Rev. Danny Fisher

Nalanda West is hosting the second Dying Well Conference March 8-9th, 2008, in Seattle. The theme for the conference is “Sacred Rituals & Caring Communities.” The flyer for the conference elaborates:

Speakers from Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Native American, and Sufi religions will share their wisdom on how to transform fear of death into acceptance and renewal. With the compassionate support of loving people–with ritual, understanding, and faith–we can truly help ourselves and others before and after death.

Participants include the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche; Rabbi Ted Falcon, Ph.D.; Jamal Rahman; Sister Betty Schumacher, O.S.B.; Ramona Ahto; and Andrew Holecek.

An interfaith conference for professionals and caregivers, the first Dying Well Conference was held in 2006.

Founded in Seattle in 2003, Nalanda West is the headquarters for Nalandabodhi, an international network of study and meditation centers in North America, Mexico, Europe and Asia, as well as Nitartha International, an educational center dedicated to non-sectarian studies of the science of mind. Both organizations are led by the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche.

You can register for the conference online at http://www.nalandawest.org or by calling 877-263-4477. There is also an early bird special of $150 if you register before February 22nd.

Thanks to my pal Nick Vail for tipping me off to this.

At 2007′s end, the New York Times ran an cool story about the Loop Pizza Grill franchise’s employment of chaplains on their staff. Restaurant chaplaincy, huh? Interesting.

[The Rev. Becci Curtis, graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.] is…one of about 10 chaplains on the paid staff of the Loop Pizza Grill’s 26 restaurants throughout the Southeast. The chain’s co-founder and chief executive, Mike Schneider, came up with the idea several years ago as a way of combining his decades in the food industry with his more recent embrace of Christianity.

[...]

In a secular workplace in a polyglot country, this form of God’s work involves both an open hand and a light touch. Ms. Curtis’s role is to be emotionally available for a young, often transient work force–one that includes Muslims, Jews and atheists, as well as Christians–not to proselytize it.

“I’m here to earn their trust, to be in the trenches with them, to give an example of helping out without complaining,” Ms. Curtis said, sounding rather like a military chaplain. “I tell the employees, ‘My primary responsibility is to be there to care for you guys.’

“Sometimes the conversations end up being very surface-y. There’s one employee, pretty much all we talk about is the Seattle Mariners. But I see that as valuable, because if he ever does have a problem, he’d feel the trust in sharing it with me. And if I do know about deeper issues–deaths in the family, frustrations with parents or siblings–I will seek opportunities to hear them out and offer advice.”

I posted an interview with my old friend Ravenna Michalsen, the Shambhala Buddhist meditation instructor and acclaimed singer-songwriter, last October. In that interview, we talked a bit about Ravenna’s new album Dharmasong. The album has just been made available on iTunes, and can be downloaded for $9.99 here. You can also order the CD from either Ravenna’s official site or her Myspace page.