Highton, Australia
report by Jenny Funston
Eight participants gathered in Highton, Victoria to celebrate the SOPP. We began with a welcome and an introduction of the SOPP, as a couple of participants had not attended one before. We then had a few minutes of quiet meditation.
Next, we held a reflection activity, using laminated positive words. Each person chose up to three words randomly. We then had quiet reflection within ourselves on what these words meant to us in that moment. Then, one by one, we spoke to the group about the impact of one of these words on us. This was a very insightful activity to begin the event.
After this, we offered a Prayer for Harmony between Humanity and Nature, which we have offered at past events. All participants recited this prayer together.
On the sideboard at one side of the room were a candle, feathers, a water bowl with floating flowers, and pebbles, representing fire, air, water and earth. On the opposite side of the room, the elements were represented again, to be used for our personal silent prayers of peace. We each chose a glass pebble (glass comes from heated sand), dropping it into the glass dish and silently saying our individual prayer for peace.
This was followed by our Interfaith Prayer, which consists of one line of prayer from each of the major faith traditions. We all read this prayer together. Then, those of us familiar with the Divine Spark IN formed the IN one time.
The final part of the program was our world peace flag ceremony. I explained the significance of the flag set we used, which had been handmade in Japan by prayer colleagues. We then began by reciting together Masami Saionji’s prayer of oneness. It was a beautiful celebratory flag ceremony, with Silvana Benacchio handing out the flags, and all of us circling a central table, saying for each country, ‘Peace is in (name of country).’
