Interfaith Group to Meet, Pray for Peace on New Year's Day in Yardley

YARDLEY BOROUGH - The Annual New Year’s Celebration for Peace marks the New Year with optimism and hope.

Participants will share an hour of spontaneous prayers for peace in Israel/Palestine, the Middle East and throughout the world. People can feel free to be creative and join the group in prayer, song, music, silence or any way attendees are moved.

Sponsoring the celebration are the Interfaith Community of Lower Bucks. The Peace Center and Interfaith Community for Middle East Peace (ICMEP.)

The event takes place Sunday, Jan. 1 at 2 p.m. at the Yardley Friends Meeting House at 65 North Main Street, Yardley Borough. There is no charge. Participants are asked to bring snacks to share afterwards.

Larry Snider, a leader with the ICMEP, explained what is important about continuing the annual celebration. “For me, this year is particularly challenging because we just had an election and a new administration will take our country forward in what I believe will be a new and different direction,” he said. “Many others will pray that we make our way forward with light and hope and in ways that bring us together as a nation that is full of diversity and promise in a direction that offers us and the world greater harmony and peace.

He explained the origins of the event. The Greater Bucks Peace Circle, an interfaith group – led by the late Rev. Al Krass, was brought together in Dr. Susan Burger's office in January, 2002. Attendees planned an interfaith healing service for the 1st anniversary of 9/11.

“We held that on the banks of the Delaware and gradually, it moved on the calendar to January 1st to the Yardley Friends Meeting as New Year’s Prayers for Peace.

“Rev. Al had all of us playing roles,” Snider said, “To bring people of different faiths together first to recognize 9/11, worship our collective loss and allow faiths to help us to cope and find a way forward together. It transformed into a New Year’s celebration with humble wishes for peace.

Snider said this year Burger and he want “to accommodate the hopes and dreams of even more people. People of many faiths participate -- Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and others -- who believe in organized religion as well as atheists who share their own dreams for a more peaceable world.

“The Quaker meeting house in Yardley Borough sets the tone and we honor the silences as well as the prayers, songs, poems and thoughts of those willing to briefly share something that touches their hearts,” he said.

Snider said the event has much meaning for him. “It has become a touch-stone that sets my thoughts in a fundamental way around prayers for peace and thoughts of community here and particularly in the Middle East which is the orientation of the organization I work with,” he said.

Burger, who has been one of the leaders of the New Year’s Celebration for Peace since its inception, commented, “Our event is more important today than it has ever been. Staying strong and connected in presence and in prayer is part of our power. It is our responsibility, and it is time to step up like never before.”

A founding member of the Peace Circle, she is on the current board of directors of the Interfaith Community for Middle East Peace.

Burger referred to a quote which represents much of what we are seeing happen today: "What hurt you so bad that you feel you need to hurt me to heal it?".

“Revenge, bullying, hate and hurting others will never ultimately make anyone feel better, although they may provide a temporary feeling of power,” she said. “’Peace’ is not just a nice idea, it is crucial to our survival. As we deeply look first within ourselves before we judge or criticize others, we will act with the deep honesty and transformation that is necessary.”

Burger said the event’s task is to join together with love and respect to over-ride the underlying fear that has taken over.

“Peace cannot be legislated and it will not come from our ’leaders,’" she said. “We are the leaders right here on the ground.

“In each religion is the idea of love,” Burger continued. “Now more than ever we must listen carefully, to hear and feel the hurt and fear of others, and transform it to love and support.

“We get to choose, we can say ‘No’ to the lack of integrity that has sadly become a way of life,” she said. “We can shift out of the hypocrisy and look squarely at ourselves in the mirror first. Then, we join hands with others who are committed to raising our standards for how we are living and being.”

Burger said the event is informal and takes on a life of its own each year. “There is a brief introduction, then we open the floor for people to be creative and join us in prayer, song, music, silence, or any way their heart is moved.”

Many who come have attended each year, and then there are those who are new to the event.

Burger described the feeling at the event as “truly a heartwarming way to welcome in the New Year with those of different backgrounds and faiths.”

Burger has a Doctor of Chiropractic degree, Bachelor of Science in Human Biology, and Bachelor of Science in Rehabilitation Education and Counseling.

For more information about the New Year’s Celebration, contact Dr. Susan Burger at 215-932-9263 or peace_doc1@msn.com.