“LESSONS FROM DAMIETTA:” Towards a Spirituality of Inter-religious Dialogue and Peace”

In by zeinab

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2020-02-08

Country: Philippines
City:
The multi-faceted consequences of the coronavirus epidemic, and the occurrence of natural disasters one after another is heartbreaking. People need “handles” to come to grips with them. The gifts of spiritual and cultural practices to cope with the stresses of tragedies are crucial among Indigenous peoples and believers of faiths. So, we planned to have a gathering of prayer leaders, flutists, chanters, ritualists, gong players, dancers, indigenous bamboo instrumentalists and other stakeholders to offer prayers, do movement meditation, chant, dance, play various indigenous musical instruments, sing, lament, and perform rituals to appease the spirit world and heal the nature-human disconnect. What we proposed, however, NCOV disposed. We call it “sayang” in Tagalog because the preparations we had, did not see its fruition. The event was canceled due to the Corona Virus outbreak. This should have been a gathering of 300 students and employees, church organization, media, an educational NGO, and seven invited indigenous organizations of the Philippines. Participants were supposed to use indigenous musical instruments to produce sounds for healing the land and offer chants and prayers for peace