peace and justice and healing for the earth and all living beings. small bowls but carry out the many local groups called cooperation circles of over 550 of them in 80 countries and over half a million members who each day try to make some contribution to making that purpose a reality to interfaith cooperation. we are in 80 countries and 550 local groups and over a half million members. began here in san francisco that's correct it came out of an invitation from the un in 1993 to then put the school bishop year william swing asking him to host 01 our interfaith service as a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the

u.n.'s charter signing at grace cathedral and he said he would be happy to when he was asked to bring religion to the un lien the nations of the world he realized that the nation's worked together not to make one nation but for shared purpose of trying to create peace and the religions on the other hand weren't working together and so out of that chemical agent and a vision and the question is what are the religion's working together and the visions or of a time or people of all faiths model cooperation for the good of the whole world. i don't s.a. headquarters but still based in san francisco and how many people were involved to run the city core " offices here and we have a staff of 16 here in one actually of

those people is an extension office of our global another in london but then there are groups here in the san francisco bay area that are part of you or i part of their own operation the san francisco interface council in contra costa and the presidio a wonderful group of the peninsula and each of them doing their own local work but through you are either connect in this global network that have a speaking about. can contact at any moment a colleague in pakistan or india or gonna or argentina and germany in bosnia is a global community for people are able to cherished their unique identities but claimed the shared identity has services of the earth's hot and recognizing that all come from the same

source even scientists agree it's indisputable human life comes from the same source and we say we should claim the shared identity and cherish and celebrate our unique a daddy's and using those the skiffs to enrich the human community in critical areas like poverty and the environment and the mediation of conflict hoping to raise children with the new awareness of their neighbors so instead of recapitulating ancient animosity which city the people growing up with this sense that you're my neighbor came have a different faith and they believe different things we are neighbors and we could work together and are on ways to make committees better. will talk more about the nine religions initiative right here coming up in a moment

in 1993 the then bishop a episcopalian bishop of california, was asked to put together something for the united nations celebration to interface sort of thing is still going on today. charles gibbs is with this asking about the goals of the united indigence initiative and a couple of examples of the projects may be. one of the things we believe is critical is that we raise and a new generation of young leaders so we have a young leaders program that has both a global dimension and is identifying promising young leaders of different faiths in different parts of the world designating them as youth and

passengers providing training for them both an interfaith dialogue and being able to facilitate projects and their local centers they create cooperation circles to model interfaith cooperation and also a bay area to mention of that that is a pilot in programs for interfered cooperation in different bay area high schools and also part of another program to help open the awareness of everyone in the bay area to the presence and guest spot brought by our muslim neighbors here in the bay area this is like think is part of a much larger effort to the u.s. to recognize that there's been a lot of negativity pointed toward our muslim neighbors will last many years and in some ways a phobia and report of an effort to say that these folks are our neighbors every bit as much as

anyone else we need to get to know them and have them get to know us and we need to work together and that's happening all of the country in many ways it's a focused effort let's talk about that even taking a camera crew out to a mosque in hayward who have been working on this talking about the youth initiative in the bay area were live for instance use of what religions? certainly christians and jews and muslims and hindus and buddhists and this six. will you put all of this a face and a room i assume and how you begin? we have a phenomenal coordinator of our young leaders program here a young woman who was born in india is largely

grown appear in this country and she has a remarkable about crowd and increased training and helping to bring together a diverse groups of young people and in this sense it's not different from bringing any new group together. querulous talk about the new group of adults. the young people would come together and just begin to get to know each other as individuals so you diffuse any stereotypes that might exist to start with and i come to know you as a fellow human being so what you care about and what are your passions and in the process we discover a lot of commonality weaken talk about what are the things that challenges us and when it issues in the world are growing up in other troubling to us and discover all lot of common ground and that could begin to drift into what is your faith

teach you that would cause to to be concerned for instance about what's going on in relation to the environment. and this is a key piece i think of u.s. work but also a key piece of the work around the world and that took some people would call the dialogue of action have to be moved beyond talking into concrete projects so there is a big component of service learning that goes on it means let's take a particular project and say there's an area that has been littered with garbage in a group of young people would go to that area people of different faiths and spent the day working to clean it up to their dream some kind of a service project working with their hands and after they've done the work they

sit back and reflect on what the experience was like. what was it like for you to be doing the work who was elected to the work in a community of people of different faiths and what resources do you draw on in your faith that makes this important for you to be involved in i thinking to it similarly with the adults the young pretender ration and we're talking about anywhere from high school to early professional life have largely grown up in the time when they've been able to connect with the world to pretty freely and folks are age or set in a way as long before so that isn't the same immediate experience of fact in the older people so i think i've seen a means of and around the world

people come together initially being a little uneasy. i never met with the muslim or christian or buddhist or a hindu word to and so all i know about this other person is what i've been taught that often when i've been taught is an negative stereotypes but to sit down and have an opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation about things that matter to you and what what your vision is of this community a letter that things you love to see improved and when you've worked cooperatively with of the people in felt successful where the kids the you've received from your faith tradition. when people share openly that way and discovered very quickly strangers become friends and people who are suspicious of each other say we have work to do together and suddenly we have shrank for before we had to edition.

united religions initiative stay with us.

greater united religions and to tell if all we roadway and was asking him about how you bring people together i am familiar

with various areas of cities where people have things in common a lot to clean up a lot or more police route something else and how to bring people from someone the bay area and i have an interesting meeting someone and being involved in this sort of thing to buy just call you up? how could people respond. one concern the people can contact our office and say a good place for anyone to start with peda web site. there it is on the screen. there is information and stories from all over the world with the list of cooperation circles someone in the bay area could go to our web site combined cooperation circles that already exist in the bay area and make a contact that way and our hope is that people will do two things.

one that might connect with an existing cooperation circle and another is someone might become inspired and say that they've been interested for years about the mosque that's 2 mi. away and there's a synagogue in this direction and to i think that there's an indigenous community somewhere near here have an like to begin to get to know those folks in the last word in the name is initiative and we hope people will take the initiative and be inspired to what to get to know their spiritual neighbors to find out the resources that they bring but also i think most people understand and experience this. often the question is don't do this your fifth involved an interfaith work and most people say note that i feel my data's been deepened as the man about other faiths the look of their

own faith in a new way studying it in a new way. it has a capacity to strengthen my belief as a question and to open to the possibility of the possibilities that exist in religion spiritual expressions and traditions. and so often been humbled by the faithfulness of indigenous people for instance. will such reverence for the earth and if only we western culture had picked up on some of that a few centuries ago we might not be measuring the melting polar ice caps has to gather here the u.n. environmental gathering is gearing up down in rio de janeiro with people from all different parts of the world to are participating in that green a uniquely religious or spiritual perspective into the

conversations about climate. how did you get interested in this? there are two pieces to that i would say i was born amidst in the episcopal church and yet i've always felt that as much as i cherished my christian identity that that was not the only path to the ultimate truth to god and known and unknown and the part of life as the most compelling to me. and learning from others not just people that practice my own faith as always been compelling for me. the other is a group with a brother who had down syndrome and he talked me in his life that there really are no other people in this world no matter how different someone might seem the really are fundamentally sisters and brothers and our job i believe

is to do my best to be a sister or brother to another brother or sister in this world and to call in to the relationship to desist deepest and best spiritual resources that i have and that other people have. we create in a sense the family work everyone is welcome and all the riches of our wisdom traditions help to guide us to work for the good of all. i was born in new mexico and a group and oklahoma. i did my undergraduate work split between colombia and pomona college and i was a theater major and ended up going back to school getting a master's degree in fiction and poetry writing and teaching running at the university of minnesota before and finally went to seminary and my wife of 37 years as the head of the school known washington d.c. so

i jumped back and forth across the country on a regular basis and are son who is 31 years old is not the father of eight months old twins so we're grandparents for the first time and their daughter is headed off to summer program at columbia university focused on the publishing industry. columbia used to be called king's college and description looping as a likely shall discover light by looking into got in scripture which showed discover everything around us in natural sciences as well can then i am in honoraria can of grace cathedral designated so by the bishops a swing as a way of saying an interfaith work should be part of what the church is doing. two things staff officer in

staff and the cathedral are called cannon's because the cathedral as the bishops home and the bishop is responsible innocents representing the unity and a normative practice of the diocese. so the people who are responsible for help in the bishop and that have the title can in comes from the word that goes to law. in english departments and the university you think when there's the can and with english literature it defines what the normal this. cannons have a responsibility to help represent then normal focus the best focus of the diocese. honoraria can and in my understanding is designated at a time when the bush feels that it's a new focus that deserves to have a spot like put on it in the spotlight and the being in the person who's designated that

way but it's really pointing at the work. another wonderful on every canon that grace cathedral the rev. sallie bingham was work is focused on the environment. we have to take a break and we'll be right back.

the rev. charles gibbs is with us with the added religions initiative based here. the idea sort of a precursor to the internet and the horrors of the communication. let's get people together and let them take the initiative could on for how long? a started working on the charter in 1996 and signed our charter in june 26th in 2000 and were creeping up toward her 12th anniversary of son in the charter. the wind down anniversary 50 years was the launch for this. that was the 95 with a couple of years getting ready for that and then a year between the service and the formal

beginning never chartering process that brought together thousands of people ultimately from all over the world and sometimes in the bay area and often other parts of the area three people who would never spoken with each other often to get there to dream to plan and commit to work side-by-side and that was the birth basically of the community. stiller core mission. we believe this people told us that the people on the ground know best what needs to happen. our local groups can choose what they want to do and how they want to organize the they have to do in a manner that upholds our highest vision and values and that's the commitment every group makes. groups in the middle of the civil war for instance in northern yukon the and different fates leaders coming together saying that our primary obligation as for caught between the hammer and anvil is to

protect your people. the secret of prevision married faith leaders from different traditions standing between the government and a large resistance army working to reclaim child soldiers and get people to the peace table that's one example another might be a small group of schoolchildren in india who are reclaiming land that's been turned into a garbage dump of planting fruit trees. or preparing to have a training to bring people of different faiths and cultures together to provide them with expertise in working across faith and cultural boundaries to help deepen peace and address urgent need in the community. if you'll let submit the web set up again the easiest way to contact as the web site and then see where we are

and your hopes for this? in the next couple of years we seen growth and then around the world talking about two things to what to grow for ambac impact numbers are great but we want to see this work and have deeper and broader in pact will what it to be more visible to people see it as a resource to hope that address issues that present themselves in the were in the world and the other part is growing for sustainability is the organization grows we work more broadly all-around the will to attract the human and financial resources needed to see this work. not become an exception that the rule to human interaction and communities of the around the world. it's been our pleasure to have the rev. charles gibson and

grace cathedral with the united religion's initiative a wonderful place that will have to risk a " good stuff thanks for joining us. we will be back next month.

wellcome i am your host elisabeth's filling in for frank. today show features a cabaret singer a fitness expert and an art educator and author. before we get going love to hear from our viewers connect with us are pitched us a show idea hat cbs san francisco dot com. links to our e-mail information you need and social media. the first guest is the queen of cabaret have very long career in nightclubs and cabarets and had record for instance in several venues so forer