THIS YEAR’S INTERFAITH BREAKFAST MESSAGE: WE’RE ALL CHILDREN OF THE SAME GOD
Hoisting our new copies of the Constitution (Author photo)
The Interfaith Prayer Breakfast is pretty much my favorite morning of every year. You get prayed over in every known religion and a few you probably never heard of; it’ll just about carry you through the next 364 days. It is sponsored annually by the San Francisco Interfaith Council.
This was the 25th annual such event. The first one — in 1998 — I remember well; we had four or five tables. It’s grown ever since (excepting the two pandemic years) into today’s over-capacity crowd; but who’s counting? The Fire Chief was among the dignitaries. Others ranged from Lt Gov Eleni Kounalakis to Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (we’re her people, after all) to local committee chairs and union officials and everyone in between.
These events have themes — generally falling within the faith/hope/love spectrum. This year it was Sanctuary: A San Francisco Value. “San Francisco Values” is not a pejorative term around here.
In accordance with the theme, every speaker or participant at the prayer breakfast led off with his or her immigrant ancestry. I lost track after a while. But almost every one cited immigrant parents, grandparents &/or recent kinfolk who had arrived on these shores as refugees from the Holocaust or from genocide or persecutions beyond imagination. Seeking sanctuary.
The parallel prayers — Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim and other — then used their various languages to point out that we’re all children of the same god, by whatever name. In other words, brothers and sisters, immigrants all.
Said one speaker, “Sanctuary means a place of refuge, a sacred space.”
“The protection of others is a divine trust,” said a Muslim speaker.
“The Buddhist call to compassion results in gratitude,” noted another.
The morning swag was a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution. Early on we were invited to hoist our Constitutions high, just to make a point. It’s actually pretty good reading. I leafed through my new copy before starting this report, impressed once again by some of the niceties like co-equal branches of government, powers of the Congress, guarantees of individual freedoms etc that have not been brightly evident this year.
Brightly evident at the 25th Annual SFIC Prayer Breakfast: Good food, good vibes, good will to all. Immigrants included.
Wonderful!
🙏❤️🙏