Bringing the Interfaith Peace Pole to Staten Island Ferry terminal

I just learned that there is a hitch to installing the Interfaith Peace Pole at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. If this often touted "forgotten borough" needs a new image, it needs the symbol of the Peace Pole sponsored by the Building Bridges Coalition even more. Since the Building Bridges Thanksgiving Interfaith service, the Peace Pole with its universal message of "May Peace prevail on earth", has traveled from house of worship to house of worship. Interfaith clergy and lay leaders from denominations as vast as Catholic, Protestant, Unitarian Universalist, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Jain have been looking forward to the August 28th walk from St. Peter's Catholic Church to the mosque near St. George and to its final installation at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. How can government officials fail to see its installation as anything other than positive?

Staten Island, for all its stereotypes, for all its isolation and for all its problems is a truly wonderful place to live. We are not unlike other boroughs and New Yorkers, unlike other cities in this vast landscape of the United States. Last summer, we had a terrible searing summer--it wasn't the summer heat--it was violence. Interfaith clergy, politicians, activists, community organizations, businesses, communities across the whole borough came together to talk about what we could do. We are working on the problems. We are trying to be whole.

But for the life of me, I cannot understand a decision to deny our application to install an Interfaith Peace Pole at the Ferry Terminal. We so desperately need to reinforce an image of Staten Island that is not racist, bigoted, shameful--that is instead about our children and the hope and the light they bring to our lives. We are Staten Island and we are about cooperation, peaceful coexistence, mutual understanding, sheltering one another when there is a storm. And the best part about Staten Island is in this symbol of the Peace Pole. Do you know how many hundreds of thousands of people know Staten Island only by our ferry boats? How many people have fallen in love or went on their first date taking the ferry ride? Consider what this Peace Pole means-- sanctified by so many houses of worship, by people with different beliefs and understandings but gathered together as one body in this borough with a commitment to living together peacefully, in compassion and with empathy and care for one another.

I only pray that we can create a groundswell of people beseeching our mayor and softening his heart to hear our prayer--let the Interfaith Peace Pole be installed at the Ferry Terminal. Let the people of the world know us by our love, care, compassion and respect for one another. Let people everywhere know our common prayer for peace and kindness, generosity and love that is at the heart of every religion, that is in each person's soul somewhere. Please join with me in bringing the Peace Pole to the Staten Island Ferry on Sunday, August 28th.

May Peace indeed prevail on earth and let it begin with me,
Susan