Congregations come together at Thanksgiving service
Tonight I attended Tempe's community interfaith Thanksgiving service for at least the second time since I moved up here to go to school. And let me just tell you what a beautiful picture of the city I live in this service paints each year.
A rabbi sounded the shofar, and there was a reading from the Koran as well as from Deuteronomy and the Psalms.
We sang songs from The United Methodist Hymnal (since the service was hosted at Tempe First this year) and heard a childrens choir sing praise and thanksgiving to Allah, presumably in Arabic. (My ear isn't sophisticated enough to know for sure.)
And clergy and community leaders talked about the real, concrete service that Tempe's communities of faith have banded together to do in the Interfaith Homeless Emergency Lodging shelter program.
It's nights like these that make me proud to be a Tempean and thankful to be a part of the vibrant and cooperative religious community found in this city. It's also nights like these and that make me wish that there could be even more interfaith gatherings throughout the year.