By admin
In the world of search engine optimisation the ‘big three’, that is Google, MSN and Yahoo are regarded to be the focus of any optimization effort. These three search engines however all use algorithms which although similar, are different enough to bring diverse results for the same key terms. Despite the differences, through effective measures it is possible to achieve good rankings in all three. Most SEO specialists see this as the biggest challenge, to achieve good rankings in the ‘big three’ simultaneously.
The ‘big three’ may have differing methods but ultimately their objectives are the same. This is to supply the user with the most relevant and useful results for any particular search term. This is why, with specialist knowledge it is possible to achieve high rankings in all three engines. Obviously however, if the key terms being targeted are too generic and competitive, achieving top spot in all of the ‘big three’ is an exceptionally difficult task. Subsequently when selecting keywords it is essential to find a balance between competition and specialisation. Too generic and competition will be too high, too specific and the search volume will be too low.
Most search engine optimisation industry workers will agree that in terms of difficulty MSN, Yahoo and Google differ; MSN usually being the easiest to achieve rankings, followed by Yahoo and then Google.
MSN requires an approach than is heavily link focussed, although content is still important. MSN tends to be the fastest of the three to pick up on changes in content and links and hence will yield results more quickly. Some analysts estimate that although MSN is considered the third most popular engine, the users are over ten percent more likely to buy the items they are looking at in comparison to Google and Yahoo. In terms of results, six months will be the benchmark of success in MSN, this is however dependent upon the competition for the search terms.
When you are optimizing a page for the MSN search engine, you should place importance in weaving a theme around your site, and build up a number of relevant backlinks or those links that point to your site from an external source.
Of the three, MSN is the easiest for SEO specialists to optimize for. This is because it easily sees newly posted content and inbound links, so even if your site is new it still stands a chance for high ranking if the theme requirement is met and has a solid number of inbound links. At this time, MSN does not weigh links value through age and history like the other two engines do, so it is relatively easier to gain a higher ranking in MSN.
Some people would probably not bother around in concentrating SEO efforts for MSN since it is the less used engine among all three, but data show that MSN users participate in e-commerce transactions more than the users of the other two engines. Thus, if you are engaged in Internet marketing, you should keep in mind to structure your site effectively for MSN.
Yahoo generally uses the same methods of operation as MSN meaning that optimization for one will normally produce results in both. Yahoo in recent years however have decided to pursue similar methods as the market leader Google. This move is probably an attempt to court some of the millions of people who use Google to instead choose Yahoo. Part of this effort has focused on creating greater emphasis on the temporal nature of links, meaning that sights with relevant and recent links will rank higher. This does however mean that optimizers must have a constant approach if they want to achieve consistent results in Yahoo.
Yahoo for a large part of its development relied upon the same sort of system than MSN, making search engine optimisation relatively simple for the two of them. However, of late Yahoo have switched and started to follow the Google example. This is most probably due to the huge popularity of Google, and its dominant position in the search engine industry.
Yahoo has begun to place an emphasis upon the temporal nature of links making optimisation a constant effort if Yahoo is the focus. It also lengthens the optimisation process but makes efforts ultimately worthwhile as aged links are highly respected.
SEO efforts for Yahoo! until recently have been similar in nature to tactics used in structuring a page to gain a high rank in MSN. In short, if you can optimize your page for MSN, you won’t have to do anything much for Yahoo!
However, Yahoo has recently adopted an algorithm that is similar to Google including the age delay factor. Just like Google, SEOs could expect for some considerable delay before the inbound links that they have built for a site can gain some value in the calculation of ranking among Yahoo’s search engine results.
Naturally Google is the primary focus for all SEO specialists. As the world’s most popular search engine it creates more traffic than both of the others combined. Ethical methods of optimization are most worthwhile with Google as operatives are adept at picking up black hat techniques. Content is king and holds a great deal of sway when it comes to compiling rankings; as do the number of links to a site. Out of the ‘big three’ results in Google will take the longest but ultimately are the most worthwhile.
Google uses a strict algorithm to filter out sites for relevance to its users search queries and is the most difficult to optimize for. Unfortunately for many SEO specialists, Google also holds the spot for having the most people using it for searches. This means that webmasters (clients for search engine optimizers) are more likely to give you instructions to optimize them for Google.
With its latest update (nicknamed Jagger), Google has implemented an age delay criteria. This delay means that as time passes, inbound links to your site gain more and more weight. This is good news for those who have managed to stay around long in the World Wide Web and have built significant numbers of links. However, this could mean more difficulty in SEO efforts for newly established sites.
Like MSN, Google also places weight to a site’s relevancy to a theme instead of just singular keywords. Sites that have more relevant internal pages than irrelevant ones are more likely to earn the top spot in Google’s results.
When pursuing optimisation it is normally the case that by applying methods that work best in Google, results will be forthcoming in the other two. By striving to create well written, structured and constructed content success will be attainable. Success will not be immediate however, optimisation is a long game that only brings high rankings and increased traffic in an elongated period of time.
Search engine optimisation is usually concerned with ‘the big three’ of the search engine industry. The problem is that each of these search engines has a different algorithm and different sets of rules, some sites, through efficient optimisation have managed to get to number one on all of them. That is the challenge set to most optimisers, with three major websites that mange the traffic of millions, the other, minor search engines are simply not worth the pursuit of optimisation.
While the big three have different algorithm and systems, ultimately their goals are the same; to provide the user with the most relevant results. This means that despite their different methods it is possible to pursue optimisation simultaneously.
That said if using search engine for highly competitive phrases it will be hard to reach a triple number one spot. Choosing the right level of competition for search terms is essential, if competition is too high it will be hard to keep rankings, too easy and you will find that the search terms are rarely used and traffic to your site will suffer.
To discuss methods of search engine optimisation for all three it is easier to discuss them singularly. What must be considered is that MSN is usually the simplest, followed by Yahoo and then the jewel in the crown for any optimisation company; Google.
Performing search engine optimisation for MSN means creating a site with a distinct theme and many links. MSN tends to pick up on changes more quickly then the other two making the process considerably quicker if focussing on results purely on MSN.
Despite its number three place in popularity, it is believed MSN searchers are nearly fifty percent more likely to purchase items than other search engine users. Most importantly is to create a solid site with a coherent theme throughout. Linking should bring results in a matter of months.
Google is the focus for much of the search engine optimisation industry, as the world’s most popular search engine, this is unsurprising. Rankings in Google are the hardest to obtain but the traffic created is the highest in number. The usual ethical methods of optimisation apply; unique content, a large amount of that content and well built links are all vital for high rankings. It takes the longest of any of the others but rewards are the largest. Time is a factor as more emphasis is placed upon the history of a page than the other search engines.
Logically your first goal is to target MSN as the easiest of the three, then Yahoo and finally Google. However, seemingly if you are doing things right for one search engine results in the other two will follow. Naturally Google will be the primary objective but the amount of traffic from the other two is still sizeable.
If you follow the general principles of creating large amounts of unique, relevant content and high quality links your site will start to climb up the rankings. Do not however expect immediate success; optimisation campaigns for all three will take time, all require an elongated effort to achieve decent rankings.
Tips in Optimizing Pages for All Three Engines
Now that you have understood how each engine arrives at each search result’s ranking, you can then plan your SEO tactics accordingly so that you could gain some rank for each of them.
As you could see, each of them place similar emphasis for website content. This means that you should first concentrate of building content that satisfies these engines theme density requirements. Your SEO efforts at this point should focus on building content that is built around a certain theme, and you should putting pages that deviate from it lest you want to lose some of your points for relevancy.
Link building for your website is still important, however, MSN treats links differently from the way Yahoo and Google does. With their age factor, it would take you some time before you could gain your desired ranks in those two engines.
However, MSN offers you an avenue to gain a top rank with your inbound links because it has no age delay criterion. As your links gain in age, they would naturally gain some weight with Yahoo and Google. Thus, you should first concentrate your efforts in ranking in MSN through inbound links and expect a similar result to follow after a while in Yahoo! and Google.
By admin
Mind-body-spirit, id-ego-superego, father-son-holy ghost, mind-matter-ether, body-mind-soul. Whatever you choose to call it people from all different types of background; academic, philosophical even new age all tend to agree that there consists three dimensions to ourselves. The implications for positive thinking are huge and indeed it is not until all these aspects are bought into line that a person can really harness the power of positive thinking and make dramatic progress…sometimes even miraculous progress towards their goals.
So has anyone alive gotten their three dimensions into line I hear you ask?
Well, yes certainly. Take a look at any successful person and the chances are they will have achieved some degree of alignment within their dimensions. I happen to have just watched a clip of tennis player Roger Fedderrer collecting yet another trophy. He certainly has addressed all of these aspects and it has been a major reason for his success. His competitive mindset, focussed attitude, and persistent rigorous training all align his three dimensions adequately.
Let me just say here that my preferred way of phrasing these dimensions of ourselves is that of: thought-word-action. I find using this phrase makes it abundantly clear what needs to be done.
First your thoughts have to be of clarity and purpose. You have to know what you want, you need to have some sort of plan, believe you can achieve it and have the ability to drop negative thoughts from your mind. This is particularly important in the case of thoughts regarding fear. Once you can consistently control your thoughts and keep them channelled towards your goal then you have the first of the three dimensions under your control.
Secondly your words have to match your thoughts. There is no point thinking one things and saying another. Words are very powerful. They can be used to re-affirm to yourself what your intentions are, they can be used to pass on your thoughts to others so they to may assist you and they can also effect the actions of others in the future.
Thirdly your actions must also match your thoughts and words. What is the point of thinking and speaking in a certain way and then when it comes to the crunch not actually following through with these intentions. It is said that a decision has never been made until it has been acted upon. This is very true as regards your actions. No one can make you do anything…only you can take the correct actions to help you achieve your goals.
Now take a look at your own life goals at the moment. If you are not making the progress you would like examine your own dimensions. Do your actions really match up with your thoughts? Do you speak confidently about achieving your goals with others? Do you let fear run free in your mind and interfere with your positive thoughts? If any of these occurences ring a bell then maybe it is time to be honest and acknowlegde that your progress is going to be slow until you get these three aspects in to line.
The good news however is that with a bit of time and practise these dimensions can all be put into alignment with eachother and you can make significant progress. Indeed there is nothing you cannot be do or have should you choose to follow this approach. Go ahead now, believe in yourself and create a fantastic life.
By admin
God comes into this world as me, as you, as everyone since He created everyone, thus God manifests as people. The process through which that is accomplished can be seen through the difficult metaphor and principle of the trinity. Church fathers battled for centuries over exactly how there could be just ONE God and yet say there are THREE Gods. It was not an easy conclusion to draw and an even more difficult one to explain.
But, try this practical outworking of the trinity on for size. If it doesn’t fit, don’t force it.
God-Father-Consciousness-Creator-Guide is THOUGHT, the originator of ALL. He (no gender intended) is the architect of all life and existence. And guess what, His THOUGHTS are not our thoughts because we’ve been inculturated by this world. God’s thoughts come from an unconditioned consciousness whereas our thought come from a human “conditioned consciousness.”
The Son is the WORD. Who will disagree with that? Few I would suspect. It is the WORD that creates everything that has been THOUGHT. Here is where FAITH enters in. It is “by faith” that the WORD is spoken (from the THOUGHTS that have been HEARD) that builds the bridge from the invisible, that which is NOT, to the visible (which is only temporal).
The Spirit then manifests, is the action, that brings to live and sight what was thought and spoken. Life is that simple and yet that difficult. It’s difficult because our THOUGHTS are most often not God’s. All of God’s thoughts are loved-laced, full of forgiveness, totally inclusive, tolerant, and non judgmental. Tell me who you know that lives like that!
So, in the end God comes as ME!
God lives life through you, me, and people. See people and you’re seeing a manifestation of God. The real journey of life isn’t about obeying this rule or that, but listening to the thoughts of God, speaking what you have heard, and then seeing such come into existence. as Phil. 2:13 says, ” For God is working in you, He is as you, dwelling within us, giving us the desire to be AS him and thus the power to do what pleases him and transforms the world (Ernie’s paraphrase version- EPV).
The metaphor of the trinity transforms NOTHING when presented in religious garb, but it transforms all, everything of life, when viewed as the process through which we are to live life!
By admin
Will they drop out or graduate? The academic journey of the Pele girls is the first story in our series on dropout prevention.
Honolulu’s President William McKinley High School has a tradition so sacred, even teenagers dare not tread on it: Stay off the oval.
Even the redbirds and sparrows perched high on the 100-year-old banyan and palm trees seem to circumvent the ellipse surrounding the eight-ton bronze statue of the school’s namesake.
“You’re only allowed to walk on the oval as a graduating senior on Commencement Day,” explains Tu’uali’i Pele, flanked by her two younger sisters, both McKinley students.
The younger siblings fall quiet and look away. Eighteen-year-old Tu’uali’i, nicknamed Stukiso smart she skipped sixth grade in her birthplace of American Samoa, who can quote obscure Bible passages at will, and who co-founded a thriving school club celebrating Polynesian culture-will never walk the oval.
Stuki dropped out of school in her senior year.
“I started hanging around with the wrong people and trying to please my friends,” Stuki explains. “They would call me a loser and a geek for going to class.”
Peer pressure, along with language barriers, economic hardship, and culture shock profoundly impede the performance of many Asian American and Pacific Islander (API) students. Though the dropout rate in Hawaii is by most accounts almost 16 percent, the scant data monitoring Pacific Islanders indicate their dropout rate is higher.
The numbers are hard to pin down because more than 50 ethnic groups (representing about 100 languages) are categorized under the umbrella term API. Even Hawaii, with the highest percentage of API students in the country, isn’t required to separate the subgroups on its No Child Left Behind state report card.
McKinleys diverse API population has a proud legacy of highachieving graduates who attend Ivy League schools, military academies, and mainland universities from California to Maine. Yet the picturesque school, whose students and teachers seem to embody the aloha spirit of Hawaii, also has one of the highest dropout rates and ninth-grade retention rates in the state, with nearly a third of the freshman class repeating their first year of high school.
But Vice Principal John Hammond is not deterred. “The kids have a lot more potential than they think,” he says. He has seen a direct correlation between students’ involvement in extracurriculars and academic performance. “The more involved in school they become, the better they start to do.”
The Polynesian Club
At the beginning of her senior year, Stuki was concerned that some API students were skipping school and partying too much. Determined to do something about it, she dedicated herself to founding (with her best friend Hiramo) the Polynesian Club.
‘I wanted [Pacific Islanders! to take pride in their culture," she says. But at first, it was hard to get students to attend.
Discouraged, and floundering academically themselves, Stuki and Hiramo started skipping class. They eventually dropped out, just a few months before school ended.
By that time, however, the Polynesian Club was increasing in popularity. It has since become a lifeline for Pacific Islander students, including Stuki's sisters, Miriama, almost 17 and currently enrolled in a "last chance" seniors program, and Beatriz, a 14-year-old freshman who stumbled at McKinley after a stellar record in middle school.
"I was, like, nervous and shy when I first got to school," says Miriama, who has bright eyes and a ready smile. "When I found out there were Samoan kids fat school], I started to know what to do and where to go.”
Representing a dozen ethnicities, the club’s 60 members meet once a week. Through song, dance, and storytelling, students from Samoa, Tonga, Hawaii, and other Pacific Islands discuss each other’s history, language, and cuisine. They’ve been known to debate, for example, how best to prepare kalua pork, which is slow roasted in an underground oven and shredded.
“When you come here,” says senior Darlene Samau, “you don’t feel like a lost Polynesian child.”
Before the club, some Pacific Islander students felt like they didn’t have an identity on campus, explain staff advisors Akenese Nikolao-Mutini and Clarisse Tuasivi, who are both Polynesian.
“If they don’t have strength in the academic areas, they feel shunned,” says Nikolao-Mutini. “They feel they’re fighting against a stereotype as soon as they walk into a classroom,” adds Tuasivi.
Many students stay late to do their homework in the club’s classroom, where the floral-scented breezes from nearby orchid gardens waft through the six-foot-tall windows. It’s a marked contrast to most students’ homes, where there can be two and three generations of family under one roof. Often, teens must help with child rearing, which takes time away from working on assignments.
“The Polynesian Club is helping us do better in school,” says Miriama, who along with other members must complete one career and two community projects a year. Last year, members conducted a groundbreaking student survey inquiring about, among other items, whether they plan to finish high school and continue their education. Responses to why they might quit school ranged from “English is hard to understand,” to “teachers are racist,” to “hate doing homework,” and “school is not a priority at my home.” Most students indicated either that they plan to continue their education or “have not thought about it.”
Safety Nets
Part of a McKinley educator’s role is to get students thinking about their futures, says Laverne Moore, the school’s curriculum coordinator. “The students who make it have a caring adult following them through their school years to graduation.”
Many members of the Polynesian Club, including Miriama, are enrolled in one of the school’s nine support programs, which offer different kinds of reinforcement to help students attain the 22 credits needed to graduate. Beatriz will have a harder time than her sister because the class of 2010 will need 24 credits to graduate.
The majority of students enrolled in the programs are English language learners (ELLs). Like most ELL students, Miriama and Beatriz speak their native tongue at home and with friends. They only use English when talking with teachers, they say, or writing on their MySpace pages (where they proudly label themselves “100% certified Samoan”).
When students do speak English, it’s often a mixture of English and their native language, says Patricia Meyer, transition coordinator and Polynesian Club advisor. Meyer helps place incoming students at the proper grade level and outgoing students find a job, a vocation or other training.
She says when students hear Standard English in school, they don’t always understand the teacher.
“They have to think about it and translate it into their language,” says Meyer. “If there’s no vocabulary for a word or concept in that language, they don’t know what we’re talking about.”
She stresses the importance of early intervention.
“If we can keep them through ninth grade, we can usually hold on to them,” she adds.
Barely three months into her freshman year, Beatriz is becoming a poster child for the ninth-grade blues. “She’s like me,” says Stuki, who is worried about her younger sister. “We’re the kind of people who think we know everything.”
When students stumble, school counselors step in, confer with teachers, and determine whether to enroll the student in an immersion program where the same group spends all day with one or two teachers-like the Po’okela Academy, an intensive “last chance” program designed for seniors with fewer than 15 credits, or the Special Motivation Program (SMP). For teen parents, there’s even a parenting program with an on-campus day care center where students drop off their babies before class.
When students have options, says SMP teacher Jake Hoopai, it can mean the difference between being employed or homeless.
The Power of Motivation
A half-dozen fans help cool Hoopai s room where about 20 ninth- through 12th-graders work on geography and science projects. Some have sketched in detail rare insects and exotic plants found on their island homelands in Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia (see sidebar). There are also a few first-generation students from China, Japan, and the Philippines.
They have been assigned to the SMP because they’ve failed more than two classes and show other signs of needing help.
“Everyone in this class has a learning disability, or wasn’t prepared for high school by their middle school,” says Hoopai, a 35year veteran of McKinley who graduated from the school in 1966.
The elementary schools in Micronesia, for example, have a system of learning that stresses oral communication.
“Some students get here and don’t know what a paragraph is,” he says. “Their system of teaching is based on oral history. They learn by listening.”
As such, when some students arrive, they are so far behind in NCLB terms, they get placed in one of McKinley’s “catch-up” programs so they can graduate.
Some of Hoopai’s students walk to campus from the boy’s juvenile detention center located two blocks away. They were arrested for smoking marijuana, shoplifting, or other minor offenses.
Hoopai does not want his current students to share the fate of the young people he sees at the beach searching through trash for food. “Some are former students,” he says. “They dropped out.”
Twenty percent of SMP students return to regular classes, says Hoopai, while 75 percent go on to the Po’okela Academy. Some years, 5 percent of students might drop out, “But last year we didn’t lose any,” he says with relief.
In Search of Excellence
Miriama, who started her senior year this September with just 14 credits, is enrolled in Po’okela Academy.
Po’okela, which means excellence, places a group of students with one teacher for the academic year, emphasizing class cohesiveness over Western-style, individual competition. The idea is ohana-working together as family-and is the last hope for seniors to graduate on time.
“It’s about relationship, relationship, relationship,” emphasizes academy instructor Bernadette James, who says it’s easy for quiet, respectful students with perfect attendance records like Miriama to slip through the cracks. The Academy allows her to spend more one-on-one time with students.
“We all help each other,” says Miriama, who James says is “a delight to teach.”
“School is more fun now,” adds Krystal Yamamura, a senior who needs 8.5 more credits to graduate. “When I first came to high school, I wasn’t real serious. I was kalohe, a rascal, yeah? I didn’t like to listen. Now I want to graduate with my class.”
“I say ‘academy’ because I knew it would make a difference in the way everyone, including the kids, felt about it,” says James.
Po’okela and James have inspired Miriama to the point where she wants to become a teacher.
“That’s Miri,” says Stuki, who sometimes visits McKinley to see her sisters. “She likes everything about school.”
Statewide Support for Students
McKinley is just one of 270 schools, plus 27 charter schools, that are under the jurisdiction of the Hawaii State Department of Education (HSDE). Most offer a variety of programs and services focused on meeting NCLB objectives and reducing the dropout rate, according to Russell Yamauchi, an educational specialist with HSDE.
The Comprehensive Student Support System, a key part of the statewide dropout prevention effort, is designed to meet the needs of all student groups-from the gifted and talented to those confronted with an unplanned pregnancy or temporary incarceration. Student Support Team meetings, attended by school staff, parents, and relevant community members, such as a minister, are organized to help analyze a student’s problems and discuss solutions to improve the student’s academic performance.
“All families are focused on having their children get an education,” says Yamauchi. He acknowledges that the school system is trying its best to cope with the influx of families migrating to Hawaii, especially from the Pacific Islands, and many with different levels of formal schooling.
“Some students get so behind in credits, they drop out,” he says. “Some are turned off [by school or teachers] and lose their motivation.”
Other obstacles involve teen students working to contribute to the family finances. Yamauchi says many families, like the Peles, are hit hard with Honolulu’s high cost of living, where a family of four renting an apartment needs to earn at least SI 11,695-55 percent more income-to maintain a lifestyle similar to a family living in the continental United States.
No Regrets
Beyond the postcard sunsets and blue lagoons of tourist Hawaii is Mayor Wright Homes, a crowded and noisy housing project. Mareta Pele, who earns $17,000 a year as a food packer for a bakery, pays $225 to rent a three-bedroom apartment there.
Yet, she has no regrets about leaving the tranquility of her Samoan village, Amaluia (about 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii), where her family owns a five-bedroom house facing the beach.
“I brought my kids here for the education,” says Pele, who arrived in Honolulu in 2002.
Mareta, 45, finished high school in 1980 in Samoa. Her oldest daughter, Elizabeth Emanuele, 26, completed college in Samoa and now occupies one of the apartment’s bedrooms with her husband. Mareta shares a room with Miriama and son Peo, 7, while Stuki and Beatriz occupy the third room.
The family computer with Internet access allows the girls to do homework and view their MySpace pages. It competes for space in the living room with a small TV, sofa, dining table, and a well-stocked refrigerator. Family photos fill every cabinet and hang side-by-side with school certificates and a religious tapestry.
As is customary in Samoa, every evening the Peles gather for prayers voiced in their first language. “I don’t want them to forget how to speak Samoan,” says Pele. “It’s who they are.”
Pele says she misses the easy pace and charm of Amaluia where “everyone knows everyone.” But the schools there did not prepare her children for Honolulu schools. “No way,” she adds.
Still, Pele doesn’t second-guess the move. “They needed to learn English-if they go back home, they can get better jobs. Coming from school in America and going to Samoa counts for a lot.”
Mareta hopes that the two youngest girls may have learned from Stuki’s experience. Beatriz announces that when she graduates from college, she’s going to become a nurse like her oldest sister, while Miriama plans to teach.
“Every day,” Pele says, “I ask each of them, ‘Have you gone to school today?’”
Though Stuki will not walk the McKinley oval she has enrolled in an education program that leads to a high school diploma.
“I’ve wanted to be a lawyer since I was in fifth grade,” she admits. “I just had a downfall and it changed my life. I sit here saying if, if, if-but it’s too late for ifs. I’m trying to make up for it now.”
By admin
THE THIRD ANNUAL interfaith Passover Seder meal at University Congregational Church in Seattle was a “bring your own wine” event. Tables for 300 guests were impeccably set with goblets and fresh flowers; two kinds of charoset (a pasty blend of fruit and nuts prepared according to both the Ashkenazi and Sephardic styles); two kinds of horseradish (raw and sauced); and baskets of matzo. The tables buzzed with lively conversation.
Rabbi Ted Falcon stood at the front with a guitar player and two singers. He is a trim, white-bearded man who is constantly making jokes, but he also has an air of underlying seriousness, intensity, even melancholy.
“OK,” he said. “We’ll begin on page 22 of your handout.” After two days of watching Falcon lead services, I had learned that he never begins on page one. He is likely to start on page 22, continue on page 11 and move on to page two.
“The Haggadah takes us on a spiritual journey,” he says. “We learn to be freed from our inner pharaohs, travel in our wilderness and form our own dreams of the Promised Land.”
The participants at this event–which sold out three weeks before–were Jews, Christians and Muslims. Many came from Bet Alef, Falcon’s “meditative synagogue” that meets in one of Seattle’s suburbs. Some belonged to University Congregational Church, which was led by Pastor Don Mackenzie until his retirement in June. Others belonged to an experimental congregation led by Sufi Muslim teacher Jamal Rahman and known as the Interfaith Community Church. (Rahman calls it a church, he says, for “lack of a better term”; it’s for people who meet on Sundays to explore their “spiritual paths” together, he explains.)
Falcon not only invited members of these three congregations to the Seder but asked Mackenzie and Rahman to speak. And Falcon didn’t want generic spirituality talk from them; he wanted Mackenzie to mention Jesus or Paul and Rahman to refer to Muhammad and the Qur’an.
This kind of interfaith gathering is an increasingly common phenomenon across the U.S. Interaction between people of different faiths is hardly new, but a qualitative shift occurred after September 11, 2001, says Kathryn Lohre, assistant director of Harvard University’s Pluralism Project. “There was a strong interfaith resurgence, driven by the desire of many people, perhaps Christians especially, to get to know their religious neighbors.”
Lohre says grassroots efforts have sprung up in many places. The old-style interfaith roundtables in which academics or religious leaders gathered to discuss their theological differences in formal meetings have given way to more informal efforts. These are often led or developed by laypeople, as in the case of the Interfaith Youth Core in Chicago, the Faith House in Manhattan, Women Transcending Boundaries in Syracuse and Daughters of Abraham in Detroit. People meet to take part in service projects, talk about family, share holiday celebrations or eat ethnic food.
For Rabbi Ted Falcon, Pastor Don Mackenzie and Brother Jamal Rahman, formal and informal meetings have led to deep friendships. They call themselves the Three Interfaith Amigos. The three men host the Interfaith Talk Radio show in Seattle, meet weekly for mutual spiritual direction and have embarked on writing a book together. Not only has their friendship grown over the years, but their congregations have become closer. A member of Falcon’s synagogue leads the Gregorian chant group at Rahman’s congregation. A meeting at any of the three congregations will likely include members of the other two.
“When we first started, the three of us were like three circles touching,” Falcon says. “But over time, our circles have become more interlocked. We are still distinct circles, but we share more and more together.”
In Seattle, the work of the Three Amigos has spawned the Northwest Interfaith Community Outreach, led by business executive John Hale. This organization helps to sponsor interfaith events and encourages what it calls interspiritual communication. Hale has a salesperson’s easy smile and ready handshake–he seems like a man who would be comfortable in a corporate boardroom. So it was a little surprising and even unsettling to hear him speak the language of contemporary spirituality. Raised as a Presbyterian, Hale says that his upbringing “lacked nourishment,” a nourishment he didn’t find until he converted to Catholicism and discovered interfaith work.
For Hale, interfaith work involves both a conversation and a way of life. “It is heart work,” he says, “not head work.” The image that Hale likes–adapted from Meister Eckhart–is that each faith is a house with a basement. Deep in the basement is a trap door. If you go deep enough, you fall through the trap door into the shared river that flows beneath all faiths, the source of them all.
Hale’s assertion of oneness would likely make Lohre at the Pluralism Project cringe. Many people, she notes, think interfaith conversation means “moving toward relativism.” But “the assertion that ‘at root all religions are the same’ just isn’t true. If you do any kind of careful comparative religion, you understand just how different religious traditions are.” People do not need to adopt the rhetoric of “oneness” in order to care about their religious neighbors, Lohre argues. Relying on that approach misses the complexities of the various religions.
The Three Amigos would in some ways accept and in other ways reject Lohre’s point. “The question of boundaries is absolutely essential,” Falcon insists. “I must find a way to connect with another faith without taking on its identity. What we are doing is acknowledging other faiths as legitimate paths to a shared universal.” The three recently discussed a newspaper editorial that criticized Christian groups for holding Seders in their churches–as if the Seder is a tradition possessed by Christians. The three agreed with the critique. Their own interfaith Seder, they noted, is a Jewish celebration, led by a Jewish rabbi, but with interfaith elements.
The three are also dissatisfied with the kind of interfaith service in which participants try to find a lowest common denominator of faith. Far more intriguing and satisfying to them is offering hospitality to one another in their respective congregations and working with one another on common projects. When they speak at one another’s events, they speak from their own Jewish, Christian or Muslim tradition. They cite their own sacred texts and tell stories from their own traditions.
Nevertheless, the Three Amigos also tend to blur the boundaries. For example, Mackenzie has asked Rahman and Falcon to help him serve the elements of communion at a service at University Congregational. For him, it is deeply meaningful to have Rahman and Falcon holding the baskets of bread as the congregation comes forward to share in this central Christian ritual. It links the three men and the three faiths together. It is important to note that the UCC has a tradition of open-table fellowship at communion and that at University Congregational the elements are called “the bread of life” and “the cup of blessing.” This communion service does not focus on the christological distinctives of the meal the way that many other Christian services would.
Falcon said that, for him, being part of a Christian communion service at the church felt like being on sacred ground. Sharing bread and wine is very much a part of Jewish culture, and he has himself hosted the sharing of bread and wine with his two friends in many other contexts, including the moment of entrance into the celebration of Shabbat. He said that though he would not hold a communion service in his synagogue, he believed he could participate in communion without taking on a Christian identity. Falcon likens faith and faith traditions to vehicles–when he is in Mackenzie’s church, he is temporarily riding in that vehicle. That doesn’t mean the vehicle becomes his, but he can ride along in it for a while without compromising his own. Likewise, he can invite others to ride in his vehicle.
Mackenzie observes, “I think Christians have misunderstood the Great Commission. When Jesus says, ‘Go and make disciples of all nations,’ we think he means go and make Christians of all nations. But he doesn’t say that. To be a disciple of God means to be a disciple of love. Maybe he means that we are called to help people find the way of love.” Mackenzie, who was a Presbyterian minister before serving at .University Congregational, cherishes the theological and ecclesial freedom he finds in the UCC and believes that it has helped to foster the deep interfaith relationship he has with Falcon and Rahman.
The Three Amigos also emphasize that they are all members of Abrahamic traditions. Their shared ancestor makes possible a conversation about oneness or about what Rahman calls their “large and dysfunctional family” that would be more difficult to conduct with those outside the Abrahamic faiths. The three are in conversation with Hindus and Buddhists, but “for now,” Rahman says, “we have a lot of work to do to heal the rifts in our own family.”
The Three Amigos have not shied away from difficult conversations. The height of personal conflict came in the still-unfinished process of writing a book together. “There was,” says Falcon, “a line written by Jamal about which I said, ‘If that line is in the book, then I am not in the book.’” As Rahman recalls it, the line was about the security wall built by Israel: “The wall may keep out suicide bombers, but it cannot keep out the cries of oppression and injustice that could break through a thousand walls.” For Falcon, who grew up in a passionately Zionist family, and who remembers that his grandfather planted a tree for him in Israel every year on his birthday, that particular sentence was too one-sided–it failed to recognize the suffering on both sides that is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The two resolved the issue by agreeing never to sign onesided statements issued by their communities. Whenever a request comes to sign a petition or a public letter, they refuse if the issues are presented in a way that takes into account only one side of the story.
Rahman is a slight Bangladeshi man, a third-generation Sufi teacher with an infectious, musical laugh. He teaches about Islam primarily through stories, humor and quotations from the Qur’an and the poet Rumi. He is a Sunni Muslim who believes that he is called to serve Seattle’s unchurched. While not hawkish, he does highlight the suffering of Palestinians and issues a strong condemnation of Israel’s policies. “What kept us talking, what allowed us to wander into this territory and stay while we tried to understand each other better, was that we were already longtime friends,” says Falcon. “We had a lot invested in our relationship.”
The Three Amigos’ experience is emblematic of a larger reality in the U.S. today, says Haim Beliak, a Reform rabbi who is a member of several interfaith associations and a board member for the Progressive Jewish Alliance in the Los Angeles area. Because Christians and Jews in particular have been in conversation now for many decades, a level of trust has been built. Serious conversations about Israel and Palestine can take place between them because they have a history that is distinct from the tradition of Christian anti-Semitism. The challenge now is to include Muslims in such discussions and thereby resist what Beliak sees as a tendency in some quarters for Jews and Christians to pit themselves against Muslims by emphasizing a “Judeo-Christian” tradition. “When I hear that phrase,” Beliak says, “I feel as if I were being speared by the hyphen.”
Recently, Mackenzie, Falcon and Rahman reflected on who was showing up at interfaith events and who wasn’t. They acknowledged that it is often easier to communicate across the lines of faith than to communicate with members of their own traditions who are suspicious of interfaith work. Falcon is ordained in the Reform tradition, but his synagogue is unaffiliated; he invented the term “meditative Reform” to describe the kind of Judaism he practices. Rahman designates himself a Sufi teacher, which places him to a certain degree outside conventional Muslim structures–though those structures are comparatively loose.
On the Christian side, the three acknowledged that they have their own biases against conservative Christians, whom they tend to see as narrow-minded and prejudiced against Muslims. In response, the Amigos decided to attend together a service at Christian Faith Center, a megachurch with two campuses in Seattle, led by pastor Casey Treat.
During his sermon on the day the Three Amigos visited,Treat remarked that “Christians and Jews share the same God, but Allah is a different matter.” Mackenzie and Falcon both gasped. After the service, Rahman, Mackenzie and Falcon were invited to Treat’s office. Rahman used the occasion to say to him, “I don’t think Jesus would have said what you did about Muslims.”
Rahman, Falcon and Mackenzie later worked with members of Treat’s congregation on a Habitat for Humanity project for a local Muslim family. One important lesson from the experience, Rahman says, was the recognition that while he, as a Muslim, feels wounded by the behavior of many Americans, he is not alone in that feeling: many Christians also carry wounds. By understanding this mutual woundedness, the Three Amigos say, they have become much more patient when they confront people who disagree with their interfaith work. Instead of responding with anger or accusation, they try to ask more questions.
They used this insight when Rahman was asked by the director of Camp Brotherhood, an interfaith retreat center with a long history in Seattle, to donate a copy of the Qur’an that would be placed in the center’s chapel alongside the Bible and the Torah. The proposal turned out to be controversial among the camp’s board members, so the idea was dropped–and the board ended up removing all holy books from the chapel, something the three were not happy about. But instead of responding angrily and forgoing their association with Camp Brotherhood, the three have continued to try to meet with the board members to find a mutually agreeable solution.
Lohre of Harvard is convinced that informal interfaith efforts like that of the Three Amigos will continue to grow. If such efforts had been merely a reaction to September 11, they would have faded long ago. But because so many people are now involved in interfaith friendships and because so many interfaith activities have involved young people, interfaith work is not likely to vanish–and the relationships can only deepen. The most successful groups, Lohre says, provide acts of service and hospitality as well as activities for people of different generations.
Not everyone is prepared to applaud such encounters. Anxiety about the loss of “shared values” is heard from many corners, leading some people to turn inward. And interfaith conversations are clearly in their early stages–they have not yet been a force in stopping wars, nor have they succeeded in shutting the doors of Guantanamo or in healing the wounds in the Middle East. But thousands of people have had concrete encounters with neighbors who belong to a different religious faith.
One often hears quoted in interfaith circles these words of God from the Qur’an: “O humankind, we have created you out of a single pair of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that you might come to know one another.” At this point in history, coming to know one another remains a critical task.
