are a little bit confusing because different traditions recognize different dates, but…
The biggest and most important holiday celebrated by all Buddhist schools is called Vesak (Vesakha), along with some other local names. All Buddhist schools agree it’s the Buddha’s birthday. Two out of the three major lineages recognize it as the Buddha’s birthday, enlightenment day, and the day of his passing away. It’s traditionally celebrated on the day of the full moon in May (this year May 26), but celebrations occur throughout May and early June.
On Vesak Day the Buddhist temples are decorated with flags and flowers, and devotees assemble in temples for ceremonial rituals. There are often candlelit processions in the evening. Buddhists pay homage to Buddha by following his teachings. On Vesak, Buddhists try to practice love, peace and harmony by participating in volunteer and civic activities that benefit all humanity.
If you have a Buddhist friend, feel free to wish them a fruitful and spiritually refreshing Vesak Day on May 26th.
Buddha’s birthday in Busan at Jinjing Temple, circa 1977
A recent article in the Washington Post literally struck home for me.
“Two Kens” are featured in an article on the front page of the May 5, 2021 Washington Post: How two Black CEOs got corporate America to pay attention to voting rights. The article notes in in passing that one of them, Ken Chenault, who was CEO of American Express for 17 – yes, that’s SEVENTEEN – years, “grew up in a middle-class Long Island neighborhood, the son of a dentist and a dental hygienist.”
Well, I grew up in the same neighborhood, sat on the bench as a freshman when Ken was a junior and a starter on the Waldorf School of Garden City basketball team, and idolized both him and his brother, Stephan, who was a year ahead of me and who gleefully jumped on my back when I was playing a pirate and he a policeman in the second act of a memorable (for me) production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance.”
Ken Chenault, #13; Stephan Chenault, #4 (photo obscured); the author, #20
Ken and his brother were not, like too many African Americans, recruited by my private school in mostly white Garden City, for their basketball prowess. We lived in nearby Hempstead, where I was part of the white minority and went to an old Methodist church that was similar in complexion. It wasn’t until many years later that I found out that the AME church less than a block away had finally absorbed my old church after the white congregation’s numbers dwindled because members fled to the suburbs. As a young boy, I was clueless about this stark racial divide.
My parents wanted me to go to a private school rather than be the only white kid in the nearby elementary school now named Barack Obama Elementary. Subsumed like so many African American boys in a majority white school setting, however, Ken and his two brothers went on to negotiate the perils of American capitalism. The rest, as they say, is history.
So whatever your religious or political affiliation, I can tell you from personal experience that when someone like Ken Chenault speaks, please listen with an open mind. As for me, I’m still sitting on the bench in awe of the starters.
On May 13th, we Muslims will be celebrating our holiday called Eid-al-Fitr. Eid al-Fitr, also called the “Festival of Breaking the Fast” or Lesser Eid, is a religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide that marks the end of the month-long dawn-to-sunset fasting of Ramadan. This religious Eid spans the first three days of the month of Shawwal and Muslims are not actually permitted to fast. You may be wondering, “why does this day change every year?” Great question! Similar to our Jewish brothers and sisters Muslims observe a Lunar calendar vs. a solar calendar which is only 355/356 days a year. This also explains why the observance or the calculation of the new moon (aka “the moon wars”) is important to Muslims as this determines the beginning of the following lunar month.
Muslims around the world celebrate in a variety of ways but all begin their day with a special Eid Prayer where we rejoice in our abundance. Pre-covid times when prayers were complete you’d hear “Eid Mubarak” or “Eid Kareem” as you turned and embraced the person who prayed right next to you, even if they were total strangers. In Muslim countries these days are national holidays where people visit friends and neighbors always with a sweet treat in hand. However, unfortunately that is not the case in the states, but our family has always made it a priority to take the day off and spend it in celebration, even if we continue to be in the minority. Our family focuses on three main components during this celebratory time, in addition to eating of course!
Philanthropy-All month-long we are encouraged to participate in charitable acts, whether you are donating your time or money. Being mindful of our family’s abundance is something we really strive to facilitate in our children. The Qu’ran specifically says: “Believe in Allah and his messenger, and give charity out of the (substance) that Allah has made you heirs of. For those of you who believe and give charity – for them is a great reward, ” this is officially known as Zakat-al-Fitr.
Forgiveness-Fasting is a physical tangible declaration of faith and in addition to that we are encouraged to seek forgiveness and to forgive as an opportunity to lighten your soul. Ramadan is not just the abstinence of eating/drinking, it is also the abstinence of bad thoughts, bad wishes, bad intentions. So our family motto is to live this truth throughout the year but especially during this month as a way of renewing our faith.
Family-When the craziness of the “everyday” scatters your family in all directions having a designated time of the year to reconnect is a blessing. Our family spends the day usually volunteering post-prayer, opening gifts, and did I mention eating. We use this day “off” (even if it isn’t recognized) to reset our intentions to God (Allah) and to each other. As we turn the page of another new (lunar) month, we wish you and your family a very Blessed Eid Mubarak.
Resources
Event Lists (Virtual and In-Person)
5/11/21 3-4pmest
Ramadan and Eid Storytime (splashthat.com)
5/13/21 10-1pmest
Eid ul-Fitr Salat & Celebrations — NWMI
Recipes
Recipes — Mind Body Soul Sisterz
Popular Children’s Books in Eid
Ramadan Around the World By: Ndaa Hassan
Under the Ramadan Moon By: Sylvia Whitman
It’s Ramadan Curious George By: Hena Khan
Night of the Moon By: Hena Khan
Festival of Eid By: Omar Khwaja
This blog post is the expressed opinion of its writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tysons Interfaith or its members.
Just as we got ready for Passover, Easter, Ramadan and Norwuz, the Gallup organization raised eyebrows finding that fewer than half of Americans now belong to a house of worship, a downward trend that has persisted for some time. Gallup: Fewer than half of Americans belong to a church or other house of worship (religionnews.com) At the same time, there seems to be concern among the “nones” (i.e. those who have no religious affiliation), that as organized religion decreases, they had better watch out because they will face more and more legal oppression. This position is forcefully articulated by a young law professor named Tyler Broker. The Legal Oppression Of Nonbelievers Will Escalate The More Religion Declines | Above the Law
Well now. Hopefully this view is overly pessimistic while others see interesting possibilities for the nation’s religious future.
Wesley Graham-Michaelson, the former general secretary of the Reformed Church in America, has this to say about the Gallup poll:
“When nones are asked why they have disaffiliated from any religious organization, only 22% say it is because they do not believe in God. The primary challenge facing pastors, rabbis and imams is how to invite nonmembers into an authentic experience of God.” Behind Gallup’s portrait of church decline (religionnews.com)
And he notes that “color” and national origin matter:
“The nones who enjoy lattes at downtown coffee shops on Sunday mornings instead of singing in church are largely young, hip and white. But the country’s demographic future as a whole is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, and this will impact the religious landscape.”
Lampooning aside, this is probably true in our Tysons community. The vibrant Korean-American churches you can find on our Tysons Interfaith map support the author’s point that immigration can actually increase religious participation. “Denominations rooted in Africa and Asia now have hundreds of congregations throughout the U.S., which continue to grow.”
The task, therefore, for faith communities in this changing world, seems to be to find ways to engage with non-affiliated “nones” to communicate that they are welcome, that the faith experience is relevant and has something to offer their lives. At the same time, we must reassure the non-practicing that faith communities such as those who are members of Tysons Interfaith, are strong supporters of all aspects of the First Amendment. Any perception of state sponsorship of religion is directly counter to the freedom to practice religion (or be agnostic). Admittedly it is tricky to juggle all the requirements of the First Amendment – to protect religious expression without crossing the line into perceived partiality for or even state sponsorship of religion. We can say, that at Tysons Interfaith, we are all about defending the freedom to exercise our various religious practices, while at the same time promoting spirituality, building community and cultivating respect and understanding among neighbors regardless of religious affiliation, race or culture.
This blog post is the expressed opinion of its writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tysons Interfaith or its members.