The Parliament of the World’s Religions Returns to Chicago

World’s first Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago in connection with the Columbian Exposition of 1893. Image from public domain, via Princeton Theological Seminary Library.

The first time I heard about the Parliament of the World’s Religions, I was attending college at DePaul. It was 1993, and one of my professors, Dr. Jeffrey Carlson, was actively involved in that Parliament in Chicago, the first to be held in 100 years. (The very first convening of the World’s Parliament of Religions was held during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.)

A facilitator of “interfaith encounter, dialogue, and cooperative common action,” the Parliament was created to “cultivate harmony among the world’s religious and spiritual communities and foster their engagement with the world and its guiding institutions in order to achieve a just, peaceful and sustainable world.”

I almost went down the path of Divinity School because of how much I loved those comparative religion classes and interfaith dialog. They got me thinking about how communities seek to understand life’s mysteries and find meaning in the stories and practices of their faith traditions. Instead I chose the path of storytelling. They are not so different, and myth and spirituality are still a part of my life and work.

In 2004, we were living in Frankfurt, Germany, and the Parliament was in Barcelona, so we brought our one-year-old to mingle with priests, teachers, monks, and mystics. It was pretty amazing. One of my fondest memories was watching her dance in the middle of a circle of participants from all over the world. There were many moving and transformational moments.

I didn’t anticipate that it would be 19 years before I had another opportunity.

Next week, the Parliament returns to Chicago, and I am excited to be attending. I will be participating in a morning observance, as well as a ritual performance, “Goddess Speaks: Our Earth Has a Voice” on Tuesday afternoon, August 15, 3-4:30pm in room E353c (which will feature the culinary artistry of my aunt Katia Hrynewycz). I will write more about that next week.

I also wanted to share a link to a segment NPR did about the upcoming gathering. It will be attended by 10,000 participants from more than 80 countries and 200 religious traditions. This year’s theme is the “A Call to Conscience: Defending Freedom & Human Rights.” I will also include a link to the Parliament website if anyone wants to learn more: https://parliamentofreligions.org/

“When people come to the Parliament they get to experience something that everybody longs for. They get to experience the world as we all long for it to be: peaceful, curious, open-hearted, and not just tolerant but grateful for our diversity.”

–Rev. HPs. Phyllis Curott, Program Chair for the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions,

Chicago blur: 1995 to 2020

I’m excited to share that my poem “Chicago blur: 1995 to 2020” was published this month in the poetry journal Spillway 29, guest edited by Patricia Smith, who recently won the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize; and Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate of the City of Los Angeles.

As writers and artists, we are constantly being influenced by those who came before us and those who are working alongside us. In the early days of the pandemic, in April 2020, Creative Distancing, in partnership with the Philbrook Museum of Art, published a series of creative project tutorials on YouTube, offering artistic prompts from a number of creators. One of these featured a poet, author, and educator whose work I love, Quraysh Ali Lansana, talking about a form he created, the blur poem.

If you’ve never encountered the form, you can also read Quraysh Ali Lansana’s blur poems “Tulsa blur: 1921 to 2012” and “basement blur: wisconsin“.

I was inspired to write my own blur poem and worked on it during those early months of the pandemic. I’m delighted for it to be included among so many wonderful poems in Spillway 29. The annual poetry journal is not online but is available for purchase through Small Press Distribution.

Valya holding a copy of the poetry journal Spillway 29.

Inducting Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe accepting the Fuller Award, 2012. (Photo by 8 Eyes Photography)

In 2012, it was my privilege to help develop a new award for the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, the Henry Blake Fuller Award, honoring a living author for their outstanding lifetime contribution to literature. We honored Gene Wolfe with the first Fuller at a beautiful ceremony at Sanfilippo Estate in Barrington Hills on March 17, 2012. My account of the evening is here on my blog. It was magic.

It has been almost a decade, and Gene is no longer with us. Tomorrow, on Sunday, September 19, 2021, we will induct him into the Hall of Fame proper, along with Carlos Cortéz, Jeannette Howard Foster, and Frank London Brown, in a ceremony at the City Lit Theater in Edgewater.

I will be presenting Gene’s award to his daughter, Therese Wolfe-Goulding. Kathie Bergquist will be our emcee, and there will be speeches by the other presenters, Tracy Baim, Carlos Cumpián, Kathleen Rooney, and those accepting the awards on behalf of the other inductees. While it won’t be broadcast live, there will be a recording of the event that will be up on the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame website later.

My tribute to Gene, along with rest of the program, will also be available on the website after tomorrow. (I’ll add it to the post here.)

It was challenging to find the words… actually, it was challenging not to go over the word limit for what we had the space for in the program… to celebrate this wonderful writer who contributed so much to literature and whom I was honored to call my friend.

I miss him, his anecdotes and unusual facts; his stories about growing up, writing, and convention adventures; his kindness, his smile, and his sense of humor. I treasure those conversations, and I will be so happy to present the award to Teri.

I hold onto the fact that I have those memories, and we have his wordshis stories and novels, his letters and interviews. It makes me happy to know that he will be joining the ranks of other important writers who have called Chicago home, and who have previously been inducted in the Hall of Fame, including Studs Terkel, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nelson Algren, Lorraine Hansberry, Richard Wright, L. Frank Baum, Saul Bellow, Roger Ebert, and Mike Royko. The full list, along with biographies, is on the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame website.

One of my favorite photos of Gene with his daughter, Teri at the Fuller Award Ceremony. (Photo by Carl Hertz)

I’m going to share a video that I stumbled upon when I was doing a little research. In 1982, Gene Wolfe, Harlan Ellison, and Isaac Asimov appeared on a show called “Nightcap:  Conversations on the Arts and Letters” hosted by Studs Terkel and Calvin Trillin.

At the time Gene was 51, only a few years older than I am today. It was interesting to see this younger Gene, just over a decade into his career, and yet he’s much the same Gene I got to know at 80. 

 

We don’t often to get to know and love our literary heroes. It’s definitely a gift when we do, and I think it changes us for the better, but the rest of that I’m saving for my speech tomorrow night.

xxo