 Salam Shalom. Peace, Satyaka. Welcome to the Muslim Community Center. My name is Nathana Mokhar. I'm one of the core members here at MCC. And it is our pleasure to welcome and honor and welcome you all here today. It feels like we've been waiting a long time to be able to celebrate this bitter sweet day. Bitter. Because we're born in the month of August 24, only in life. There's light at the end of the tunnel. And as people of faith, we've had various responses to the trials and tribulations that the pandemic brought into our lives. Some of us asked, Dear God, why me? Good question. Gratitude. Reef. Self-reduction. All are within an experience. There are words of wisdom and guidance to be found in our holy scriptures and also in the words of our poets. Before introducing you to our conversion, we fell asleep in one world, Chinese Wall, it's no longer a war. Suddenly, you realize that power, beauty, and money are worthless, oxygen, we are fighting for. The world continues its life and it is beautiful. It only puts humans in cages. I think it's sending us a message. You are not necessary. The air, the earth, water, and sky without you are fine. When you come back, remember that you are my guests, not my masters. My son, Hafeb Amin Mokhar, to come up to the podium, Hafeb is the Arabic term for someone who has memorized the entire Holy Quran in Arabic. And so Amin Mokhar is now going to be reciting the opening chapter of the Holy Quran in Arabic followed by a translation in English. Assalamu alaikum. Peace and blessings of Allah be upon you. I seek refuge with Allah from the evil of the world. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the world. The Merciful, the Merciful. It is your day. O you, O you, we seek refuge with the righteous and the righteous. O you, O you, we seek refuge with the righteous and the righteous. O you, O you, we seek refuge with the righteous and the righteous. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. The most compassionate, most merciful. Master of the Day of Judgment. You alone we worship and you alone we ask for help. Guide us along the straight path. The straight path of those you have blessed. Not those who are responsible for the street. Welcome to all I remember the Eden Interface, Eden Area Interfaith Council. And I brought a candle. I've known for lighting a candle in the beginning. It used to be a very common needle in my faith practice, which is lit from the abrasion or the new fire at Easter. And there is that sense of new beginnings. So if all of you, if you're comfortable, the closure eyes are just focused softly out in front of you and take a couple of deep breaths, bringing yourself to being present here in this new beginning. Breathing in and out. Breathing out all the losses and sadnesses. And bringing them in as a part of the way we are. People took over. We lost a lot of. And also then as you breathe in, breathe in the strength, the immunity of our presence with each other. And the love and hope for the future made it so. I'd like to invite Bishop Robert Mara from Locaz and linear Sophie from the Eden Area Interfaith Council to come out with us church and MCC East Bay. So strange wearing clerics because I've been doing everything from home. Yeah, it still fits. A little COVID-19 extra round. So he brought with me in our tradition when we celebrate the life of the loved ones, cards, which we put a photo of our loved ones and then on the backside we'll put a prayer. And my niece chose the prayer of the Psalms 23 my shepherd I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He dideth me besides the still waters. He restoreeth my soul. He dideth me to lie down in green pastures. And for his name's sake, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no shore for thou art with me. And thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest the table before me and the presence of my enemies. Thou art known to my head with oil my cup full of oil. Surely gladness and mercy follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in a house of the Lord forever. Amen. Peace. Given time, celebration of life with my family and processing the emotions and going to the five stages of grief, I put on my human services hat and I began to look at the systematic issues that were part of my brother's life. His contracted the virus was not by circumstance and we have to remember that many people who have contracted the virus was not by circumstance, but rather by institutional systematic racism. My brother, when he was released from the men's correction facility, had no process for him to be received back to the community which happens to most men and women who have been incarcerated. Our health system failed him. He did not receive the information he needed in order to protect himself from the beginning of the pandemic, but rather the information received over the radio was through those who present information in the files one and was unable to hear the truth because my previous brother Abel was the oldest, my brother Armando was the second he died of the last pandemic in the 1990s and I began to see systematically the same issues about how to address a pandemic, how to get the information out so that people have the knowledge and the wisdom to protect themselves and others and not have to rely on a government that was not going to give us the truth. My response to the celebration of his life was to bring to light the truth of why he contracted the virus and why his daughter and grandchildren within their lives. The pandemic is not over. People are still dying. People are still contracting the virus here in the United States and abroad and we see the same systematic issues in other countries around economics around religious beliefs around gender. These issues are still problematic for us and have to be addressed by bringing it into the light and unless we are willing to address our own prejudices that we may still hold on to the next pandemic is not addressed in a way in which we show compassion we find ourselves in today and so I pray for those when we are still losing to this virus and I pray for the compassion we should I'm not a practice speaker so I live with my father so I'll get off of this it took less than a month from him experiencing a low grade fever from COVID you don't miss the well till the water runs dry and it's still real from the expediency that it all happened because it will be the world coaster of hopeful medical advice and clinical forms to integrate or try new therapy that would always authorize by phone or email because we've been sent both to the hospital and communicating with him on FaceTime and giving him that help and delivering those final good advice to him virtually as he took his difficult last breaths and then also livestreaming his funeral so that his family and friends were without putting themselves at risk and then after that in the days the weeks, the months that followed feeling that hurt when people don't take COVID and then trying to use my sorrows after that as a lesson to take precautions so now as we re-enter a society half of Americans say COVID has been stressful and they're worried that we'll have to recover we have a natural defense mechanism to request and forget about difficult times but as we sit here today and we see the life at the end of this tunnel and we hope that it's not an oncoming training another surge in the pandemic the silver lining is this I think what we're doing here now finding faith in community with this eyeball to eyeball interaction where human need this to be social and equal to one another so for me hearing stories from others that my dad was one of the helpers he helped everybody and that's where I got that to make someone else feel better and what I can do to help somebody who doesn't have the same fortune that I do I just want to continue that legacy so after the fall of this pandemic that lifted from all the west I hope to give an all of a back with a grateful bit of clarity and be thankful to each person who brought us to where we are and who better be tested Elsa Grawalski from Tri Valley Cultural Juice and those whose memory be cherished written by Sylvia Caimans and Jack Frymer at the rising of the sun and it's going down we remember them re-birth of spring we remember them at the shining of the sun and in the warmth of summer we remember them at the wrestling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn we remember them at the beginning of the year and at its end we remember them as long as we live they too will live for they are a part of us as we remember them when we are weary and in need of strength we remember them when we are lost and sick at heart we remember them when we have joy we crave to share we remember them when we have decisions that are difficult to make we remember them when we have achievements that are based on matters we remember them as long as we live for they are a part of us as we remember them and now Elsa would like to share a poem that she wrote with her Jewish culture school class that's cool it's called the year like no other during this year like no other we've been wanting at home we've been struggling through this feeling and we got but more together than ever before we got to cook and sing we got to cook special treat welcome Trish Monroe from the Livermore City Council good afternoon I want to thank the organizers for inviting me to participate and I want to thank the organizers for putting this together at this time ritual is important in moving forward this is a ritual that marks the new beginning we're here to celebrate coming to the light but I want to really appreciate what Hina said about this being bittersweet I appreciate being here now looking at all of you with three dimensional bodies with no masks because vaccinations I really wanted dance for joy but we cannot go forward without remembering the losses we have heard the loss of a brother we've heard of the loss of a father from COVID my father too died during this time not of COVID but during COVID we mourn all of those losses we have over 600,000 have died in the United States in almost 4 million worldwide and my joy is tenured for sorrow for those lost for those still suffering for those who will be lost it's tenured with loss of comfort for all of us who are bereaved and with hopes for a complete healing in body and soul for all who suffer and for their caregivers the challenges we faced in this past year and more go well beyond the pandemic the images of last year remind us all of those challenges that me and George Floyd snap August fearsome orange sky from hell or Mordor I was a Tolkien fan, I still am the January 6th insurrection and the desecration of our people's house in the county we all experience shocks from those moments the privilege of serving on City Council which means I have a view of the work of what our public servants do and I want to speak to them and give them the honor and the gratitude that they deserve these invisible public servants worked tirelessly to manage these problems they worked tirelessly through the emergencies through bringing people together and times when we were separated administering tests coping with food distribution developing and implementing emergency plans assisting with economic issues much more I want to offer thanks to them for their heroic characters in this past year and thanks for the work that has yet to come because we are not done with this and turning back to where we are here now today we know those challenges are not over COVID variations are spreading the vaccine is not available in so many places around the world some including our children under 12 cannot be vaccinated yet and we have those who refuse to be vaccinated we have a lot of hope to do that we will be reckoning with the racial and social economic inequalities for years to come should we choose to take that on and I hope and pray we will the effects of climate change drought and heat are here now that large sky from last summer I think about that as we approach our own summer and I'm terrified so it would be easy to retreat into the darkness but we are not here to do that we are here to set fear aside and walk into the light because that's all we can do and so I want to leave you with the words of Reb Naftman of Bredslav he was a Hasidic rabbi from the late 8th century and he said whole Ha'olam whole Ha'olam kulo the whole world Geshe and Sanma own is a very narrow bridge we had it the criminal of it the most important thing that not of all the heart of it all lo le fatah klo is not to fear it all don't fear lo le fatah klo so in full acceptance of those challenges that face us together with us join hands and that's difficult on a narrow bridge but we're going to do it anyway join your hands and travel that narrow bridge toward the light let us go forward easy we have Gaston from Tri-Valley Interconnect there okay we put it together and being in this room because I see our interfaith organizations that we can do something together I want to read you our Interfaith Interconnect mission statement because what I'm going to talk about has something to do with the statement and it is to enrich and educate our self-life ritual in your family or maybe in the families of people that you know your relatives raise your hand wow, a lot of you well, our family had to postpone two weddings and the wedding that I want to talk about under the category of hope is Parker's grandson and his fiance we're going to get married last summer 2020 two weeks ago we went to their wedding June 13th 2021 so their life was definitely put on a years worth of fulfillment the interesting thing about going to this wedding was we went to the wedding rehearsal and watched it and I saw six groomsmen and two bridesmaids what's going on here and I thought about it for a few minutes and I realized that the groom, Jamie had lived in New Jersey in fact the same town all his life and his fiance had come from Ukraine six years ago so Jamie had all these friends that he had made in his entire life and that long so she didn't have the time she was going to college there was no way to make intimate friendships the way Jamie did so we were sitting kind of up and watching the rehearsal and I looked at these six groomsmen I was quite taken their skin tones ranged from dark brown to light pink and their hair styles were long beards short beards very long hair very short hair and they were all so different from each other so I asked Jamie tell me about the groomsmen he said well the seat his name is Voltage his family and he came from Punjab in India and the guy standing next to him is Jason little guy he's from Korea and the tall blonde guy is half German and half Ukrainian and the Rotan fellow he said he was 100% Italian and the last guy was Irish but with some genes of Native Americans thrown in there too and Jamie the groom was his English and Irish and he's got bright red hair very short so I was really impressed with this group of young men who came from such different backgrounds and they had a wonderful camaraderie and they were having such a good time I was planning to have a big picture of these guys but because of circumstances we were doing this outside we didn't have a big picture but I'm going to just pass this around so if somebody is willing to pass this you'll see them okay so the so they kind of hung out together because until the actual wedding the groom is not supposed to be with the bride so here were these six guys laughing and playing ball and just having the most wonderful time and I think in talking and thinking about this wedding my favorite memory was at the reception they had music Ukrainian music and American music and there was a very lively Ukrainian tune being played and all seven of the guys who taught you the dance and he said nobody we just made it up on the spot anyway the my feeling about these kids was that this is what our mission statement describes as one of the goals for the dry valley people of different backgrounds enjoying each other's company and celebrating together if somebody can help me okay we have a little pleasant surprise, not a little big pleasant surprise in the program so we're just going to degrade a little bit it's my honor to welcome Congressman Eric Swarrow to come share some thoughts with us he represents the 15th conference good afternoon and thank you so much Hina and to convening all of us as we seek to transition out of this virus and back to a vaccinated re-opened, reinvigorated community but we must not forget what has happened to our country who we have lost how we can never repeat some of the mistakes that were made that attributed to the loss and how we can be stronger as a community as we come out of this first and foremost thank you to every healthcare worker first responder who endured and showed up to work every single day to take care of the sickest of us they are the best of us who took care of the sickest of us during our generations most trying challenge but also thank you to our interfaith community we look up with food banks for those who have lost their job and never imagine that they would be waiting in the hours long food bank to feed their family thank you to those who collected personal protective equipment so that our nurses firefighters individuals on the front lines during the early stages of the pandemic could protect themselves so that they could take care of each of us for keeping the faith among yourselves but also for us in the community and transitioning responsibly to zoom so that we could congregate either Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays throughout the pandemic because we know that mentally this virus challenged us in many ways almost as strongly as it challenged us physically and because we could still congregate with our synagogues our mosques our churches we were still connected together but the world didn't stop with its challenges just because we were indoors we continue to see instances of hate gun violence challenges in the Middle East that still call upon all of us to take our collected humanity and project it here at home and across the world for good and you kept doing that and I know now that we are unmasked and back in the community we will keep doing that and so as the representative for this congressional district my pledge to you is to also be re-invigorated to serve to serve you to serve the cause of America which is to be a just, fair, humane country that holds itself up not only to ourselves but to the rest of the world is a place that believes in freedom freedom of religion freedom of speech freedom of our press and as it relates to gun violence which has torn us apart just recently the VTA shooting the freedom to live and the faith community continues to come together to make sure that we recognize those freedoms so today is a day that we mourn those we've lost but also the best thing that I think we can do for so many of those that we've lost is to celebrate what we have right now and to reaffirm our commitment to make this a country that achieves its most basic and fundamental ideals so God bless each and every one of you and thank you for allowing me to play a small part in this very worthy mourn. Thank you. Okay now I'm going to introduce Ari Sandoval from Alameda County Public Health I am a worker I have participated in the recent outbreaks such as Zika measles, Ebola and even power outages due to the wildfires but never in my wildest dreams can I imagine what the last year would bring it was the most challenging year of my nursing career when the pandemic first began I was deployed to case investigations and contact tracing at that time in February I recall we only had 15 positive cases of COVID-19 in Alameda County as of today we have had close to 90,000 positive cases in Alameda County in almost 1300 deaths in March of last year I was deployed to Operation Comfort where I would spend the next six months Operation Comfort is a project room key hotel and it provided short-term isolation and quarantine housing for people experiencing homelessness with a positive COVID-19 test active symptoms or had been in close contact to someone who was COVID-19 I felt completely coolest in working with this population if I had only worked with moms and babies before I was also terrified to get sick or to bring the virus home to my family there was tremendous chaos the first few weeks of the project uncertainty about sufficient protective equipment and the demands of caring for the sick residents was so overwhelming that I cried on my drive home every day for that first week with masks being in short supply I reached out to two lovely women from the Eden Area Interfaith Council Julie Greenfield and Diana Ray Ryan who grishly offered to donate handmade masks face shields and scrub caps made by volunteers to the public health nurses of the hotels the supplies felt God sent and I felt the overwhelming power of community coming together to protect its healthcare workers on April 17, 2020 a day I'll never forget a new resident at the hotel I'll call him David arrived and I realized that he needed to go to the hospital immediately I called the ambulance assisted him to the restroom and waited with him in the lobby he was a complete stranger to me but I still remember the simple whole fan on the third finger of his left hand and thinking how much he must love his life and family despite all the hardships he's faced I wondered who his family was and thought how hard it must be for him to be away from them I tried to comfort him and I told him that we were taking care of him but he was in good hands he nodded his head in understanding shortly thereafter he collapsed I started performing CPR until the paramedics arrived but unfortunately they had passed away for days after I felt completely lost and devastated I couldn't sleep and I would cry out of the blue I was filled with grief I sought counseling and had the unconditional support of my family I thought why me I now strongly believe that I was meant to be there for a reason like I had a purpose there that day because if I was the last person with David in his final moments I gave him the dignity he deserved and he did not die alone like so many unfortunate people during this pandemic I realized that I have a lot I will continue to do my part to save lives and promote the health of my community I can proudly say that the project from Key Hotels in Alameda County have served almost 1200 unsheltered residents and extended to housing as of today with collaboration between many of our community partners Alameda County has provided over 2 million first dose vaccinations to residents 12 years from over which is 8% of the total putting us above national and state averages on a personal note working through this pandemic has inspired me to return to school so that I can return to better serve institutions our work is not yet over but together we can strive to make our community a better place and overcome all obstacles telling about my experiences has been both healing and empowering and I thank you for listening and for welcoming me here today thank you I want to take a moment to share a quote by Fred Rogers and you as a member of Mr. Rogers Mr. Rogers this is a very touching quote when I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news my mother would say to me look for the helpers you will always find people who are helping to this day especially in times of disaster I remember my mother's words and I'm always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers so many caring people so thank you, Ari for all of your work and dedication during this most difficult period you and your fellow nurses and healthcare workers put your lives at risk to care for those who are suffering and for all of us thank you to all of the healthcare workers and all of the essential workers who made it possible for us to get through this pandemic to feel cared for, to be fed and with all of our most important services covered. This is a debt which can never be adequately repaid and we also wish to recognize all of the community efforts which helped save people's lives kept them fed and kept them feeling connected the Eden Area Interfaith Council did its part by engaging in a mass NTG hired by congressmen called clock masks and many air covers and face shields which were then distributed to hospitals homeless shelters, post offices senior residences, etc many churches and community groups offered food boxes, COVID testing help with accessing social services and more to all of you who are part of these efforts we say thank you okay now I'd like to welcome Joy Barnett from Tri City Interfaith Council good afternoon I'm here as a representative of the Tri City Interfaith Council I'm not a president but I'm also a volunteer chaplain at Washington Hospital and the pandemic is personal to me because I could not see the people I served the Tri City Interfaith Council held a monthly vigil on a very well traveled corner in downtown Fremont it's a major crossroads, they got lots of recognition though I'm not sure anybody really was paying attention to the signs each month the specific topic is different the theme every month is the same we are one and this that phrase even for me as a scientist industry and now a volunteer chaplain this virus is personal to all viruses humans are simply a place to grow a place to reproduce they see none of the differences we see we are all the same regardless of skin color regardless of income regardless of faith tradition regardless of guard none of that matters to the virus to the coronavirus we are all us there are no thems so I called into rooms I talked to staff who were overwhelmed because there was no space on their floor if I was lucky I could talk to one maybe two COVID patients who were getting better I watched the census rise and fall and rise again the numbers in the newspapers and on the news became very personal to me Michael who could not see their families who were in for weeks who had fascinating stories if they had the energy to talk and do anything more than just catch their breath and song and be grateful that someone was talking to them other than the staff because the staff that were in time people didn't stop getting sick of novel illnesses during the pandemic in March 2021 as Alameda celebrated its one year of sheltering in place the dry city interfaith council convened on zoom because we had no idea when this would really end and we convened a memorial service similar to this arranged in three parts the first was in grief and loss the second was on community and the last was on cover the meditator service was made up of prayers and scripture readings from the many faith traditions that are present on our council and together we were able to find the ability, the compassion and the unity and the resilience to walk together I just want to share with you the closing prayer from that service it comes from lifting our voices readings in a budding tradition it is a unitarian universalist poem spirit of life and love we live in a fragmented world that tempts us to despair we would put it back together piece by piece if it were ours to choose but sometimes the fragments are enough in a world of cruelty there is still power in every act of kindness in a time of doubt there is still power in every act in an age of division there is still power in every act of unity maybe we remember that sometimes fragments are being re-made or addressed the council would like to source their drive to our small world represented with a little gift or appreciation I got a size large because I know she's accepting 20 weeks thank you so much thank you I said I'd like to invite Leslie Miro from the church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts at this event a month before the COVID-19 pandemic forced us into a lockdown situation my little two-year-old grandson was in the hospital with a very bad case of RSV which is an infection of the respiratory tract he's my little miracle grandbaby a micro-preme having weighed just 1.2 pounds at birth once he recovered and came home from the hospital my son and daughter I want to ask me if I would watch him full-time until he was completely recovered and could go back to preschool less than a month later the pandemic forced the preschool to close and my son and daughter in law began working from home masks and germ control were already part of their world and my world as well and we all just doubled and tripled our efforts to stay well and keep my grandson well I'm extremely grateful I live with my 85-year-old mother and grateful that she also was not affected by COVID my heart mourns for the millions of lives lost my family was personally affected by this terrible disease one of my nieces had family members passed away pregnant with her third child came down with COVID catching up from her husband who had caught from a co-worker although sick for several weeks they fortunately had fairly mild cases and recovered and she has since given birth to a beautiful baby boy a friend and member of my church congregation who suffers from very severe asthma spent two weeks in critical condition in the ICU four months later she's still in respiratory therapy and has had to change her lifestyle and scale back her physical activity I know so many other friends whose families were impacted by this virus I have friends who lost parents who lost brothers and sisters I'm so very grateful for the specialists who worked so hard to protect and care for those who were ill in the middle of the pandemic all of a sudden was involved in a serious car accident and was in the ICU for two weeks of being hospital the bishop of my church congregation is an emergency room nurse there and he's the one that called me I was grateful that I received a call from him and he was able to provide details of the injuries to me in a way that I could understand and he was able to provide emotional and spiritual support to me at a time it was a miracle that the very week of his accident even was starting to allow one visitor at a time into the hospital rooms or into the ICU at least for a very limited window to visit I was able to be with my son every day during this hospital stay I was amazed at the safety protocols that they had implemented in me and I'm sure all hospitals were the same I'm grateful that my son has recovered well and I'm grateful for the hundreds of thousands who worked so hard and so quickly to develop all those who have helped administer it I'm grateful my entire family has been vaccinated and we are all very thankful for those listening who have suffered illness, death in their families loneliness and isolation please know that I am deeply sorry this pandemic has been a trial of our faith and patience in every way I would like to close with a thought from one of my church's senior leaders he said often the deep valleys of our present will be understood only by looking back on them from the mountain of our future experience often we can't see the Lord's hand in our lives until long after trials have passed often the most difficult times of our lives are essential in walks that form the foundation of our character and pave the way to future opportunity understanding and happiness and continue to pray that we will all trust the Lord's timing and his promises let us all try to be of help and service to our family friends and acres I pray that we will stay strong and stay well, thank you I would like to welcome Katherine and the Hirschhorn from Temple Death Shalom I think Rebbe the Bunakha Medal of Cuds said there's nothing more whole than a broken heart in other words when our heart breaks it opens up and it provides an opening for someone to embrace you and to listen to you or for you to listen to somebody and embrace them loss is part of the everyday fabric of the universe and it always remains part of us after a painful loss life continues but it's going to be different than it was before so today happens to be a Jewish holiday it's called the 17th day of the Hebrew month of Tamuz Siva Sarva Tamuz it's a minor fast day it's a start to what we know as the three weeks of spiritual introspection and morning it's up to a major fast day that's called the 9th day of Tshar Baha according to the rabbis it's not only the day when the walls of the second temple in Jerusalem were reached leading to its destruction three weeks later in the year 70 in the common era but a lot of other calamities happened on this day which affected the Jewish people including when it was said that Moses broke the first set of tablets when he came down and he saw the golden calf so we have these images of the breaching of city walls the breaking of sacred tablets we have this image of shattered broken stone so we're not strangers to brokenness we know that what has been built can be torn down that what is secure can be suddenly taken away and that what is sacred can be desecrated and destroyed and wherever we stand in the midst of fragments of shattered hope or broken lives we sometimes ask the question well what went wrong but in this season which is a moment of spiritual reflection we're also summoned to ask what will we do now what can we build together what's new perhaps still unseen what possibilities are still being born because a fast day it's not just a sad day it's a day where we see where the foundations of our lives the foundations of our families of our communities of our countries to look out and see where are they imperiled where are the fractures now where are the breaks and what can we do together to repair them now so I'm going to chant a prayer it's the shortest healing prayer in the Bible in the Torah it's the one that was said that Moses said on behalf of Miriam when she became ill the words are which just means please heal her and after I finish sort of chanting it I'm going to repeat the last night line last line and I'm going to just keep chanting it over and over and that's going to be an opportunity for all of you to call out either people who need healing or issues places things in our world in our society that need healing and just feel free to call out from wherever you're sitting peace be with you all I just want to share it seemed like on this occasion the peace prayer of St. Francis of Assisi would be most appropriate in psychology the nation of Italy the peace prayer speaks to all those who are in peace prayer of St. Francis Lord make me an instrument of your peace where there is hatred let me so love where there is injury harden where there is doubt where there is despair hope where there is darkness light where there is sadness joy O Divine Master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console to be understood as to understand to be loved for it is in giving that we receive it is in pardoning that we are pardoned and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life amen good afternoon everyone I'm the senior minister at the church of Christ in the cherry land neighborhood of Haverd my congregation is proud to be one of the founding members of the eating area interfaith council and pleased and honored to be here today to be a part of this important observance my congregation is situated in cherry land which is in the 94541 zip code we are one of the zip codes in alameda county in the state of california and the united states of america probably in the global village by the covid virus we have a high percentage of essential workers low income people who are living in densely populated areas as well as in high density housing and we have both been challenged and privileged to try to be a part of the answer to the prayers that we seek by providing food emergency food covid testing covid vaccination cict tracing health education and emergency food service delivery our profile has been substantially raised in this pandemic which has been an interesting kind of thing and we've received a lot of thanks and appreciation for that but i want to i want to share why i think that that has been possible for our congregation and it's a lesser known but more important story i think to share and it has to do really with i would say two groups of people undocumented spanish speaking mothers in our school district had nothing to eat no jobs to go to to make money and no restaurants or grocery stores they could go to even if they had jobs and money and they called their counselors and teachers and begged for food the counselors and teachers called us they said pass or leave we don't know what to do intelligent middle class people that they were they're like would you donate $50 for one kid so i could get him a food card and i said well i'm willing to do that but the food card won't be the gift card won't be any good because the restaurants are closed oh yeah i said so i don't think that's gonna work but we have a kitchen and we have some groceries and i know some people so i went out and asked undocumented spanish speaking mothers who will never have papers we're not allowed to be citizens of this country we're experienced the benefits that most of us enjoy would you come and donate lots of your time so that we can provide these children with food and they said of course i said i can't pay you they said it doesn't matter children are hungry and together they're going to give us $5,000 meals until the government got their act together enough to provide pandemic ebt for these children and the food was delivered by some of the people sitting in the chairs right here and when the children in our school district needed school supplies and they didn't have wifi they didn't have they said i have some good friends all the children found out what we were doing she happens to be a leader in the jane community and she called me up and she said how can we help and we talked about things they wanted to bring food and we kind of decided that the mexican diet wasn't really that compatible they might not just have that kind of food on their shelves i said you know people really need cleaning supplies and they need sanitation supplies what do you think about that she said no problem pantry they weren't just from terryland they were from all over these incorporated and south almea county neighborhoods we were able to meet that need we were able to meet that need so we just shared the art times and our capacity for good and evil so god bless all of you thank you for being a part of the answers to the prayers that the whole world needs amen it's a blessing to be here with you all today as a member of the bahai faith that all people belong to one human family the loss of life in our area our nation and the world has been an ongoing tragedy for all of us we take comfort journey towards god and the next world and we pray for the progress of those who have passed away in memory of those who have passed on i'll be saying a bahai prayer for the department we learned his space to be have offered his sublocations to be have been assured of life pardon and forgiveness he hath abandoned this moral life and hath flown to the kingdom of immortality yearning for the favor of meeting thee oh lord glorify his station shelter him under the pavilion of my supreme mercy cause him to enter the glorious paradise and perpetuate his existence as a garden that he may clench into the sea of life in the world of mysteries the barely thou art the generous the powerful the forgiver and the store i'd like to invite Soni Kaur god unsing and Manjeet Singh on the hayward sip for a blot of wine i'm first to share some of our thoughts that i realized after we wrote this there was a lot of parallel messages of unity that perhaps god was trying to tell us and remind me of because today i was going to talk to you about the power so i'm not going to repeat that too much but um i just wanted to have you think a little bit about something probably obvious and familiar with all of you historically which is that academics, pandemics disease it's been with us as long as we've been around young or congregations have had to learn to tackle them before time and time again one example in our sixth faith that i can think of is our eighth and youngest Guru Guru Har Krishan Ji who in the mid 1600s at the age of just seven was trying to treat smallpox there's a famous sixth saying that we use when we greet one another upon responding to the question of how we're doing we say that we are into our vikla and that term roughly translates to being in high spirits regardless of circumstances being in optimism in our main or last or prayer we ask god to keep our one niva and our left uchi that translates to mean to keep our mind or our mind's ego low while keeping our mind or our will power high of course that is way tougher to do in trying times but if i strongly believe we can aim for it then we can compare how close to power we actually are to that state of mind and hopefully work towards some work we use hymns that i just know those are called slugs and they're actually like the introduction to the meaning of it that i'm now about to sing a really big part of our faith as insurers true for many others here so first time i write down the first line just for pronunciation and meaning and then i would really appreciate if we could all sing together the first line and the people stayed home and were still and they listened more deeply some meditated some prayed some danced some met their shadows and the people began to think differently and the people healed and in the absence of people living in ignorant dangerous mindless and heartless ways the earth began to heal and when the danger passed and the people joined together again they grieved their losses and made new choices and dreamt new images and created new ways to live and heal the earth quality as they have been maybe meet and help us