Last night I was lucky enough to have been invited to attend the inaugural City of Peace lecture at Newcastle’s Civic Centre.

Just to remind you what is City of Peace, its an intuitive to:-

• Encourage communities, individuals and organisations in Newcastle upon Tyne to get to know each other better
• Safegaurd vulnerable people and groups and give support where needed
• Bring about greater integration, but also respect for difference
• Reduce inequalities and promote social justice
• Tackle prejudice, create a positive and safe environment, reduce tensions and promote good citizenship.

Some very noble aims and as a city we doing our best to move closer to them every day.

Anyway back to the lecture. We were blessed to have the Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend John Sentamu, basically the head of the Church of England in the North. His lecture was on the theme of “Gracious Magnanimity versus Tolerance”, a most thought-provoking topic.

The Archbishop was introduced by the Lord Mayor, and was given the honour of being named an honorary Geordie, to which he could only say “Whey-Aye Man”.

He started by explaining how tolerance is seen as part of what makes Britain, Britain, but he argued that tolerance was actually a negative quality, resulting in narrow-mindedness and oppression.

He used the example of brothels in France which are referred to as ‘maisons de tolérance’or Houses of tolerance. He stated his belief that tolerance is putting up with something that is different and that we don’t particullarily like, and instead argued that we should gravitate more towards the quality of Gracious Magnanimity, or meeting people halfway as he put it. He said that:-

“We are more likely to hear the language of people asserting their rights, waving the terms of the contract under someone’s nose and getting in first. Yet it is these positive virtues of gracious magnanimity which I believe could help us to transform our country today.

Aristotle also discussed gracious-magnanimity in the Nicomachean Ethics. He says that gracious-magnanimity (epieikeia) is that which is just and sometimes that which is better than justice (Eth. Nic. V. 10.6).

It corrects the law when the law is deficient because of its generality. And he compares the person who is graciously magnanimous (epieikes) with the person who is immoderate (akribodikaios.)

The person who is immoderate is the person who stands up for the last title deeds of their legal rights; but the person who is graciously magnanimous knows that there are times when a thing may be legally completely justified and yet morally completely wrong.

A person has the quality of gracious-magnanimity if they know when not to apply the strict letter of the law, when to relax justice and introduce mercy.

Similarly I would say, a graciously-magnanimous Church has a responsibility to both affirm moral standards and to ensure that its rules don’t seem rigorous to the point of inhumanity. That should also be true of all civic authorities. That should be true of all of us.”

He then moved on to an interesting and moving example of this quality from South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“At the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa a woman was at the hearing about her son’s murder. The police officer who had ordered the brutal killing was there, shamefacedly hearing read out the details of what he and his colleagues had done. At the end the room was quiet. The chair of the commission, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, asked the woman if she had anything to say to the man who had killed her son.

She responded:

“I am very full of sorrow. So I am asking you now – come with me to the place where he died, pick up in your hands some of the dust of the place where his body lay, and feel in your soul what it is to have lost so much. And then I will ask you one thing more. When you have felt my sadness, I want you to do this. I have so much love, and without my son, that love has nowhere to go. So I am asking you – from now on, you be my son, and I will love you in his place.”

She went on to say –

“I can say this – I can only do this, because Jesus loved me and gave himself up for me.””

I have to say that story was very touching and extremely powerful, the room drew a gasp at this and several members of the audience, including the Lord Mayor were brought to tears.

Its a nice sentiment and a fantastic quality and one I think is worth striving towards. He finished by wishing us luck in the City of Peace inituative and that Newcastle United will flourish, which recived a massive round of applause!

My prayer for Newcastle in the months and years ahead is that you may hold fast to this vision, that you work with humility, good humour and imagination together to build-up your common life. May God bless you, Newcastle and may the fortunes of Newcastle United ever flourish.

I was also fortunate enough to meet him just prior to the lecture, and I have to say his is a charming chap, and I found him to have some extremely interesting insights to the way the UK and indeed the world is today.

I was most interested by his comments, which he later expanded upon in his lecture, about groups such as the National Secular Society, who expect those of us who hold religious views to keep them entirely private. It fits in my thoughts on hats, which I will explain another day. Anyway he said that how can we expect people to simply put their religious beliefs away in a box when they are in the public domain. The truth of the matter is that someone’s religious beliefs is a core part of their identity and without it, that person loses something.

And the experience of the religious, dealing with organisations like the National Secular Society, are exactly what Gracious Magnanimity can help us to address. We can meet half way and allow us all to happily get along and strive towards making not only Newcastle a City of Peace, but the whole Earth a Planet of Peace.

Anyway you can read his lecture here.

God Bless

Michael

For the past couple of months myself and a friend have been developing a new website for our local Bahá’í community. We started with a document passed to us via the UKs office of Public Information, which immediately required we change our domain name.

Our original domain name was bonut.org.uk, which stands for Bahá’ís of Newcastle upon Tyne, which actually sounds very unprofessional and a wee bit silly. So we have moved to NewcastleBahais.org.uk, we wanted NewcastleBahais.org, but this was taken by a community in a small village in the US which is also called Newcastle.

It was recommended to have our site built using the Jimdo service, which would have cost us £60 a year, not a lot some might say, but we figured we could do better, for free.

There is one site up that uses the Jimdo service, BromleyBahai.org.uk, and it looks pretty good, but looking at it in some detail, we figured we didn’t need the Jimdo service, we decided to go with a Wordpress based site.

Wordpress is a pretty decent open source blogging platform, but it’s also a pretty good Content Management System. Its easy to use, very flexible with a wide range of plugins and extensions, its appearance is also very customisable with a wide variety of themes which can all be altered if you know a little HTML. I use Wordpress on this blog, and so does the UK Baha’i news website.

One big advantage is that with minimal setup, you can use MS Word, and OpenOffice.Org Writer to publish articles, Microsoft also produces the excellent Windows Live Writer which is extremely good at this. So combine these with the excellent Wordpress Dashboard, and you have a fantastic bit of kit that can be used by anyone, no need to know how to code HTML.

Now for content, we have decided to go with some static basic info, trying to give a little background on the faith and what we do, but for in depth stuff directing them to the relevant info at Bahai.org. We have place the blog items in a news section, where we are publishing local news items, in order to bulk it out a bit, we are also using a plugin to republish relevant news items from news.bahai.org and Bahainews-uk.info.

We have also used Google Calendar to publish our calendar on, this is a brilliant tool as its so easy to update and we have been able to pop an upcoming events box in our sidebar and using a clever little redirect, the sub-domain calendar.newcastlebahais.org.uk, is our calendars’ homepage.

While we have been doing this, we have been looking at all the ways we communicate with the world at large and keep people updated, on what we do and our events. We have had a Facebook Page for a while, which is working ok, and we are learning more and more how to make better use of it. One thing which we have put to good use is our Twitter account @newcastlebahais, now you will all no doubt know, that I love Twitter, its a great tool and can really work well at keeping people updated on what your doing.

We have got our Facebook page and our Twitter account linked, so that whenever we update the Facebooks Page status or add a new note etc, it updates the Twitter account, which is nice. The SMS updates that you can get with Facebook and Twitter are both pretty good, but I will have to write a guide to help people make better use of them.

One unintended consequence of doing all this is that we have had to develop a consistent, for want of a better word, “brand”, which we can use across all services. My wife is a pretty fair artist, and has designed a simple logo, it’s a nine-pointed Bahá’í star, which is black on the outside and blue on the inside. Originally it was black & white, Newcastle’s colours, but it was a bit too dull, so she added the blue, and it’s worked quite well. It’s only a temporary thing; I am sure in time we will come up with something brilliant and catchy and Geordie.The hardest thing has been keeping the site a Bahá’í site, but at the same time local, and locally relevant, this has been hardest to do when it comes to the banner. The Bromley site is a banner with some local landmarks, none of which I am afraid to say stand out for me, as someone who hasn’t visited Bromley in maybe 9 years. So we have tried to used some of the great symbols of our city in our banner and try and make it well, a Bahá’í banner as well. That is something we are still working on.The site is now pretty much complete on the engineering side, just got to sort out the static content and I think we are pretty much done; hopefully we can get it launched in the next few weeks.I shall keep you updated, and let you know when we launch.God BlessMichael

Today the gentleman of British football Sir Robert William Robson CBE passed away.

Born on 18th February 1933, in Sacriston, County Durham, the son of a pitman, he grew up in Langley Park, and would go to St James’ Park with his farther and brother, where he watched the likes of Len Shackleton and Jackie Milburn play for Newcastle United.

As a player he played for Fulham and West Bromwich Albion, and in his own words, “in football, I didn’t win a thing”. But he was a decent goal scoring midfielder, and earned 20 caps for England, playing in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, Robson only lost his place in the England squad to Bobby Charlton.

Initially he had hoped to play for his beloved Toon, but Newcastle United, never showed any interest, and thus he eventually returned to Fulham, where he finished his playing career.

But it was as a manager that Bobby Robson really excelled, after taking the FAs coaches training course at Lilleshall in 1959, Robson started his managerial career, in 1967, at the Vancouver Royals in Canada, though he left in January 1968 to his former club Fulham. He only lasted 10 months at Fulham.

Following his stint at Fulham, he scouted for Chelsea and following a chance encounter with Ipswich Towns director Murray Sangster, he became manager of the Tractor Boys, then a small regional club.

Following four mediocre seasons, in 1972 – 1973 season, Ipswich finished 4th in Division 1 and won the Texaco Cup beginning Ipswich’s glory days. Under Robson, the Tractor Boys won the FA Cup, the UEFA Cup, finished second in the league twice. Robson spent 13 very successful years at Ipswich, where he established an extremely successful youth system, only bringing in 14 players during his tenure.

In 1982, Robson became England manager, succeeding Ron Greenwood. He angered Newcastle Fans in his first game by dropping then Toon player Kevin Keegan, which resulted in him being spat at. However Robsons England lost only one of their 28 qualifying games, to Denmark, which resulted in the failure of England to qualify for the 1984 European Championship. Robson did offer to resign in favour of Brian Clough, but due to the disdain that the FA had for Clough, his resignation was refused.

England qualified for the 1986 World Cup, where Robson lead them to the quarter-finals, where England were defeated by Argentina, following Maradona’s, Hand of God goal, and the goal of the century. Robson later said of the Hand of God goal:-

“It wasn’t the hand of God. It was the hand of a rascal. God had nothing to do with it… That day, Maradona was diminished in my eyes forever.”

Robson then lead an England team to the 1988 European Championships in West Germany, where England crashed out, he was vilified by the British press, and following a friendly defeat to Saudi Arabia, on paper had as its headline:-

“In the name of Allah, go”

He offered his resignation again, but the FA turned it down, many say that it was because the only other option was Brian Clough. England qualified for the 1990 World Cup in Italy, and with a team including the legends, Bryan Robson, Gary Lineker, Terry Butcher, Chris Waddle and a young Paul Gascoigne, whom Robson described as:-

“daft as a brush”

England eventually lost in a tense semi-final to West Germany on penalties, and with his reputation restored Robson, went to Europe, where he managed at PSV Eindhoven, winning the Dutch Championship, before managing Sporting Lisbon, Porto, and Barcelona, where he won more honours, and mentored his young assistant José Mourinho.

While at Barcelona, Robson discovered the talent of Brazilian superstar Ronaldo. Eventually Robson returned to PSV for one last season, before finally being offered to take over the reigns at his beloved Newcastle United following the disastrous tenure of Ruud Gullit.

Robson quickly turned the team around, and made Newcastle United a top club again, taking us into the UEFA Champions League. Robson, was seen a a more ground to earth man in comparison to his aloof predecessor, when he took over, we were staring into the abyss, and had just lost to our arch-rivals Sunderland.

He managed the wayward millionaires of Newcastle United, but he remained enthusiastic, and was held in huge esteem by the fans of the club. In 2000 following the resignation of Kevin Keegan from the post of England Manager, he was asked to return on a part time basis, but this was blocked by Toon chairman, Freddy Sheppard.

In 2004, Freddy Shepherd, announced that the 2004 – 2005 season would be Robsons last in charge of the club, but following a poor start to the season, he was sacked by Freddy Sheppard, afterwards, Sheppard said:-

“the hardest thing I have ever done in my life”, I didn’t want to be known as the man who shot Bambi.”

The dismissal of Robson, was the beginning of Newcastle’s troubles and the club has sunk massively since Robson left. Robson was still held in extremely high regard  by the Toon Army, and in March 2005 was given the Freedom of the City. He was also made life president of Ipswich Town in 2006, where a statue of him was erected outside Portman Road.

Robson was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year awards in 2007,  for “his contributions as both player and manager in a career spanning more than half a century”. The award was presented to him by his fiend Alex Ferguson, host, Gary Lineker, introduced him as simply:-

“the gaffer”

Robson had battled cancer several times in his life, defeating colon cancer in 1992, brain cancer in 1996, and following a ski accident in 2006, they found cancer in his lung and brain, an operation to remove his brain tumour, left him paralyzed down his left side. In 2007, it was found that the tumours in his lungs were inoperable.

When he admitted his cancer was terminal he said:-

“I have accepted what they have told me and I am determined to make the most of what time I have left. I am going to die sooner rather than later. But then everyone has to go some time, and I have enjoyed every minute.”

In 2008, Bobby Robson, decided to dedicate what was left of his life to raising money for charity and founded the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation in March 2008, which raised over £1 million by November that year, which was used to fund equipment for the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre, in the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, and would go on to fund other cancer projects in the North East of England.

Just a few days ago the  Sir Bobby Robson Trophy match at St James’ Park, was played, featuring players from the original 1990 World Cup squads and various celebrities. The game was a sell out and raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for the Foundation, and in defiance of advice by doctors he attended the match in a wheelchair, where he received a guard of honour and was awarded the Emerald UEFA Order of Merit award.

Wor Bobby died at his County Durham home, with his loving wife of more than 50 years Lady Elsie.

Bobby Robson, a true Geordie legend.

“There’s only one Bobby Robson, There’s only one Bobby Robson, walking along singing a song walking in a Robson Wonderland”

I will sign off with a Prayer for the departed written by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:-

“O my God!  O my God!  Verily, thy servant, humble before the majesty of Thy divine supremacy, lowly at the door of Thy oneness, hath believed in Thee and in Thy verses, hath testified to Thy word, hath been enkindled with the fire of Thy love, hath been immersed in the depths of the ocean of Thy knowledge, hath been attracted by Thy breezes, hath relied upon Thee, hath turned his face to Thee, hath offered his supplications to Thee, and hath been assured of Thy pardon and forgiveness.  He hath abandoned this mortal life and hath flown to the kingdom of immortality, yearning for the favor of meeting Thee.

O Lord, glorify his station, shelter him under the pavilion of Thy supreme mercy, cause him to enter Thy glorious paradise, and perpetuate his existence in Thine exalted rose garden, that he may plunge into the sea of light in the world of mysteries.

Verily, Thou art the Generous, the Powerful, the Forgiver and the Bestower.”

According to various new sources, an Iranian tycoon based in Dubai, Sirous Mahjoob, is about to buy Newcastle United. I first heard little snippets about this last night, but they were from sources I have found to be unreliable in the past, so I dismissed them, but as today has gone on more reliable sources have started to tell me that this is true.

As well as buying the club Mr. Mahjoob wants to bring back Kevin Keegan as manager, as he does not believe that Alan Shearer has enough global appeal, its also said he would be bringing in legendary Iranian football hero, Ali Daei, the worlds all time leading international goal scorer, as a coach. Daei is nicknamed “Shahriar” by the Iranian fans which means “The King” in Persian, and was up until recently the manager of their national team.

According to a spokesman for Mahjoob his reason for wanting to buy the Toon is to:-

“Without any question my love and passion for my country has made me want to create a bridge and a good relationship between Iranian football and British football. With this I could be part of making Iranian football grow”

And according to the same spokesman, Mahjoob would be planning on using Iranian coaches and players, to help them get experience at the highest levels of football, nice to know we are still held in esteem by someone! But I can’t see King Kev returning if that’s what Mahjoob has in mind, so lets not even entertain the possibility.

All of this comes on the back of comments by Derek Llambias that the club could be in the hands of new owners by next week, last night he said:-

“We are dealing with several people and giving most of our time and attention to the sale.”

“You must remember that some parties make offers but when it comes to putting up proof of funds they are a long way from sealing a deal.”

“But I can say we are very close to completing a deal and it could happen next week.”

Now many people have pointed out that Mr Mahjoob is not exactly plastered over the web, however, tycoons from that part of the world are notoriously secretive, so I am not surprised that there is not all that much of him on the web. But lets look at the facts:-

1. Llambias says the club could be sold next week, ok fair enough he is usually talking out of his behind, but looking at the rest of the situation, this starts sound less and less like bull.
2. The sales embargo seems to have been lifted, with Oba and a couple of others likely to be off very shortly.
3. No appointment of Shearer as manager, so perhaps one of the bidders was dead set against him being manager.

So maybe, just maybe this is all true, and very soon we will be flying the Iranian flag over the Gallowgate End. My Iranian friends will be happy, especially the Toon Mad one!

Some fans however have been quite negative of the possibility of Iranian ownership of NUFC, using some quite offensive language and stereotypes about Muslims and Arabs, even though Iranians aren’t even Arab, they’re Persian!

This is not at all acceptable, some of the nicest people I know are Persian, they are a very open and welcoming people, so we should not be afraid of them, and rather we should welcome them with open arms.

I would welcome them if its true, but perhaps that’s more because I am imagining a Naw-Ruz party on the pitch at St James!

Oh well lets see how this one pans out then, but I am praying its the beginning of the end of the Mike Ashley nightmare!

Michael

I am a born and bred Novocastrian, that is a person from the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England, commonly known as a Geordie. One of the most distinctive things about the Geordies is our accent. I say our accent, but I lived away from the city for many years and now have an accent that’s a cross between BBC English, South Suffolk, Essex and Geordie, mostly BBC English though.

Sorry I got distracted there! So the Geordie dialect is noted for its peculiar words, many of which come from ancient Germanic and Scandinavian languages, words like hyem for example, which means home, comes from the old Norse word heimr, and is similar to the Danish word for home, hjem.

Now the reason for this is that when the Romans evacuated Britain at the end of the 4th Century, the Welsh speaking Britons, who formally inhabited Hadrian’s Wall country, suddenly became vulnerable to attack from the Pitts in the north. So the Britons turned to mercenaries, the Angles from Anglus in southern Denmark, and the Saxons from Saxony in northern Germany. In exchange, the Angles and Saxons were granted the former Roman town of Pons Aelius and the Tyne Gorge, which would evolve into Monkchester and eventually Newcastle upon Tyne. Now as we all know, the Angles and the Saxons conquered England and carved out the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, including Northumbria.

Now the thing about Northumbria is that of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, it is the only one in which the Angles were dominant, as opposed to the others where the Saxons were the dominant group, and as such the Northumbrian language evolved to be similar to Danish, unlike English, which is more similar to German.

Looking at hymn the only known work of the Northumbrian poet Caedmon, in the original Northumbrian, English and Geordie side by side you can see the influences that Northumbrian and English have both had on Geordie.

Interestingly, many many years ago my Nana took me to Bedes World, the guide there told us that some scholars find it easier to translate the work of the Venerable Bede to Geordie than it is to translate it to English!

Anyway so why am I even talking about this, well a little while ago I was chatting to a primary school teacher, who works at a school in Walker, in the east end of Newcastle. Now she told me that many children were struggling in their English classes because they think in Geordie, meaning it takes a great deal of effort to associate things with their name in English, she told me that quite a few children could actually write, but they wrote in Geordie, and apparently there was a common grammatical structure to it. So in other words she was saying that these children would have no trouble at all, if they were taught Geordie rather than English.

It was her stated belief that Geordie is a separate language to English, and it should be given a status equal to that of Welsh, Scots and Gaelic. I personally wonder, because I have noted that the dialect of younger Geordies tends not to be as strong as the older Geordies, I have always put this down to TV diluting the local dialect, along with the breakdown of the North East traditional pit villages. But listening to preschool children, I can hear that their dialect is actually quite a bit stronger that children who have been at school for a couple of years. So maybe its schools that soften their dialects.

But when does a dialect become a language, in 1860 French anglophile linguist Louis-Lucien Bonaparte, Nephew of Napoleon, believed that Geordie was a language rather than a dialect, and went so far as to publish a translation of the Bible in Geordie, the Beuk O’ Ruth.

In 1833 George Stephenson had to address a committee in the House of Commons regarding his miners’ safety lamp, commonly called a Geordie Lamp and a possible origin of the term Geordie, as its was only really used here in the North East, and the Davy Lamp was used in the rest of the country, and so is said that Miners in the rest of the country referred to North East miners as Geordies after the lamp, and thus the name eventually came to apply to not only people from the North East but our dialect as well!

Anyway, during the hearing the committee required a translator as they could not understand a word that Stephenson said due to his dialect. A translator would have come in useful at my wedding as my farther-in-law has such a thick accent that very few of the guest whom were not from the North East could understand it!

Given the current popularity of the Geordie accent at the moment, thanks to the likes of Cheryl Cole from Girls Aloud, Simon King from The Hairy Bikers and Ant & Dec, perhaps the dialect can grow stronger and who knows maybe one day it will be recognised as a language.

So that’s that, but before I sign off, I have decided to see what a prayer from the Bahá’í Faith would look like if translated into Geordie, and thus I have done a rough translation of the Short Obligatory Prayer, as revealed by Bahá’u'lláh.

Ah beor witness, O me God, that Yee hast created wor tuh knar Yee an’ tuh worship Yee. ah testify, at this ma, tuh me powerlessness an’ tuh Yor meet, tuh me poverty an’ tuh Yor wealth.

Thor’s nee othor God but Yee, the Help in Botha, the Self-Subsistin.

Michael

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

Map & Photos

For those of you that don’t know, this Saturday (27th June 2009), is the Newcastle Walk for Peace.

This event has been organised by the Newcastle Council of Faiths and the Newcastle City for Peace initiative, and is a walk through the west end where, four places of worship will be visited. Its an opportunity to learn about different faiths and the values that we all share.

The walk will start at the Hindu Temple on the West Road, and will visit the Church of the Venerable Bede, also on the West Road. We will then move on to the Newcastle Central Mosque on Elswick Road, and finish at the Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Tindle Close, where lunch will be served.

Joining us on the Walk for Peace will be the Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Councillor Mike Cookson, and his wife the Lady Mayoress, and the leader of Newcastle City Council, Councillor John Shipley.

Myself and my wife will be on the walk and I hope many more join us.

God Bless

Michael

The itinerary and a map are below.

Walk for Peace Itinerary

Map