URI of Northeast Tennessee held its annual gratitude dinner on Nov 17, 2012. Linda Sorrell (pictured above), a founding member, gave this history of the Cooperation Circle.
United Religions Initiative. Say it with me. “United Religions Initiative.” It’s a mouthful. I remember it by its acronym, URI, because that’s how I try to see you. U R I (You are I). I R U (I are you). Our Northeast Tennessee Cooperation Circle is one of 559 URI Cooperation Circles in 83 countries around the world.
Since early last spring, I have been intrigued by sharing our small High Hollow farm with flocks or rafters of turkeys. You could say that our neighbors are real turkeys! I was so excited when I first spotted the adult male flock and then the family brood flock of hens and their poults. Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey as our national symbol. In a letter to his daughter, he wrote, “I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America.”
In the book, MEDICINE CARDS: THE DISCOVERY OF POWER THROUGH THE WAYS OF ANIMALS by Jamie Sams and David Carson, the turkey is called the Give-Away Eagle or Earth Eagle. It is a symbol of all the blessings that the Earth contains, along with the ability to use all those blessings to their greatest advantage. “In Native American tradition, ‘medicine’ is a term used for anything that improves one’s connection to the Great Mystery and to all life. This would include the healing of body, mind, and spirit. This medicine is also anything which brings personal power, strength, and understanding. It is the constant living of life in a way that brings healing to the Earth Mother and to all of our associates, family, friends, and fellow creatures. Native American medicine is an all-encompassing ‘way of life,’ for it involves walking on the Earth Mother in perfect harmony with the Universe.” According to Ted Andrews, author of ANIMAL-SPEAK, the keynote of turkey medicine is shared blessings and harvest.
I remember having the same feeling of excitement when I first heard about URI as I did about seeing wild turkeys outside my window. Both the turkeys and URI fill me with a sense of gratitude. Our local URI “hatched” thirteen years ago on Nov. 9, 1999. Twenty of us local northeast Tennesseans attended a URI workshop in North Carolina that the Reverend John Martin had told us about. In Jan. 2000, we formed our URI Cooperation Circle of Northeast Tennessee. We adopted our mission statement: To promote awareness, respect, and cooperation among the diverse religions of Northeast Tennessee. Our dream is to fulfill our purpose through our individual examples and through our collective action in the region. In the beginning, we met monthly with programs.
In the summer of 2000, our circle sent me as our delegate to the URI Global Signing Ceremony in Pittsburg – the city with the most bridges in the USA. I felt honored and privileged to be in a group of over 200 people of faith from around the world who had come together to sign a charter to promote enduring, daily interfaith cooperation, help end religiously motivated violence, and create cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings. That felt like turkey medicine to me.
In the fall of 2000, we started seasonal celebrations, including our traditional November Gratitude Dinner celebration. Many years, I have baked both sourdough bread and a turkey to share at our URI dinners.
For three Septembers in the early 2000′s, our Northeast Circle co-sponsored with our Indo-American community, Wisdom from East and West Conferences. Programs included: Family Values and Rituals; Ideas of After-Life; and Religious Violence.
In the spring of 2003, we began inviting each other to our homes of worship, such as services at our local Jewish synagogue and temple for Indo-Americans. We were busy those first several years working with different groups in our community.
That to me is like the wild turkey flocks. Most of the year, in their home range, turkeys divide into flocks. In summer, fall and winter, the basic unit is the family flock (brood) consisting of the hen and her poults. Adult males form flocks that rarely associate with hens outside of the breeding period. In late fall, young males separate from their brood and form jake flocks. In March or early April, the groups of bachelor gobblers will rejoin all of the hens and form large groups. Our URI gathering opportunities remind me of how our different flocks of religious expression gather at our own homes of worship in our home range most of the year, then gather together for special events such as these.
During the 1930′s, the wild turkey was becoming endangered, but with protection they are making a comeback. In the mid 2000′s, with so many of the members of the URI steering committee retiring or moving, our local circle was dwindling. Sam Jones and I decided we needed to focus on the continuation of our November Gratitude celebration. During this celebration, we always heard the voices of different religious traditions. I love to hear these different voices just as I love to hear the variety of sounds the wild turkeys make. Many mornings, I awake to their clucks, purrs, putts, tree calls, cackles, yelps, kee kee whistles, and gobbles, which fill me with gratitude to be alive.
A couple of years ago, we had several newcomers to our area. Under the direction of the Reverend Jacqueline Luck, we saw a need to become more active. So our group used our URI nest again to slowly rebuild our “flock.” We have marched in the past three Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parades in Kingsport. Together, we can coexist like the turkeys and other birds at my bird feeders, while my horses, cats, and old dog look on.
We have had meetings and presented a number of programs, such as launching public video screenings in a series focused on learning, as people of many faiths, to live and work as advocates for peace and compassion in our communities. For several years while she was studying storytelling at ETSU, we were graced to have the then-Director of URI, North America., Sandy Westin, as a part of our circle. This year, while our member Leila Al-Imad was not a successful candidate for the URI North American Global Trustee, we extend our great appreciation for offering herself as a candidate in this important process.
Our mission is still to promote awareness, respect, and cooperation among the diverse religions of Northeast Tennessee. Our dream is still to fulfill our purpose through our individual examples and to keep our mission alive through our collective action in the region. This is not always easy, just as sharing our land with wild turkeys is sometimes challenging. For example, every time the green spouts of corn came up in our family garden, the turkeys would start at the end of the row and pull them out of the soil and gobble them up. But sharing our garden is a small price to pay for the joy of sharing our lives with these magnificent creatures.
I am grateful to share my life in East Tennessee with all of you. We have good “turkey medicine.” Together, we can give so much to each other and to our community. IRU! URI!
This blog post originally appeared at www.urinorthamerica.org, and is reposted with the kind permission of URI North America Regional Coordinator Kathryn Ward. Happy Thanksgiving from URI.
Notes
Jamie Sams & David Carson, MEDICINE CARDS: THE DISCOVERY OF POWER THROUGH THE WAYS OF ANIMALS; Bear & Company, Santa Fe, New Mexico; 1951; p.13.
Ted Andrews, ANIMAL-SPEAK: THE SPIRITUAL & MAGICAL POWERS OF CREATURES GREAT & SMALL; Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1966, pp. 199-200.
