World Peace Barong featured in article on 2009 Parliament in Parabola Magazine

WORLD RELIGIONS GET DOWN TO EARTH by Trebbe Johnson, full article click http://ning.it/93GBlG

Offerings for World Peace Barong_PWR 2009_6-Dec_Suprapto Suryodarmo & Benny Zable_photo © Trebbe Johnson

(updated excerpt from Johnson, 2010, Parabola Magazine, Summer, pp. 98-105)

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What happens when leaders from the world's religions mix it up?

This report from the Parliament of the World’s Religions takes us behind closed doors.

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"Sensually, it was a panoply of colorful raiment, ceremonies, liturgies, and languages from around the world. Spiritually, the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions, held December 3-9 in Melbourne, Australia, had the feeling of a quest, or rather thousands of individual quests pursued by people who came together not just to espouse their own beliefs but to explore together how to solve some of the world’s most grievous problems. “Making a World of Difference: Hearing Each Other, Healing the Earth” was the theme of this gathering held in the soaring, light-filled Melbourne Convention Center on the bank of the Yarra River, in the ancestral homeland of the aboriginal Wurundjeri people. For a week, six thousand participants from eighty countries, representing religious and spiritual traditions old and new, shared one another’s worship services; attended 662 talks, panel discussions, and films; and exchanged ideas, prayers, and email addresses.

The first Parliament of World Religions took place in Chicago in 1893, the second not until one hundred years later, again in the Windy City. Cape Town, Barcelona, and now Melbourne have hosted subsequent gatherings. Since the beginning, the concept of what the parliament has to offer, and to whom, has changed radically. …

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[the full article continues]

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…Whether the abundance of new ideas, partnerships, and plans that arose during the week on the bank of the Yarra River really will make a difference to a world in sore need remains, of course, to be seen. That major steps were taken there is no doubt. One example of how spiritual traditions can address worldly challenges unfolded quietly and with few witnesses on the fourth day of the parliament. Since the start of the gathering, a ubiquitous presence, mentioned in none of the parliament program materials, was that of Benny Zable, an activist and street artist from New South Wales, who spends part of his time in New York. Every morning and evening he stood in the plaza before the convention center, nearly motionless except for his hands, which rose and fell in prayer or supplication, his features concealed behind a gas mask and a black cloak on which were written “FOSSIL FOOLS” and “THERE ARE NO JOBS ON A DEAD PLANET”.

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Although most people hurried past Zable, one exception was Suprapto Suryodarmo, an Indonesian movement artist and founder of the Padepokan Lemah Putih school in Solo, Central Java. Suryodarmo was part of a contingent [with artists of varied faiths from Bali, the Kraton Surakarta palace, and Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia] who spoke and performed at the parliament and who had brought with them a special World Peace Barong, a traditional Balinese figure of peace and well-being, in this case created with natural materials sent by people of different faiths from around the world.

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Suryodarmo had been touched by Zable’s prayerful vigil and asked him to be part of the official blessing ceremony of the barong, which was originally scheduled to take place in one of the convention meeting rooms. Late in the afternoon of December 6th, therefore, while all but a few participants were attending sessions indoors, [Prapto and Diane Butler, an American dancer who has lived and danced in Bali for many years] carried the barong outside, and Suryodarmo sat down before it on the ground and prayed quietly. After a while, he rose and began to dance. His feet moved with slow-motion precision as his hands created mudras, formal patterns of meaning, in the air. Then Benny Zable began to move in response. The Indonesian [Buddhist] and the Australian street artist danced in harmony, their movements reflected in the tall plate-glass windows of the convention center as the barong stared benignly out at the passing crowd.

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Here was spiritual and activist collaboration made manifest: spontaneous, non-coercive, graceful, and creative, based partly on ancient tradition and partly on the needs of a particular moment in time. Each person expressed himself from the fullness of his spiritual belief, and together they called attention to the fate of the earth and the abundant and beautiful ways that the human spirit is capable of responding to it.”

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Read about the World Peace Barong

www.peacenext.org/profile/WorldPeaceBarong

click join as a friend.

Thank you.

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This barong will be dedicated to the 1,000 year anniversary of the interreligious meeting of reconciliation at Pura
Samuan Tiga during “Sharing Art & Religiosity” in late April-early May 2011.

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Gifted materials such as coral, stones, feathers, fabric

or natural materials from your land to

Beautify the World Peace Barong
may be sent to
YAYASAN DHARMA SAMUAN TIGA
1 JALAN PURA SAMUAN TIGA
BEDULU, BALI 80551 INDONESIA

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