Interfaith Harmony among the COE World Children

For the past 15 years there has been a growing swell for interfaith harmony. I remember my first introduction to this was for the annual opening of each General Assembly with the Inter-faith celebration to pray and meditate with religious leaders, ambassadors and others speaking on giving inner support to the leaders of our world as they planned to meet in the General Assembly. Originally this was held within the UN and later at a local Church prior to the convening of the GA. Nana Apeadu, who is a Guide for Children of the Earth, would be invited to pour Libation for Kofi Annan thus even including the Indigenous Africans in this process. On 9/11, a disastrous day for the US, there was a major special ceremony calling all religions together. The Interfaith Center of NY became the visible action model for this. Now at the UN, interfaith has been integrated into the fuller understanding of the need it fulfills and we have the Interfaith Week starting in February as a global event.

Children from around the world within the organization of Children of the Earth have come together since 1990. They come together from all lands and all religions. They come from most unusual circumstances such as war torn Sierra Leone to out-casted Native Americans from upstate NY to Mongolian orphan youth from the former USSR. All coming to learn, to live and to love. They stand with each other, to look at who and what is a "universal human being",  how is LOVE more powerful than FEAR and finally how to make PEACE. Peace…both inner and outer…equates to harmony.

We brought these young people together to our home, Hearts Bend in the US, to Aburi, Ghana to Japan to the mountains of Mt Fuji with the religious group of Byakko to Mohawk Country to sit in POWWOW to the Buddhist meditation training of Dhammakaya in Thailand, always criss-crossing all religions and learning from our hosts. Thus, these young people embraced Buddhism, indigenous teachings, Hindu practices, Christian thought, Jewish prayers and on and on. They all became cognizant that they are one family of humankind. This pilgrimage began at the home site and continues forward even today. They are the family of youth of Children of the Earth stretching across 50 countries and touching presently over 15,000 young people. They are the spirit of Children of the Earth and future stewards of our world. Children of the Earth’s next endeavor is to create a SpiritYouth website for youth spirit ambassadors to communicate with each other and know each other as universally conscious beings. They are being trained and as future leaders will lead us to new models of structural global interdependence and interconnectedness.

For years we traveled the world bringing groups of youth together and showcasing their new ideas. While focused on creating a Spiritual Forum at the UN and also formulating a World Spirit Forum in Switzerland, I began to realize that interfaith means one religion at a time being celebrated and recognized. I realized that if I am to advocate for the universal human as well as one family of humankind that we need to go beyond this nomenclature. For Children of the Earth, on our trip to Nepal with 20 people, we identified a new movement, that of INTRAFAITH…thus going inside the human being to spirit and bringing this spirit weaving of humans into reality. The identity of religion was, in my mind, to become an externalized dress code such as ethnicity or culture or any other country habits only an outward definition of the person.

So if we are to experience ourselves in harmony we must start from where we are the same and not believe and learn that it is the development of tolerance that teaches us to be united but rather that we are united by birth. We must start to define ourselves as intra-faith humans acting as individuals and in collectives with outer designs. Intra-faith is oneness. If we are to learn anything it is to remember that We Are One.

Nina Meyerhof, Ed. D., Founder and President of Children of the Earth

To learn more visit the Global Harmony Association website at: http://www.peacefromharmony.org/