Requests should be made by Aug. 15.
Prayer flags in Bhutan. By ERIN CORRIGAN
The Interfaith Council of Western Massachusetts is inviting organizations throughout Springfield – and other interested municipalities – to join in making prayer flags as a community art installation and response to violence.
Prayer flags, borrowed from a Tibetan Buddhist tradition, are rectangular pieces of cloth in various colors with various designs, and are sometimes inscribed with prayers and mantras.
It is hoped that area churches, synagogues and mosques will spearhead the flag project, “Creating a Peace-full City: Our Community Responds to Violence,” for which assembly kits are being provided.
The Rev. Susannah Crolius, interim pastor at the South Congregational Church, said the project’s goal is to engage individuals from all neighborhoods in a conversation about peace while making the flags, and “to unite these neighborhoods in a common project across racial, ethnic, religious, economic, and age lines.”
Crolius said that the interfaith council’s concerns about gun violence, in particular, heightened after the December school shooting in Newtown, Conn.
“(We) began talking about what our unique contribution as people of faith and places of worship might be to the conversation about gun violence and violence of all kinds,” Crolius said. “We then invited certain groups in the city to the table for a larger conversation about this issue.”
Some 40 people from different city agencies, organizations and municipal offices attended this meeting. Through this gathering and succeeding meetings, the idea for the prayer flag project developed.
“We trust that all people in the city of Springfield would like to live in a peaceful city,” Crolius said.
Once strung together, prayer flags are often hung along mountain ridges and peaks so their spiritual intent may blow widely in the wind. As images on the flags fade, it is believed that their prayers become a permanent part of the universe.
The project’s flags will be displayed at a public location of which is not yet decided. The opening reception will be during the afternoon on Nov. 17, followed by a community service that Crolius says will be “in celebration of peace and thanksgiving.”
Crolius said the Mayor’s City-Wide Violence Prevention Task Force, schools and neighborhood councils have also discussed the project with the council and will likely participate.
“We have even had churches in surrounding towns call us and want to participate,” Crolius said. The Springfield City Library has discussed doing a week-long series on peace in advance of the installation, Crolius added.
Flags for the art project are 8.5-by-11-inch pieces of white muslin. Groups are encouraged to decorate their flags however they like, from writing to quilting to sewing, infusing them with peace prayers for the city.
The council will provide interested groups with prayer flag kits that contain 20 blank pre-cut flags, a couple of markers, a length of rope and an instruction sheet offering ways to discuss peace within groups. Also included are suggestions for decorating the prayer flags.
Interested groups should call the South Congregational Church’s office at (413) 732-0117 or email scrolius@sococh.org. Requests should be made by Aug. 15. Kits will be distributed during the first week of September and prayer flags will be due Nov. 8.