Dear Friends,

Greetings of love and peace.

It is a joy to share with you the results of the trustee selection process in seven of URI’s eight regions (We expect that voting the Middle East and North Africa region will be completed by June 30th).

As you will see from the results below, the twenty-one trustees selected so far represent a diverse group of leaders from URI CCs. Nine are women, twelve are men. Fourteen are new trustees who will serve their first term, seven are current trustees who will serve another term. They come from sixteen countries and eight religions, spiritual expressions, indigenous traditions, and represent significant diversity within those eight families.

I would like to congratulate those who will serve on the 2008 Global Council, and thank all those who offered themselves in service but were not elected. I trust all will continue to offer powerful leadership in the URI during the coming three years. I look forward to welcoming three trustees from the MENA region once their election goes forward. I look forward to welcoming the three trustees the current Global Council selects to provide continuity and expertise on the new GC. I look forward to inaugurating the 2008 Global Council at the Global Assembly in Mayapur, India 30 November - 5 December 2008, as we honor the 2005 Global Council for their exemplary service over these past three years.

Now I ask you to welcome these members of the 2008 GC and to support them with your prayers and meditation in the months between now and the Global Assembly.

Africa:
Rattan Kaur Channa, United Religions of Nairobi, Kenya Sikh, new trustee
Samuel Lubogo, Latter Glory of Religions in Busoga, Uganda, Christian, new trustee Pelecinnah Josiah-Pele, Nigerian United Religions, Nigeria, Christian, new trustee

Asia:
James Channan, Lahore-Pakistan, Christian, current trustee
Jinwol Lee, URI Korea, Korea, Buddhist, current trustee
Sushil Salwan, Central Delhi, India, Hindu, new trustee

Europe:
Shaikh Bashir Ahmad Dultz, URI Europe, Germany, Sufi, current trustee
Elisabeth Lheure, Assoc. UNESCO/Diàleg Inter, Spain, Bahai, new trustee
Soroush Zand, Copenhagen, Denmark, Theosophist/Hindu, new trustee


Latin America and the Caribbean:
Elias de Andrade Pinto, Grupo Inter-Rel. de São Paulo, Brazil, Christian, current trustee
Fany Avila Eleta, Mujeres Artesansa Kunas, Panama, Indigenous, new trustee
David Limo Pajar, URI Lima, Peru, Christian, new trustee

Multi-Region:
Linda Bennett Elder, The Pilgrimage Project, United States, Christian, new trustee
Yoland Trevino, Women and Spirituality, United States, Indigenous, current trustee
Matthew Paul Youde, URI Global Youth, United Kingdom, Christian, new trustee

North America:
Susanna McIlwaine, Interfaith Explorers of Northern Virgina, United States, Studying Sufism and Buddhism, new trustee
Adelia Sandoval, SARAH, United States, Christian, current trustee
Rebecca Gonzales-Tobias, The Raoul Wallenberg Institute, Jew, new trustee

Southeast Asia and the Pacific:
Marites Africa, The Peacemakers Circle, Philippines, Christian, new trustee
Amir Farid Isahak, Malaysian Interfaith Network, Malaysia, Muslim, current trustee
Musa M. Sanguila, Pakigdait, Philippines, Muslim, new trustee

The official counting of the proxy ballots for this election was held at the URI global office in San Francisco, CA (USA), April 21, 2008. Witnesses included, Michelle Clark, Charles Gibbs, Barbara Hartford, Sally Mahe, Mark Mancao, Sam Ruben, Ray Signer and Yoland Trevino (by phone).

  Yoland Trevino did not participate in the counting of the Multi-Region ballots. Each of the seven regions easily exceeded the 51% of certified CCs required to vote for these elections to be valid.

Dear Friends,

Greetings of love and peace.

“We all begin and end at the same place.”

These words have been in my heart since I learned of Dr. Nirmala Deshpande’s sudden passing from this realm to the next. They were spoken by Musa Muhaiyadeen, a Sufi leader in the USA, in a talk about pilgrimage I heard over this past weekend,

They call me to reflect on pilgrimage – the pilgrimage each of us makes from cradle to grave, the rich history of pilgrimage to sacred sites, and how the pilgrimage of our life and the pilgrimage to a sacred site might come together in the pilgrimage of the URI community to our Global Assembly in Mayapur, India, 30 November – 5 December 2008.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, God speaks to the Prophet Jeremiah, Before I knit you in your mother’s womb I knew you, and consecrated you to be a prophet to the nations.

One understanding of our individual lives as pilgrimage is that we journey between the cradle and the grave to discover our unique consecration as human beings. To discover why we are on this Earth. And to give ourselves fully and unreservedly to fulfilling our unique purpose in a way that allows us to become a true human being in service to our Source and to all life.

The American poet, Robert Frost, wrote:

Something we were withholding made us weak.

Until we found it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright.

Our human pilgrimage, one that Nirmala Deshpande exemplified so completely, is to know in our heart why we are here and to surrender ourselves fully in fulfillment of our purpose, in service to our Source and all life, withholding nothing. This is our goal. Each day, as pilgrims, we journey toward that goal. 

The URI is a community of people of diverse religions, spiritual expressions and indigenous traditions who have dedicated themselves, each in their own way, to this individual pilgrimage. The URI is a community of pilgrims. 

The world is radiant with sites seen as sacred, sites that attract people because of a concentration of spiritual energy that draws us, like a magnet, deeper into our own pilgrimage. This energy is strengthened by the focused presence of pilgrims who, year after year, bring their open hearts and questing souls in search of a deeper encounter with the Source and a deeper connection with their unique consecration, with their core of their purpose and being. 
 

I have experienced this concentrated sacred energy all over the world. Even with all the turmoil in the Middle East, I have felt this ennobling energy in Jerusalem at the Western Wall, at the Dome of the Rock and at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. 

I felt it at the Haeinsa Temple in Korea and the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah, California. 

I’ve also felt it on Robben Island, South Africa where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for seventeen years – a prison cell turned into a shrine to the triumph of the human spirit, to hatred and despair being overcome by the power of forgiveness and hope. I felt it standing with the URI Global Council and staff on pilgrimage at the Demilitarized Zone that for fifty years has separated the people of North and South Korea – a shrine to the profound human yearning to overcome separation and division with reunification and wholeness. 

And I have felt this sacred energy crossing the Ganges in a boat with Dr. T. D. Singh and walking into the ISKCON Temple compound in Mayapur, India. In seven months, the representatives of the URI community around the world will make a pilgrimage to Mayapur. We will carry with us our own deepest yearnings to see our purpose in life more clearly and to honor it more completely – to find salvation in surrender.

We will carry with us the deepest yearnings of our own Cooperation Circles and of the whole URI community to live the change we wish to see in the world and to deepen our commitment and capacity to shine the healing, transformative light of that change over all our weary and wounded world. And we will celebrate the lives of those great pilgrims of URI – Dr. T. D. Singh and Dr. Nirmala Deshpande, and the URI leaders who have gone before us to the Celestial CC.

Whether or not you are able to travel physically to Mayapur, I invite all of the URI community to be conscious we are on pilgrimage, individually and together. I invite your prayers and meditations to support us as we journey – Pilgrims of Peace: Many Paths, One Purpose – ever nearer our source and ever deeper into our purpose in this world.

I intend to write more reflections on pilgrimage and on Mayapur in the days ahead. I invite each of you to share your reflections on pilgrimage and your experiences as a pilgrim.

It is a joy to share this journey with each of you.

Love,

Charles

Wed 4/30/2008

Dear Friends,

Greetings of love and peace.

I have just received a call from Dr. Mohinder Singh informing me, with great sadness, that Dr. Nirmala Deshpande has died unexpectedly after having recently returned from a trip.

Though she was small in physical stature, Nirmala Deshpande was a spiritual giant, one of the world's foremost Gandhians, a Member of Parliament, and a cherished leader in the URI community in India and around the world.

Dear Friends, 

Greetings of love and peace.

As a non-governmental organization with consultative status at the UN, the URI has a responsibility to support initiatives that further key UN objectives and are consistent with URI's Preamble, Purpose and Principles.

In January, I shared with you URI's involvement in an effort to have the UN declare a Decade of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace. I would now like to share with you two other initiatives the URI has been asked to participate in related to fulfilling the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).