Use this anniversary as an opportunity for unity and hope, says Brethren Witness/Washington Office.

The Brethren Witness/Washington Office has extended an invitation to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington by remembering 100 years of Gandhian nonviolence. Coincidentally, today also is the 100th anniversary of the start of Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent work.

The office called on Brethren to take the opportunity to celebrate "interfaith unity and hope on a day often recognized for revenge and despair," in a recent Action Alert.

Brethren Witness/Washington Office director Phil Jones is taking part today in a 9/11/06 Unity Walk in New York City sponsored by Religions for Peace-USA, an interfaith nonprofit organization that works to foster religious communities working together to build a society of peace and justice. The walk is co-sponsored by 911 Unity Walk, a grassroots interfaith movement that creates ways for people of all faiths or of no faith tradition to walk together in a transformative remembrance of 9/11.

The Church of the Brethren is an active member of Religions for Peace-USA; Jones recently returned from an international conference in Japan held by the parent organization, the VIIIth Assembly of Religions for Peace, held in Kyoto on Aug. 26-29.

The New York City Unity Walk is set to convene at 5 p.m. this evening beginning at the Union Square Park Gandhi Memorial. Participants will walk three miles to the World Trade Center site, stopping for music and prayer at diverse houses of worship along the way--among others the Eldridge Street Project, a historic Jewish temple; Mahayanna Buddhist Temple; Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order, a mosque; and a closing ceremony at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church.

From the World Trade Center site, participants are encouraged to join the New York Buddhist Church on Pier 40 for a 9/11 Memorial Floating Lantern Ceremony in the Hudson River, scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m.

Scheduled speakers and performers include Salman Ahmad, a Pakistani rock musician and UN Goodwill Ambassador; Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, president of the Jewish Life Network; Imam Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation; Preeta Bansal, commissioner of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom; Chloe Breyer, board member of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation; and Bud Heckman, executive director of Religions for Peace-USA.

"If you are not able to participate in New York you are encouraged to plan or participate in local events that prayerfully remember the violence of 9/11 and our response as global citizens of peace. Please contact our office with reports of such events," said the alert from the Brethren Witness/Washington Office.

For more about the unity walk in New York go to www.911unitywalk.org. For more about the Brethren Witness/Washington Office, a ministry of the Church of the Brethren General Board, go to www.brethren.org/genbd/WitnessWashOffice.html.

Source: 9/11/2006 Newsline