The Heart of Tragedy and the Spirit of of Loving Unity: The Work of the Newtown Interfaith Council
Session Description:
After the horrific Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, the Interfaith Council there was thrown into the middle of the recovery efforts of that badly wounded community. Deeply burdened themselves, they were brought to their knees in grief. But, from this deeply humbling experience of powerlessness and loss, they found a profoundly tender and moving sense of fellowship with each other and the community at large. As the tenth anniversary of that tragedy approaches they share now the previously unimagined ways in which they were called to service and offer insights into how their personal faith was affected by the tragedy, how they came to understand each other’s faith traditions more deeply and ways in which other communities can utilize their interfaith community to prevent such tragedies, to respond with spiritual resilience when they occur and to prevent the pull toward extremism that suffering evokes when not tempered by the uniting powers of faith.