Friday, May 27, 2011

Houses of Worship Made from Ammunition

Al Farrow: New Reliquaries. Religious sites built from ammunition and firearms. sculpture religion guns
Al Farrow: New Reliquaries. Religious sites built from ammunition and firearms. sculpture religion guns
Al Farrow: New Reliquaries. Religious sites built from ammunition and firearms. sculpture religion guns









Al Farrow: New Reliquaries. Religious sites built from ammunition and firearms. sculpture religion guns

http://thisiscolossal.com/2011/05/al-farrow-new-reliquaries-religious-sites-built-from-ammunition-and-firearms/

What do you all think?

Friday, May 13, 2011

Concluding the Better Together Campaign...


            Last Sunday I attended a first communion party for my cousin Jack who is in second grade. In the Catholic tradition, the first communion is one of the seven sacraments, along with baptism, first reconciliation, and marriage. It is a rite of passage for children to receive the Eucharist at church. At the party after the ceremony, I started remembering my experience attending a Catholic school and my first communion. If I think about my experience with the Fellows Alliance this year, it is just the same as my first communion: a rite of passage, a mark of a new chapter and an opportunity to grow. This year, I grew both as an interfaith leader and as an activist.            
            USC is a unique campus in that it is situated in the heart of one of the most multicultural, religiously diverse cities in the world. We have so many opportunities to learn about a myriad of cultures and traditions, and yet, sometimes we tend to stay clustered in our campus bubble. This year as part of the Better Together campaign, we committed to educating both our campus and the community about religious pluralism and the opportunities available to us to learn about different faith traditions. Our social issue focused on educating high school students about religious pluralism and what interfaith work means. We engaged three different high schools and spoke to over 100 students over the course of the spring semester. We have decided to continue the project next year as part of the Obama Interfaith Initiative so that we may expand our reach even further. 
            During the fall semester, our campaign culminated in an Interfaith Speak-In and Open House that brought over 50 students and staff members together for interfaith dialogue and some fun ice breaker activities. Each member of the Steering Committee and Interfaith Council brought 3 of their friends, and everyone felt enriched by the deep learning and fun environment.
            Recently, we culminated our year of launching the Better Together Campaign with our Better Together Bash, which we held in front of a campus landmark, Tommy Trojan. Over 250 students, faculty, staff, and administration members passed by and noticed the celebration. We had 10 religious and spiritual groups perform songs, recite sacred poetry, and perform a call to prayer. This was an opportunity to both celebrate the religious diversity on our campus and our successful campaign both on campus and in our community.
            What’s next? In conjunction with the Obama Interfaith Initiative, we will continue to expand the Better Together Campaign to educate our campus and our community about the urgency of multifaith cooperation in our neighborhood. We hope to create more cohesion between our campus and community initiatives by bringing more students into local schools and hopefully holding a one-day conference for high school students on USC’s campus. The conference will focus on developing interfaith leaders by empowering them to form interfaith groups in their schools.
            For me, this year has specifically helped me develop as a leader in a couple of areas. First, I have improved my ability to delegate tasks and trust others to complete their work (Better Together!). I also feel more comfortable asking for help and asking for participation. I still hope to improve these areas, as well as making an impact with social media and my story bank, in the coming year. I want to thank the Steering Committee, the Office of Religious Life, and IFYC for my amazing experience this year, and I can't wait to continue our success next year. Fight On!
            

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Some news we all love :-)

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet will visit USC on May 3 for two events hosted by the USC Student Interfaith Council.

“We are very excited that the Dalai Lama has accepted the USC Student Interfaith Council’s invitation to speak on campus. We see this as an extraordinary and unique opportunity and are very excited for this to take place,” said Varun Soni, dean of religious life at USC.

The first event will take place in the morning at the Galen Center where the Dalai Lama will give a public talk on such topics as secular ethics, religious pluralism and the relationship between spirituality and science. A question-and-answer session moderated by Dr. James Doty, a board member of the Dalai Lama Foundation, will follow the lecture.

The Dalai Lama will participate in a panel of scholars including Antonio Damasio, USC professor of neuroscience, and Gideon Yaffe, USC professor of philosophy and law, in another event on May 3 in the afternoon at Bovard Auditorium to talk about consciousness, cognition and contemplation.

Tickets will go on sale online Saturday, March 12 and over the phone Monday, March 14. Students will be able to receive a discounted price of $20 each for up to four tickets at either event.

USC faculty and staff are eligible to buy up to two tickets for a discounted rate of $50 each for the event taking place in Bovard Auditorium. Proceeds from both events will be donated to the Dalai Lama Foundation. Students should also expect to receive an e-mail from the USC Ticket Office with additional information about pricing and availability.


http://dailytrojan.com/2011/03/09/dalai-lama-set-to-appear-at-usc/

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Tree Planting at Bunche Middle School


Hey all!

Hope you are all having a fabulous and relaxing weekend! This morning, Natanya, Sarrah and I (along with Natanya's roommate Molly) headed out to Bunche Middle School in Compton to participate in a Tree People campus planting event. The USC Muslim Student Association and Hindu Student Organization also participated in the event. There were so many people there and it was such a great time working together and meeting new people through community service while reppin' SC. Everyone at the event worked in teams and we planted a total of 23 trees, which is great for mother nature and for the kids, who get a greener campus with more shade and beautiful trees!

If you couldn't make it this time, I really hope you join us at future service events. The more people who participate, the more we can really bring interfaith service to life in our community. :)

Enjoy our pictures below!

Vicki


Tree People leaders lead the planting demo
Sarrah and other USC kids hard at work!

Natanya measuring the depth!

Me and Natanya digging the hole for our tree!
Molly, Vicki, Natanya and our new friend, Juan!

Each group named their tree...we named ours Petri-Carl Burklo!

Fight On! :)

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Sharing is caring

I am not sure if anyone has every shared these links but I thought they are pretty interesting:

http://orl.usc.edu/religiouslife/meditation/

http://orl.usc.edu/religiouslife/holydays/

http://orl.usc.edu/religiouslife/residential/

http://orl.usc.edu/interfaith/souljourn/

Enjoy =)

Trojan

Monday, November 22, 2010

Retreat Part 2





















Okay....guys download these pictures ASAP so I can post more pictures because I have to delete some pictures in order to upload more...our upload quota is full :-( lol