Pictures from a Service in Celebration of World Interfaith Harmony Week

I confess that I haven't been aware of the United Nations World Interfaith Harmony Week before my church celebrated with a service on Sunday Feb. 9.  I went to church not quite sure what to expect.

I knew we would have breakfast:

I knew that we would have visitors from our mosque down the street.

I knew there would be some singing--would we all know the same songs?

Happily the songs that we chose have a lot of repetition, so they taught themselves.  Besides, many of us know songs like "This Little Light of Mine" and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."

We had prayers, both in English and in Arabic.

We had meditations on harmony from both the Christian and Muslim faith.

And then we anointed each other's hands with oil.

The pastor of our church said words of blessing, like "Blessed be your hands that reach out to your interfaith neighbors."

I took 133 pictures yesterday morning, but the pictures of our hands moved me the most.