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Davisite Banner. Left side the bicycle obelisk at 3rd and University. Right side the trellis at the entrance to the Arboretum.

Category: Religion

  • Mother Nurture Art at the Episcopal Church St. Martin’s in Davis, California

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    Photo of "Mother Nurture" by Ann Liu

    (From press releatse) As part of the Episcopal Church of St. Martin’s theme of healthy soil, healthy plants, and healthy community, the church has accepted an offer to host an art installation from the Arts, Cultures, and Designs of Remediation research cluster at UC Davis.

    The Arts, Cultures, and Designs of Remediation cluster is a working group of faculty and graduate students from the performing arts, environmental design, and soil sciences. Their mission is to challenge us to think about how we can remediate and heal our soil, and tell our stories by doing so.

    They have invited St. Martin’s to display a beautiful and creative art piece named Mother Nurture in its developing garden space outside of the Parish Hall facing Hawthorn Lane. It was recently shown at the International House in Davis and is now at St. Martin’s from May 14, 2021 to June 14, 2021.

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  • Invitation to a virtual Ramadan event

    DEIN 1-2Dear Davis Community

    Muslim Davis Engagement and Interfaith Network (DEIN) would like to invite you to participate in a virtual Ramadan event. Ramadan is the month where Muslims fast from dawn to dusk. Normally Muslim DEIN holds a community iftar (end of day breaking of fast) where we invite the community to share a delicious meal with us. This year, we hold this event virtually, on Thursday, April 29th beginning at 6:30 sharp. The event is called, “Fasting Across Faiths” and we will be hearing not only about how Muslims fast during Ramadan, but learn how people from other faiths fast as part of their traditions. The flyer is enclosed. Please register for the event at this link:

    https://bit.ly/2QSPSNI

     or by using the QR code (which will take you to the registration link) in the flyer.  After the event, we will share electronically with each of you a collection of recipes from our presenters of different faiths – recipes of meals which they enjoy to break their fasts. We look forward to seeing you on April 29!

    Members of Muslim DEIN

  • 2021 Virtual Celebration of Abraham: Practicing Humility in Difficult Times

    Sunday January 31, 2021 3pm-4pm

    Practicing Humility in Difficult times-2(From press release) This past year we all have had our lives changed by COVID19—ZOOM-ing religious services, masks to leave our homes, not spending holidays with loved ones and adapting the Celebration of Abraham. The planners of Abraham considered cancelling this year’s celebration to ensure the safety of our participants, but we realized that Davis needs this year’s celebration as we struggle with the pandemic, environmental destruction, and political unrest. The Celebration of Abraham represents the only interfaith organization guided by the laity.

    We believe that our community needs to come together for mutual support and, therefore we will hold a virtual celebration. This led us to our topic: Practicing Humility in Difficult Times. We have chosen three leaders to offer guidance grounded in their faith traditions on how each of us can go forward to help heal our world: Dr. Travis Lybbert (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), Rabbi Greg Wolfe (Congregation Bet Haverim) and Dr. Mairaj Syed (Religious Studies UCD and the Muslim DEIN).

    Randy Farris will again lead us in singing Children of Abraham. We also will raise donations for the Yolo Food Bank (https://yolofoodbank.org/donate). To sign up for the event that will be hosted both on ZOOM and Facebook please go to our website for more information. www.celebrationofabraham.net.

  • Finding ways to work together

    Celebration-of-abraham-logoThe Celebration of Abraham thanks the Davis-Area Interfaith Religious Leaders Network (DAIR-LN) for offering a ZOOM Interfaith Prayer for a More Perfect Union on Monday, November 2. The service, the night before the national election, featured Davis faith leaders offering reflections, music, and readings for our country and our community. The faith leaders focused on three themes: Be kind. Be strong. Stay together. Our community needed to hear the message and we need to hold the service in our heart as we go forward. For those of you who would like to revisit the service, DAIR-LN has posted the service on their Facebook page. 

    To continue efforts to find ways to work together, on behalf of the Celebration of Abraham, I invite you to be part of our interfaith community conversation, as we Celebrate the 18th Annual Celebration of Abraham: “An interfaith perspective on the practice of humility in difficult times.”  on January 31, at 3:00 p.m. With the on-going COVID restrictions, this will be a virtual event, held via Zoom webinar beginning with excellent speakers from the three Abrahamic faiths. We are continuing to work on the format, and we will include a moderated panel where participants can ask questions.

    Let’s continue the dialogue among our faith communities! To sign up for updates on the planning, email hroland2@gmail.com.

    Again thank you to DAIR-LN for providing calm and centering the night before the election,

    Helen Roland, President

    Celebration of Abraham

  • Interfaith Prayer for a More Perfect Union, Tomorrow (Monday) at 6:00 p.m.

    DAIRAt 6:00 p.m. tomorrow, Monday November 2, Faith leaders from around the Davis area will be offering reflections, music, and readings for our country and our community, live streamed at the Davis Area Interfaith Religious Leaders Network Facebook page: DAIR Leaders Network Facebook Page.

    We'll focus on our three themes for election week: Be kind. Be strong. Stay together.

  • Toward a “More Perfect Union”

    Unity mini flier

    The signers invite the community to color and paste in their window the above graphic to show solidarity for the democratic process at a community level (click to enlarge).

    A Statement on the 2020 Election from the Davis Area Interfaith Religious Leaders Network

     Religious communities promote and protect our democracy

    The religious traditions we represent are born of visions and values for human life that inspire our strong advocacy of American democracy. Over the centuries our people have offered creative insights and energies to help our nation move toward “a more perfect union.” We believe that a thriving democracy is essential to ensure that all persons are not only “created equal,” but are treated equally and welcomed to contribute to the creation of a society where “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are “unalienable rights” for everyone, without exception.

     Our democracy faces many challenges

    This fall, many Americans feel anxious about the future of our democracy. Our long tradition of absentee and mail-in voting has been maligned. Foreign powers are maliciously influencing the election. Voters are challenged and often intimidated at the voting booth. And we face the likelihood of an unprecedented delay in receiving the final election results. We are at a critical moment in American history. We feel many things: concern, confusion, helplessness, anger, and reactivity.

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  • Support our local Religious Leaders Recommendation for Reconsideration of the University Commons project

    Community input to the Council majority of Partida, Lee and Carson is needed now

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    By Eileen M. Samitz

    Many thanks to the Davis religious leaders for the excellent article published August 22 in the Davisite.

    This incredible and sincere outreach by so many local religious leaders to the City Council majority is impressive and their recommended action is so needed to be taken by Council majority now.  So everyone’s input to the Council is needed now, to support the recommendation to reconsider approval of the University Commons project, before this Tuesday’s August 25th meeting when the Council is scheduled to finalize approval of the project.

    The Davis religious leaders group recommendation for the Council majority is to “take a pause and reconsider their approval votes” and to reject it. This terrible project does not offer any housing that is affordable. So, urging the Council to reconsider its approval is clearly the right thing to do for the sake of the UCD students, as well as the rest of the community needing housing that is affordable. The University Commons “affordable units” are affordable in name only, and it is an insult to even classify them as “affordable” with the rental prices they are projecting.

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  • Insufficient affordable housing at University Commons

    Faith leaders speak out

    19universitycommonsAt the Davis City Council Meeting on Tuesday, August 18, a 3-2 vote approved the University Commons Proposal. We, the undersigned faith leaders, express our disappointment at this decision. While we are encouraged by Brixmor's increase from 0% to 5% affordable housing at the 80% median income for Yolo County, we also contend that this is not enough.

    While the specific decision regarding the University Commons is the spark to this conversation, the housing crisis in Davis and across our state does not begin and end with this decision.

    As faith leaders in the Davis community, we have the opportunity to engage with individuals from many walks of life, ministering with people of diverse economic, racial, generational, and educational backgrounds.

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  • Local Clergy Comment on Affordable Housing

    The owners of the University Mall, the Brixmor Property Group, have applied to the City for permission to demolish the existing shopping center and replace it with a mixed-use project of 264 apartments and 136,000 sq ft ground-floor retail.

    We also note that Commissioner Darryl Rutherford has stated that the Commissioners themselves had multiple objections. "I'm a little disappointed in what we're seeing here." He called the proposed affordable housing plan ($600,000 in lieu fees) "an atrocity" and a "slap in the face."

    Historically, Davis once had one of the strongest inclusionary housing requirements in the state. That policy intended to create affordable units in every major rental project built in Davis, enabling low-income families to live in Davis, and create the possibility of a robustly diverse community. Many minority households whose members work in Davis are part of the low-income population and these affordable units were often their only entry to living and working in Davis.

    However, of the 264 apartments being given permission to be built on the University Mall site in Davis, not one of those 264 units will be set aside as an affordable unit.

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  • Celebration of Abraham statement on killing of George Floyd

    Celebration of Abraham (COA), a Yolo County interfaith organization for over 17 years, is saddened and outraged at the killing of George Floyd and expresses our deepest condolences to his family. We are anguished at the continuous violence black Americans have suffered throughout the history of our county—slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration and the senseless killings at the hands of white vigilantes and law enforcement.

    We understand that many in the law enforcement community, including the Davis Police Chief, are horrified and speaking out against the systemic racism and militarism in policing.

    Celebration of Abraham encourages all to reflect and to take action so such acts of abuse of power are no longer the norm. "Othering," as discussed during one of COA's community conversations, is a divisive force that is among the roots of the problem. As humans, we are programmed to organize information we take from the world into categories. For much of recorded history, humans have used categorical differences to justify fear or power relations between groups. Our religions have within them the capacity to unite us, though there are those who use these traditions to divide us. Our Abrahamic faith traditions tell us to value the other.

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