Parliament of the Worlds Religions
December 1 - 8, 1999
Capetown South Africa
*A New Day Dawning*

Next Generation

1999 Parliament of the Worlds' Religions - a personal account

Greetings from one of your Pagan Yutes (as dubbed by Deborah Ann Light). In addition to soaking up Cape Town, going to workshops and performances and plenaries, I've been attending sessions in the afternoons each day with the Next Generation. In a long hallway in the Enginering building of this University hung with Peace Flags, members of the Parliament ages 16 to 25 have been gathering to talk and learn from one another. The fruits of the Parliament will feed the great-grandchildren of the Next Generation, as we've been told. With that daunting vision in mind, we meet to establish bonds with one another that will give roots to this work.

The Next Generation folks run the gamut from members of interfaith service organizations, like the New York Interfaith Center, to global service groups (Play for Peace, Habitat for Humanity, and many others), to people my age who are leading focused religious and devotional lives under gurus and teachers, most exemplified by the Kashi Ashram.

The Kashi Ashram is a Hindu based, interfaith spiritual home in Florida, and for the youths there, a strong commitment to service is as much a part of their spiritual curriculum as is the teachings of their elders. Out of all the 'yutes' I've met, the Kashi kids have fit the closest to how Pagan youths may feel. Dressed in silk punjabis and prayer beads, they gifted us with a chant to Shiva at the Intergenerational session of NextGen, and I felt a strong kinship with them. How many times have I felt on the outside of my peers because of my religion? And how many times have I felt embarrassed about my ritual robes, my prayers, my rituals? Also, with the knowledge that their guru, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagvati, is Pagan positive, they've been a wonderful starting point for my interfaith dialogues here. One young woman in Kashi was the first person that I've ever heard say, "Oh, I know what that's about-- my mom is Pagan."

As a Pagan, I've felt like I've had to juggle my little Educator Hat with my Next Generation hat and my Religious Person Mode hat this entire time.

It's been very challenging to take part in youth dialogues that center on service when my own tradition has been lacking much of the adult leadership that intitiated these others youths into a committment to spiritual giving to others. It feels as if we're working on so many arenas at once (public relations, organizational management, developing our traditions, oh, and some of that personal growth stuff, too from time to time) that to take on service is even more likely to burn us out. But it's hard to express that difficulty to the NextGen folks when it basically means entering into some Pagan Movement Sociology 101 at the same time. Education, education, education.

There has also been some internal tension in our group. We were first told that we could all attend the Assembly meetings at the Parliament, where religious leaders will discuss the Call more deeply. On Tuesday, I learned that only 25 of us may go, and it is still unclear as to how they were chosen and if it was taken to heart that the group should be religiously diverse (Erin Wells is going, so we'll have one Pagan at least). At the same time, this has drawn us together. It will be interesting to see how the rest our sessions go.

Blessings,
Melissa Grant
EarthSpirit Representative to the Next Generation

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