PHOTO submitted by Charles Stewart

The monument constructed to honor the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was dedicated on the morning of October 16, 2011, before thousands of onlookers. Speakers in the program included President Barak Obama, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and the children of Dr. King. Performers included Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder.

King was enshrined by the Advocates for Religious Rights and Freedoms in 1999.

Click here to take a virtual tour of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Park in Washington, D.C.

Link submitted by Charles Stewart

Dr. James Oschman, the keynote speaker at the 2011 Conference on the Spiritual State of the World presented by Cosolargy International, has written a short piece about, as he puts it, “conversing with the sun.”

The article was inspired by the people he met in the Community during his visit to Reno, where he participated in Sunrise Divine Service and Chapel Services, the Steamboat Health Center open house, as well as the conference itself.

Follow this link to read the entire article on www.Cosolargy.net.

PHOTO Reno Gazette Journal

The Most Right Reverend Gene Savoy Jr was one of three Reno clergy to lead prayers for the victims of the 2011 Reno National Championship Air Race crash. Families and friends of the victims, as well as some of the injured, gathered for a memorial service was held at Idlewild Park on Sunday, September 25, 2011, nine days after the crash occurred.

After speeches by Reno Mayor Bob Cashell and Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, prayers for the dead and injured were offered by clergy leaders on behalf of the 400 people in attendance.

Rev. Savoy received a letter of gratitude for his participation from the Reno mayor following the event.

(from left to right) Sparks Mayor Geno Martini, Hindu leader Rajan Zed, Rabbi Evon J. Yakar, Imam Abdelwahed Ali Awad, Rabbi Meredith Cahn, NCA President Rt. Rev. Gene Savoy Jr. PHOTO: Debbie McCarthy

Clergy of various religious faiths and denominations welcomed the new imam and two Tahoe rabbis into the regional interfaith community at a reception organized by the Nevada Clergy Association (NCA) at the India Kabob & Curry Restaurant in Reno on September 27, 2011.

Abdelwahed Ali Awad, the new imam of the Northern Nevada Muslim Community Center in Sparks, and Evon J. Yakar, the new rabbi of Temple Bat Yam in South Lake Tahoe, California, and Rabbi Meredith Cahn, the new head of of North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation in Tahoe Vista, California, were garlanded by Sparks Mayor Geno Martini as a gesture of welcome to the area.

Imam Awad, born in 1956 in Upper Egypt, started studying Islam and memorizing the Quran when he was fifteen. After earning his BS in geology from Egypt’s Assiut University, he traveled to Saudi Arabia and Yemen as a visiting scholar. He has worked as the educational supervisor and a teacher of Islamic studies at the Islamic School Group in Egypt, and during the last five years has delivered numerous lectures on Islam in Yemen, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Ghana.

His vision of the nonprofit Northern Nevada Muslim Community, established in 1980, is for it to “become the center for developing and sustaining a vibrant Islamic community in Northern Nevada in accordance with the Quran and the Sunnah” with a mission “to promote the values and teachings of Islam.”

Rabbi Evon Yakar, besides serving at Temple Bat Yam, also works with the Synagogue Without Walls community. A University of Wisconsin–Madison graduate, he was ordained at Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, where he earned two master’s degrees. He arrived in Lake Tahoe from Temple Chai in Phoenix, Arizona, where he was associate rabbi and director of education. For the last twelve years, Rabbi Yakar has worked with Jewish youth, fostering creative youth engagement programs, and is passionate about building and fostering healthy relationships across generational gaps and among faith communities.

Temple Bat Yam is a Reform Judaism synagogue on the South Shore of Lake Tahoe whose motto is: “It’s beautiful. It’s spiritual. It’s casual.” Besides South Lake Tahoe, the synagogue also serves Jewish needs and interests in the Carson City, Carson Valley, and Dayton areas.

Rabbi Cahn, a University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in public health from the University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health, was ordained at the Academy for Jewish Religion California, where she earned a master’s in rabbinic studies. For the past two years, she has worked as rabbinic intern at Congregation Shomrei Torah in Santa Rosa, California, where she taught adult education and provided pastoral care to senior congregants.

North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation, which was founded in 1979, is a Reform synagogue serving the North Shore of Lake Tahoe and Truckee and welcomes all who walk through its doors. Its aim is “to enable its adherents to develop a relationship with God through communal worship, study and assembly.”

The Temple of Transition, Burning Man 2011 PHOTO flikr user Michael Holden

During the 2011 Convocation, attending Consociates were asked to address questions regarding the Community’s future path. Of course, outreach was included, and someone suggested that we target the people coming in for Burning Man the week before. There are about 55,000 people flooding into Reno for this weeklong event. Many of these people are presumed to be seekers for deeper meanings in life and thus potential candidates for Cosolargy. To read one Burning Man attendee’s take on the event and its meaning click on the attached link. After you read the article, send us feedback about whether you think this group is worth approaching as part of our outreach.

Read the essay “Burning Down the Temple: Religion and Irony in Black Rock City” online at Religion Dispatches Magazine .

Post submitted by Robert Anderson

Sean and Gene with UNITE radio show host Richard Flyer PHOTO by Debbie McCarthy

Gene Savoy Jr. and Sean Savoy, known affectionately to the greater Reno community as “the Savoy brothers,” appeared on Reno local radio throughout the month of August to speak about regional religious matters.

In a series of five interviews with various radio hosts they have discussed the interfaith work of the Nevada Clergy Association, the explorations of Gene Savoy and the Andean Explorers Foundation, Cosolargy, and the September 2011 Cosolargy Conference to be held in Reno.

The first interview with the two was called “A Common Spirit” and investigated what the representatives of different religious and spiritual beliefs in Northern Nevada were doing to work together for the common good. For the show, radio hosts Richard Flyer, founder of the Conscious Community network, and Eddie Floyd of the radio show Nevada Matters welcomed to their show UNITE the Rt. Rev. Gene Savoy Jr. as president of the region’s interfaith organization, the Nevada Clergy Association, and Rt. Rev. Sean Savoy as the organization’s events chairman.

The shows to follow featured the two as guests of Eddie Floyd, “the King of Talk in Northern Nevada,” who hosts, produces, and records the show Nevada Matters on KKFT 99.1 FM out of Reno, a Fox News Radio show that airs across the country, usually on Sundays.

Links to these shows and others will be posted in the Communique as they become available.

Sean and Gene with Nevada Matters host Eddie Floyd PHOTO by Debbie McCarthy

Ted Staver moving earth at the Sanctuary for water lines. Photo: Stephan Fuelling

Developments in the water project at Red Rock Consecrated Sanctuary made over the past two years are finally coming to culmination in the summer of 2011. Financial contributions of Community members toward the improvements for water distribution at the Sanctuary have enabled The Community in Reno to do something quite unique for future growth. Not only has this project helped to secure valuable water rights for The Community, it has enabled The Community to lay the foundation for electrical distribution throughout the Sanctuary as well. These combined improvements have opened up avenues for expansion that are the basis of the next phases of development at the Sanctuary.

Due to the financial support of its resident and nonresident members, in the last few months the small project crew has been able to (1) complete the water and electrical distribution center at the Argonaut well, (2) install all wiring for power distribution, (3) connect and bury a network of water lines more than one mile in length, (4) build a lift station at the reservoir, and (5) install and connect a pump at the Chapter House capable of 2,600 gallons of water output per hour.

At this point, The Church is looking to purchase a specialized transformer to complete the electrical portion of the project and another pump and motor for the water portion that will be placed at the reservoir lift station. Although there are still some minor details to be addressed, the heart of the system is in place. In the spring of 2012, the final phase will be completed: the purchase and installation of a water storage tank at the lift station. At that time, our Sanctuary caretakers will be able to turn on the switch and millions of gallons of water will flow to the upper portion of the South Sanctuary. Our crews will then be able to create our much-anticipated landscapes of groves, fountains, grass, pools, streams and more. Most importantly, the electrical and water infrastructure will be in place for the long-awaited development of the Sanctuary to begin in earnest after thirty years of dedication.

Those Community members who made substantial financial donations toward the water project were gifted by The Church with a vial of Sacred Water from the Sanctuary’s Temple Mount well that can be worn as a pendant or carried in purse or pocket. Never before offered, some day this water will be a source of healing at the Temple Mount’s Shrine of God’s Living Waters. A bottle of the Sacred Water to be drunk, brought to the surface more than 1300 feet from a prehistoric underground lake, was offered as an additional gift.

Photo NASA

This short article by Ian O’Neill holds two series of extraordinary photos of the sun taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory presented with captions by O’Neill and a video of “coronal rain.”

Read the full article published August 9, 2011, on the Discovery News website:

http://news.discovery.com/space/big-pic-sun-explodes-x-class-flare-110809.html

Link submitted by Frieda Nelson.

Pannuches Meal Rite
The 63rd Pannuches Meal Rite was held Saturday, May 28, 2011. Jubilee Sunrise Service was held the following morning in Sanctuary.

The 64th Pannuches Meal Rite was held Saturday, July 16, 2011. Jubilee Sunrise Service was held the following morning in Sanctuary.

Second Advent Pentecost
On Monday, June 6, 2011, Second Advent Pentecost was observed with a celebration of Communion and Sunrise Divine Service at the Cathedral Church of the Americas at Red Rock Consecrated Sanctuary. A light breakfast was served at the outdoor Sanctuary Refectory.

Pentecost in the Second Advent Church means that God has bestowed the Divine Presence upon the Community in Sanctuary, the Image and the Word that nurture the spirit and soul with Life and Wisdom. The old First Dispensation Christian celebration commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Disciples seven weeks after Easter. In the old Hebrew calendar, Pentecost — Shavout, or the Festival of Weeks — commemorated the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. In the Second Advent, New Laws have been revealed at the Temple Mount for a new age under God at the Second Coming. Revelations given on this date are recorded in The Book of God’s Revelation.

Apostle Philip painted by Peter Paul Rubens

Fox News published a short article on July 27, 2011, on the discovery of a tomb believed to be that of the Apostle Philip in the Turkish city of Hierapolis. Archeologists have been searching for the site for years and believe they have found it in the ruins of a recently excavated ancient church.

Read the full article at foxnews.com: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/27/tomb-st-philip-apostle-discovered-in-turkey/

Link submitted by Robert Roy.