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Sufism Reoriented
August 2008Neighborhood Newsletter
Stephen Sondheim might be tempted to join the dance finale of the Meher Schools’ Summer Drama Camp production of his play Into the Woods. Dancer and Choreographer Corey Action, co-founder of Oakland’s celebrated New Style Motherlode Dance Company, has transformed the final song in Act I, “The Children Will Understand,” into a joyous hip-hop sing-along. This year’s Drama Camp presents two casts, with Meher Schools children ages eight to twelve acting and singing the parts of characters like Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (from “Jack and the Beanstalk”), and Rapunzel, each on a quest to fulfill a wish. The
play is a one-hour “Broadway Junior” version of Into the Woods created by Music Theater International.Over the past twenty summers, Drama Camp has produced many well-known plays, including Guys and Dolls and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as pieces written specially for the program, such as an adaptation of the Indian epic The Ramayana. The underlying goal of the program is to enhance children’s natural abilities to support one another, to cooperate, and to take joy in each other’s accomplishments. In addition to rehearsing singing, dancing, and acting for the play itself, participants enjoy other activities. This year the camp offers classes in “clownology,” video acting, hip-hop dancing, and art. The Drama Camp welcomes students from other schools into the six-week program, and per-formances are open to the public.
Summer drama students go “Into the Woods”
Volunteer Marie Soga helps a Wicked Stepsister with her wig.
Many neighbors may be familiar with The Meher Schools as a polling place, a location for soccer games, and a spot for walking dogs in the evening. If you're interested in learning more about our school and arranging a visit, contact Principal Ellen Evans at [email protected].
Director Sue Tacker demonstrates to the cast how a character should move.
“It’s about perseverance,” one perceptive kinder-gartner told his teacher after seeing Our Turn, The Meher Schools’ 2008 fifth-grade play. Indeed, the play highlights the almost-75-year struggle of women to win the right to vote. Our Turn was written by Broadway director Bea Terry, a former director of The Meher Schools’ White Pony preschool. Every year the graduating fifth-grade class prepares and presents a musical play,
and over the years Bea has written many of them. Her plays for children focus on surprisingly far-reach-ing themes like truth and freedom, with characters like Socrates, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Martin Luther King Jr. The composition of this year’s fifth-grade class—11 girls and seven boys—provided the perfect opportunity for a play with a large female cast.Bea spent months investigating suffragettes’ lives through their diaries and other works while serving as resident director of the Tony award-winning musical Spring Awakening, now playing on Broadway. “When I went to school, I learned nothing about these women,” she says. “What courage they had!” Our Turn’s director, JanLee Marshall, remembers a telling moment right after Bea sent the play from New York. “The fifth graders were just reading about that period in history. The textbook included only one paragraph on women’s struggle for the vote.”In all her child-ren’s plays, Bea lightens thought-provoking subjects with music and humor. Our Turn is no exception. Girls enjoyed singing
about women’s incessant labors: “Cooking! Skinning the rabbits stem to stern. / Watch the fire, don’t let them burn! / Chopping, boiling, endless toiling. / Throbbing backache, falling pound cake.” Using photos from the time period, a Meher Schools staff member and volunteer spent weeks adapting clothes from thrift shops to make authentic cos-tumes that spanned the mid-1800s to 1920.
Many of the girls developed deep admiration for their characters. Sasha Newton, who played Susan B. Anthony, said, “I wanted to speak in a way that would make her proud.” But the stories of coura-geous struggle didn’t just affect the girls. One fifth-grade boy said, “Those women put their lives on the line, but it wasn’t just about voting. If they hadn’t done that, what would our lives be like today? What if a dad was out of work and a mom wasn’t allowed to support the family?”
Principal Ellen Evans says, “The play gained strong momentum over the week it was performed until everyone was discussing it.” Adult audience members often found they had emotional reactions to the material. One former Meher Schools parent noted, “The girls brought their own sense of empowerment to their roles, a quality that didn’t exist for girls growing up in the past. I cried from the first moment they spoke.”
Playing a part in women’s history
“Life is a circle of growing and giving,The more we give, the more we grow. ”––Lyrics from the original Meher Schools song “Circle of Giving”
Emblems of faith
The founders of our country were innovators in many ways. One of their great innovations was the principle of religious freedom, a principle that enables faiths with small memberships, such as Sufism Reoriented, to participate fully and on an equal basis with larger churches and religious denominations.
One example of this principle is the availability of Sufism Reoriented’s symbol of the Heart and Wings as an official U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs “Emblem of Belief for Placement on Government Headstones and Markers.” Members of Sufism Reoriented who are veterans or otherwise entitled to be buried in national cemeteries may engrave this symbol – a heart with wings and the number one in the center of the heart – on their headstones, just as members of larger faiths may use symbols of their own spiritual beliefs.
Freedom of religion also underlies the recognition accorded to Meher Baba, the founder of Sufism Reoriented, by the Boy Scouts of America through its religious emblems program. That program encourages youth to honor the credo “A Scout is Reverent” by meeting requirements formally established by their faith.
Scouts may wear these designated emblems on their uniforms. For young scouts in our families, the available awards include the “Love of God” and “Compassionate Father” medallions. The badge shows emblems of all the major faiths of the world and is inscribed with the motto “Mastery in Servitude.” This means that life is mastered not through individual fulfillment of the desires, but rather through loving service to Creation.
We are grateful to live in a country where freedom of conscience and sincerity of belief are honored from the earliest training of our youth to the memorials that mark the completion of our lives.
Join us August 28 for an evening of discussionWe know our neighbors have many practical questions about our plan to build a new sanctuary, and we want to help you get answers. For that reason we are arranging meetings to give you opportunities to meet and talk with those working directly on the project.
If you are interested, please join us. Our next get-together will be an informal gathering in our center at 1300 Boulevard Way on Thursday, August 28, at 7:30 p.m.
If you’d like to come, please RSVP to Steve Sardella at 945-0122 or at [email protected].
We look forward to seeing you.
“The song of Perfect Joy is sweeter than the dove...You can hear it when your spirit is filled with love.”
––Lyrics from the original Meher Schools song “Circle of Giving”
The heart emblazoned with the number one
represents love’s vision, which sees all life in Creation as
a unity, as One. The wings represent the power of this vision of unity to raise all life higher.
Left, “Love for God.” Right, “Compassionate Father.”
“The Bird of Perfect Joy is nearer than we know.His dwelling place is ev’ry heart that shares love’s golden glow.We can make our lives a home for Perfect JoyBy caring and sharing with ev’ry girl and boy.”
––Lyrics from the original Meher Schools song “The Bird of Perfect Joy”
This veteran’s days are still fulfilling at 80
At age 80, Ray Lein jumps out of airplanes and belongs to a motorcycle club—but that’s just for recreation. A World War II veteran and retired air traffic controller, Ray finds fulfillment now as a member of the American Legion, serving in their honor guard and as a chaplain. “It feels so natural to me,” he says. “My career profile in college indicated that I should be a minister, but I wasn’t ready then.” Ray finds special satisfaction in working with military families. “I write letters of condolence to widows. When I officiate at a funeral, I feel honored to salute the life of someone who fought for our country’s freedom.”Ray served on a Navy destroyer in the Pacific during World War II and after college trained as an air traffic controller in the Air Force. Later, working as an air traffic controller for the Federal Aviation Administration, he was transferred every few years to a new location, including Alaska. “There’s lots of
excitement in that work, but it is incredibly stressful. Many times pilots in private planes radioed in to us,
panicked because they were lost in the fog, often flying upside
down. We would tell them to let go of the controls
and the plane would automatically correct itself. Soon they’d call us back exclaiming, ‘You saved my life!’ I said lots of prayers in the control tower.”
Ray loves planes and still holds a pilot’s
license. However, his main focus now is his
customized motorcycle.Ray bought his first Harley Davidson 61 years ago and rides his Harley Road King “hog” regularly as part of a Harley owners’ club. Recently he and the club rode to the petrified forest in the Napa Valley and to a pipe organ factory in Oakland. “Hog riders
are the kind of motorcyclists who stop and help little old ladies cross the street,” Rays says. “On our last ride, a two-year-old got excited seeing our bikes, and the next thing you know he was sitting on mine trying to understand how it works.” Ray is a member of Sufism Reoriented and raised his two children in Walnut Creek after retiring from air traffic control. He moved to Dixon a few years ago. His daughter, Rosanna, is a preschool teacher at the White Pony School. Rosanna doesn’t have a motorcycle, but she tries to keep up with her father in the adventure department. On a sunny Sunday last month, they went skydiving together. Rosanna says, “I’m so proud of my dad. I look forward every year to watching him march in Dixon’s Fourth of July parade.”
“Our ev’ry loving action helps form his golden wings...It’s up to us to bring his song to ev’ry living thing.”
––Lyrics from the original Meher Schools song “Bird of Perfect Joy”
A remarkable life
Before the Nazi supply train could pass, 17-year-old Sara pulled the dynamite from her pocket and opened the box of matches in her hand. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. The matches were soaked from the rain and the ditch she had just waded through. It was 1942, and Sara’s pre-dawn Resistance mission in her native Poland was to blow up the railroad tracks. Her companions lit their fuses, but again and again Sara’s matches failed to light. With dynamite about to explode all around her, her friends yelled to her to quit and run and tried to pull her away. But Sara stayed. She took a deep breath and struck her last wet match. It flared into flame! From that moment, Sara understood that she and all her companions were in the hands of God, and that He was, indeed, governing His world. “I wanted to conquer the Nazis single-handedly,” Sara admits. “Instead I got a miracle from God.”Sara spent part of the war in a concentration camp and lost her family to the war. Later she started a new life in America. She got a job, married, and had two children. She studied psychology and began learning about classical art in her spare time. Eventually she and her husband saved enough money to buy a favorite Chagall lithograph entitled Artist’s Wife. The piece helped Sara retrieve warm memories from her childhood. “Chagall and I came from the same kind of village life,” she says. “His art is full of images that are very familiar to me.” Sara’s love of classical art led her to a job at Pasquale Iannetti Gallery in San Francisco, where she worked for 27 years, specializing in paper works by artists like Rembrandt, Monet, Cassatt, Chagall, and Picasso.
Sara, now 83, is a member of Sufism Reoriented and has been for 26 years.
She tells her friends, “I don’t know much about God, but the values of these people
I was deeply drawn to. They are very, very important in my life.”When she finds herself awake late at night, Sara sometimes goes to her kitchen and bakes a few pies with apples gathered from a tree in her yard. With their thick and nutty crumb topping, her friends declare Sara’s are “the world’s best apple pies!” Perhaps a bite carries the fragrance of Sara’s remarkable life.
Sara at age 13 in Poland
Comprehensive land use application submittedLast month our building project reached a significant milestone. After intensive collaborative work, we filed our application for a land use permit with the Contra Costa County Community Development Department. Though we noted that happy event in our last issue, we thought you might be interested in knowing more about this complex process, which demonstrates our government’s dedication to a high degree of environ-mental awareness and responsibility at every level. Construction Manager Chris Martin says, “The whole process is really a form of consumer and environmental pro-tection. Our society is catching up with our need to care for the earth rather than treating its resources carelessly. This places a tremendous burden for due dili-gence on the county, and we look forward to working with them and responding to their questions promptly.”Every applicant has to give attention to federal, state, and county laws as part of the application process. This includes intensive study to make sure the proposal meets the stringent requirements of CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act. The county reviews every detail of the application for its compliance with laws and ordinances. In the general plan, in almost every type of zoning, the county anticipates the need for building churches. Thus provisions are made for building places of worship in all residential classifications, including the R-10 zoning in which our new sanc-tuary will be located. Land use applications for a church require:
drawings of the proposed buildinga storm-water control plan an arborist report stating the condition of trees on the property and plans for trees in the overall design.
County officials suggested two other studies, which we included: a geotechnical evaluation, which
analyzes the soil on the building site, and a cultural-resources study, which examines the property for Native American and archeo-logical objects.To expedite the process, we conducted additional studies:
an architectural/ historical resources study
an environmental transaction screen to rule out the possibility of hazardous waste on the site
a biological resources assessment to ensure that no protected flora or fauna exist on the propertya transportation-demand management plan (described in our last issue).
Our application also included a “design basis letter” from the architects describing the principles underlying the building design. We have entered a new phase of communication with the county and our interactions will continue until the county makes a determination about our land use permit. We will keep you posted on the progress of our application.
Construction Manager Chris Martin with Sufism Reoriented’s land use application
“Each of us is able to bring this bird to birthBy all the deeds of kindness we do upon the earth! ”––Lyrics from the original Meher Schools song “The Bird of Perfect Joy”
Sufism Reoriented’s property plans
At a recent Saranap Community Association meeting, someone speculated that Sufism Reoriented might intend to create a national headquarters in the Saranap area because we have purchased additional parcels of land here. After all, what else could we be planning to do with those parcels?An understandable question. And the straight-forward answer is that we bought other parcels in the Saranap in the hope of putting together an adequate site where we could build a new sanctuary to house our activities. We had seen developers come in and buy parcels, and we didn’t want to lose the chance to build here since so many of our members already live in the Saranap. But now that we’ve chosen our site, we plan to sell those parcels to help pay for constructing our new building. Also, once the new sanctuary is completed, we plan to sell our current
building at 1300 Boulevard Way. We are delighted to be thought of as having a large number of members across America wishing to move to Walnut Creek to be near our church. Such a center would seem possible for Catholicism, with 50 million adult members in the United States, or Baptists, with close to 35 million, or Methodists,
with about 15 million. However, Sufism Reoriented has fewer than 500
members nationally, and most of them live in the Saranap
already!In addition, the number of members has been stable for at least 20 years, and we don’t expect it to grow
anytime soon.We hope this answers
the concern. But we do feel flattered.
To contact usIf you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please contact Steve Sardella at 945-0122 or [email protected].
When we talk to our neighbors about building our new sanctuary, it sparks curiosity about Sufism Reoriented and its members. This newsletter is our way of sharing more about us.
Why this newsletter? To unsubscribeIf you don’t wish to receive future issues of this newsletter, please email or call us.
www.sufismreoriented.orgFor more information
“The Bird of Perfect Joy flies from heart to heartSpreading light and happiness, that none may live apart.The song of Perfect Joy is everlasting fun.When we live it we can give it to ev’ryone.”
––Lyrics from the original Meher Schools song “Bird of Perfect Joy”
Have you ever wondered about the women in long white dresses scurrying down Boulevard Way in the evening, shawls wrapped around their shoulders against the chilly air? One of our neighbors who glimpsed the “women in white” was curious enough to ask, “Who are they? Where are they all going?” It’s really no mystery at all: These women are members of Sufism Reoriented’s Con-sortium of the Arts Chorus, hurrying to a dress rehearsal for a performance. To pre-sent a harmonious look in concert, women members wear white dresses and men wear dark suits. Choral music is one of the most universally enjoyable aspects of worship. Its practice is unifying, both to chorus mem-bers and listeners. In America, we appreciate choral music from a variety of church denominations. Beautiful, rhythmic harmonies paired with inspiring lyrics lift the spirits and allow the human imagination to soar as though on wings to enter into a state of serene “happiness without a reason!” Within Christianity, in the sixth through 16th centuries, Gregorian chants emerged as an important part of Catholic worship in Europe. Some of the most distinguished classical choral music of the West, such as Handel’s Messiah, were written for this purpose. The use of choral music in worship was carried over in the Protestant tradition and took the form it has today in part because of the lively and inspiring hymns written by Charles
Wesley. Charles, the brother of Methodist church founder John Wesley, was one of the first to
write tuneful songs that an entire congregation could sing together.
Descendants of Africans brought to America as slaves formed their
own Christian churches and brought forward the tradition of choral music with moving spirituals now admired all over the world.Members of Sufism Reoriented delight in devotional music, and most of the songs our chorus performs were written by our members. These songs ex-press gratitude and joy and universal ideals such as the
unity of life and the joy of serving God’s world. Some
members, trained in musical conservatories, have written large
repertories of such works, including two oratorios.
Now when you see those figures in white hurrying through the night along Boulevard Way,
we hope it will reawaken in you a fond memory of choral music that brings you “happiness without a reason!”
Who are the women in the long white dresses?
As we reported in earlier issues, we discovered this beautiful diamond ring on the site of our planned sanctuary. In July we told you that it had slipped off Alice Tycer's finger and she grieved its loss for a long time. This heirloom has now been returned to her family.
Tycer family ring returned!
“Come and sing a pure and simple song.Let it rise unto the heights,Touching heaven, filling the earthWith tranquility and delight.”
––Lyrics from the original Meher Schools song “Come and Sing a Pure and Simple Song”
