“Restoring Spirit Through Sacred Listening”- NAIN Connect 2015

Reports from ICP Executive Director Linda Crawford, who is attending the North American Interfaith Network (NAIN) gathering in Canada, July 19-22.

Sun., July 19, 2015


Arrived in Regina (pronounced with a long “i” sound), Saskatchewan, Canada, for the annual NAIN (North American Interfaith Network) conference. This is the first one I’ve been to since ICP hosted it in 2008 at USF.


Got here Fri. night & rented a car so I could do some sightseeing. Couldn’t find the University of Regina (Yes, I’m staying in a dorm.) in the dark, in the rain, in a humongous Dodge Durango), so I bunked at the Double Tree Inn for the night.


Had a lovely day Sat. exploring the prairie and Last Mountain Lake. (Actually saw a prairie dog.) Visited a re-creation of a fur-trading outpost.
Started meeting people Sat. night. Jan & Paul Chaffee were surprised to see me! They started attending NAIN beginning in 1996 and only missed a few conferences. I believe Paul served on the board at one time. They’ve been great supporters.


We’re meeting and some of us are staying at Luther College within the University of Regina. Campion College is a Jesuit school also affiliated with UR. The most interesting college here is First Nations University. I haven’t figured out how the Canadian government and the indigenous peoples work this all out, but clearly treaties signed in the 1870’s still play a big role today. When the presidents of Luther College, Campion College and UR spoke, they always prefaced their words by saying that we were on on Treaty 4 Land. I’m anxious to learn more.


“Multi-faith” is used here in Canada much more than “Interfaith”. 2 local groups are Mult-ifaith Saskatchewan and Regina Multi-faith Forum which just turned 25, a year younger than the San Francisco Interfaith Council.
A most amazing evening of “Sacred Listening.” Jains, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs sang, danced, recited poems, prayed, chanted, blew shofars and conches. It was like “America’s Got Talent” only with a spiritual bent and much better.


I’m meeting amazing people;

• Bettina Gray (whom I know) from Berkeley who founded NAIN 26 years ago.
• Paul McKenna (with whom I’ve been in touch) from the Interfaith Office of Scarboro Missions, a Canadian Roman Catholic Mission Society. I believe he helped develop The Golden Rule poster.
• Fredrich Ulrich from the Jodo Shinsu (Japanese) Church of Canada. Fred knows our friend Ron Kobata from seminary. (Ron is the minister of the S.F. Buddhist Church.)
• Budd Friend-Jones, pastor of First Congregational Church of Crystal Springs, IL., who is on the board of FaithBridge an active interfaith organization, has published 2 books and is planning to write a book on how other faith traditions view Jesus of Nazareth. He’s very kindly shared the names of some of the books he’s using for his research.

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More tomorrow.

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