November
13, 2016
3:00-5:00
International
House
Speaker:
Paul McCartin "Genetic Engineering and Patents on Life"
Father
Paul serves now as the coordinator for Justice, Peace, and Ecology for the
Catholic Society of St. Columban in Japan. Born and raised in Australia he
was ordained in 1978 and came as a missionary in 1979.
These
are an important topics to understand more fully and possibly
to take action for our planet's future.
Please
invite a friend to come.
Your
moderator
PS
We
plan a music centered meeting for December 11th that will
include our Italian friend (classically trained in Opera as well as
popular singing) Emiliano Blasi.
Our September meeting with Nahid Nikzad drew a large
audience.
I think we all learned a lot starting with basic
information such as that her area in the north of Iran not only has the
Caspian Sea but has green rice paddies, mountains and the Fujisan of Iran--Mt.
Damavand which you see on the screen behind some of us in the photo i attach
here).
We learned much about women (and the present legal
system which is indeed repressive since the Revolution which had started with such
high hopes for democracy and rights in 1979). We also gained
insights into the high standards of education still for Iranian women and how
many actually lead their lives in the private as well as public spheres in
recent years. A brief discussion about activists and even American
counter-productive policies. We ended with a love song (in a positive take on
the richness and optimism of Persian culture and people).
Please look for Nahid`s upcoming performances of
Persian music.
Contact her for details including
sept 16, 7pm cafe near Sasazuka station.
(3) At our Sunday, October 9 meeting:
Our speaker:
Michael Berman (PhD candidate in the Dept. of
Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego and a visiting
researcher at the University of Tokyo).
He spoke about empathetic listening:
"Training interfaith chaplains and volunteers for continuing work and
service by religious groups in (still hurting) Tohoku."
It was an interesting discussion about
practical aspects (and theoretical basis) for "Compassion."
Michael spoke on empathetic listening--"Sharing
Suffering--training for interfaith volunteers and chaplains in contemporary
Japan. He gave us a brilliant discussion of a group of religious volunteers who organized support for Tohoku victims, who shared training but also faced a difficult problem. Most of the volunteers were Buddhist priests, who have day jobs to keep their temples going. However, because of concerns of separation of church and state, the group was not allowed into many care facilities if they wore their religious costumes or framed their counseling in religious language. They had to agree to approach the counseling as "ordinary people." And the majority of them found that the strain of trying to counsel and console outside of their traditional roles was very wearing, and many needed help themselves within two years.
As always, we had a lively discussion about the implications of this. Thank you Michael.
Blog site apologies. Because of illness and some other confusions, this blog did not give advance of the last two speakers, both of who were excellent. Gomen nasai. I recorded both, and if I can deal with some technical issues may be able to get the recordings up on a private youtube site for members who missed it. I especially would like to get up the recording of our singing Persian music taught and led by Nahid in September.
Chuck, gofer at large
