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College of Human Development, Culture, and Media

Peace Workshop Teaches Contemplation and Community  

A photo of someone looking at a horizon.On February 7th, 2023, the Seton Hall community is invited to an interdisciplinary workshop on contemplative peacemaking. Inciting Peace from the Inside Out will be held in the Bishop Dougherty University Center from 9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. It will feature a keynote on Ukraine from Orthodox Peace Fellowship Director Nicholas Sooy and presentations on how spiritual practices can advance peacebuilding. It is open to all students, faculty, administrators and staff and attendees are welcome to participate all day or in select sessions.

The event is a collaboration between five campus units. The Center for Faculty Development, Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology, Institute for Communication and Religion, MLK Leadership Program, and the University CORE Curriculum are working to build a community committed to and trained for peacemaking here at Seton Hall.

Contemporary conflict and division abound, with concerns of domestic racial injustice and global war efforts demanding the attention of humanity. Issues such as the war in Ukraine may seem insurmountable, but great peacemakers such as Gandhi and Thich Nhat Hanh have demonstrated a path to peace. This workshop explores the contemplative practices behind these thinkers and how we might apply their lessons to our own selves and communities.

Keynote speaker Nicholas Sooy, director or the Orthodox Peace Fellowship and editor of their publication In Communion, will speak on the suffering in Ukraine and how spiritual practices can help alleviate this suffering and promote peace.

"There are two main ways we are seeing the practice of faith as a coping mechanism in this conflict," said Sooy. "The first is an identification with the sufferings of Christ, and the second is through utilizing religious iconography — turning swords into plowshares, as scripture says." Sooy cited an example of this second mechanism in the efforts of Oleksandr Klymenko and Sofia Atlantova, an artist couple who take discarded ammunition boxes and paint religious icons on them, selling these icons to raise funds for volunteer hospitals in Ukraine.

By attending this workshop, Sooy and other speakers hope to open a window into the sufferings of our fellow humans, and to impart the wisdom of peace from the inside out. Peace requires the cooperation of complex systems and change of these systems begins within each individual. "Peace is a long, difficult process, and what it looks like might surprise us"” Sooy said. "To effect change, we must be open to listening and collaboration."

Learn more about Inciting Peace from the Inside Out through attending the workshop. Register here.

Categories: Arts and Culture, Campus Life, Faith and Service