Join us as we welcome as our guest speaker Dr. Amer Latif, a long-time friend of All Souls Church. Amer has been professor of religious studies at Marlboro College since 2003. He is interested in issues surrounding cultural translation and has published translations of the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi, the 13th century Muslim scholar and mystic. He is currently working on two books: “Only God is Good”: Islam in the Words of Jesus and Reading the Qur’an with Rumi. Having grown up in Pakistan and with an undergraduate degree in Physics, Amer thrives on studying and creating containers that are capacious enough to hold seeming contradictions such as science and religion, East and West. As he ponders the confusing time in which we now find ourselves, Amer will present an analysis of the turning movements of the Whirling Dervishes, founded by Rumi in the 13th century. What allows them to keep their balance when the world starts to change rapidly and becomes a blur? How do they ground themselves? Where is the still center amidst all this motion? Amer will connect the movement of the Dervishes to Islamic ritual prayer and the remembrance of God.
Join the service about 10 a.m. or a little earlier at the link above.
If you do not have internet connection at that time, you can join by phone:
Dial one of these numbers:
312 626 6799
929 205 6099
Meeting ID: 670 556 039
Password: 741852
Order of Service
April 19, 2020
“The Still Center of a Spinning World”
Gathering and Board Greeting
Prelude:“Cavatina” from “The Deer Hunter” by S. Meyers
Chalice Lighting:
We light this flame
For the art of sacred unknowing.
Humbled by all that we cannot fathom in this time,
We come into the presence of what we do know,
Perhaps the only thing we can ever know:
That Love is now and forever
The only answer to everything
And everyone
In every moment.
–Amy Carol Webb
Opening Words
Hymn:“Come, Come, Whoever You Are”
Reading:“Pandemic” by Lynn Ungar
Story for All Ages: “The Red Tree”by Shaun Tan
Sermon:“The Still Center of a Spinning World” Dr. Amer Latif, Guest Speaker
Offering: Shared this month with Theater Adventure
Offertory:“How Can I Keep From Singing”
Meditation on Joys and Concerns
Reading:“A Recipe For Resilience” by Margaret Weis
Hymn:“Solstice Song” by Allouette Iselin
Extinguishing the Chalice
We extinguish this flame,
But the sparks within us remain alight.
From each of us, in our supposed solitude,
The signals buzz and hum, sparkling through space one to another,
Connecting us invisibly
But palpably.
– Amy Zucker Morgenstern
Benediction
