Today was the Newcastle upon Tyne Walk for Peace, I have already talked about what it was so I will simply talk about how it went.
Myself and Ineke took the bus from mine, I live round the corner from the Sikh Gurdwara so it was easier to leave her car at ours, and arrived at the Hindu Temple for about 9:20ish. We had a breakfast of Samosas and enjoyed a nice cup of tea.
The participants soon filled the hall, there were representatives from many faiths and groups, Quakers, Hindus, Muslims, Catholics, Sikhs, Anglicans, Jains and even a fully suited and booted Buddhist monk. There were five Bahá’ís present, myself, Fariba, Ineke, Kathleen and Gillian.
The guests of honour, the Lord Mayor Councillor Mike Cookson and his wife, the leader of Newcastle City Council, Councillor John Shipley and the leader of the opposition Councillor Nick Forbes all arrived shortly before we began the walk.
The Bishop of Newcastle, The Right Reverend John Martin Wharton, introduced the concept of the walk to us and then the Lord Mayor was presented with a copy of the Bhagavad Gita by the Hindu Temples president who lead us in a lovely prayer (Hindi sounds much nicer than then English translation, though the message of peace is still the same).
We then walked down the West Road, stopping at the Church of the Venerable Bede, the the new Vicar there asked us to pray for peace, particularly in Iran, given the current situation.
We then headed down the the Central Mosque on Elswick Road, but on the way we passed the site where 7 year old John Heneghan was killed a few weeks ago, I had mixed this up with a hit and run incident around the same time elsewhere in the city. So the Lord Mayor, Leader of the Council and his opposite, paid their respects along with the cities religious leaders.
We arrived at the Mosque a little behind schedule but were warmly welcomed and listened to several verses from the Holy Qur’an, and we were asked by the Mosques Imam, to take with us three words, patience, tolerance and forgiveness, and if we applied these to our daily lives, then we would have peace in our city, peace in our country and peace in our world. Very wise words indeed.
We then wandered along Elswick Road to the Sikh Gurdwara, passing by the former location of the Elswick Road Synagogue, the Church of St Matthew and the Big Lamp and the Harre Krishna Centre. We even caught a glimpse of the Geordie Mecca, St James Park.
We came to the Gurdwara, where we were helped in covering our heads, and we went upstairs and listened to some wise words of advice from the president of the Gurdwara.
“No one is my enemy, no one is a stranger and everyone is my friend.”
Guru Arjan Dev, Guru Granth Sahib
We then listened as the Lord Mayor and Hari Shukla, the brains behind the City for Peace initiative, we then moved down to the Langhar Hall where the Sikh community served us with a beautiful lunch.
All in all it was a wonderful day and I got to meet a lot of wonderful people from various different faiths and background, and I think all whom attended really took away knowledge of the common values that tie the various religious communities of Newcastle together.
I will share with you a Bahá’í, which says a lot about what we need to become if peace is to prevail, and God willing, we will all get there.
“Be generous in prosperity,
And thankful in adversity.Be fair in judgment,
And guarded in speech.Be a lamp unto those,
Who walk in darkness.Be eyes to the blind,
And a guiding light.Be a breath of life,
To the body of mankind.Be a dew to the soul
Of the human heart.And a fruit upon the tree,
Of humanity.”Bahá’u'lláh
I took plenty of pictures, you can follow our route with them on the map below, or just look at the album.
God Bless and let us all pray for peace in the world.
Michael
