20th Annual Interfaith/Intercultural Breakfast

I recently received the surprising and humbling honor of being asked to join the Organizing Committee for the 20th Annual California Conference for Equality & Justice Interfaith/Intercultural Breakfast. The Breakfast is a long-standing and wonderful tradition in the city of Long Beach, and brings together folks from numerous religious and cultural backgrounds in an effort to break boundaries by breaking bread together, all while listening to the thoughts of some of our nation’s most inspiring leaders in the quest for social justice and the advancement of community.

I was very grateful to be in attendance at last year’s Breakfast. Keynote speaker and Claremont Graduate University President Emeritus John D. Maguire spoke about working alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as an original Freedom Rider, and called participants to a reevaluation of the methods and process of social activism as they relate to King’s idea of a Beloved Community. This year, we are to be blessed by the words of Jesuit Roman Catholic Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries. His organization is a vital link in the ex-gang-member rehabilitation chain in Los Angeles, and his twenty years serving and working with this woefully underserved sector of our community has saved countless lives. Some of my own students have been routed through the programs at Homeboy, so this year’s Breakfast holds added value for me.

In these often divisive times, it is sincerely an honor to be a part of an event that is as important as the Interfaith/Intercultural Breakfast. Nothing can do more to erode the falsehoods that keep us separated than the simple act that is the willingness to see past them and commune with Others in an honest, earnest approach toward understanding and community. The ideas of inter-relatedness and interdependence are founding tenets of The Institute’s work, and this event is a vital opportunity to rediscover the unifying values that all humans share, and to celebrate the Oneness found in diversity and difference. I invite you to consider attending, and so to join me in discovering your Self in an Other.

Michael Bush
Founder/Director