In the Room Where it Happened

Rev. Richard Belous
5 hours ago
4 min read

There are several famous songs from that wonderful Broadway musical Hamilton.

One of them is: “The Room Where It Happens.” The song is about wanting to be in the room where the great compromise between the northern and southern states was reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. If there had not been a great compromise, there would have been no U.S. Constitution. The lyrics to the song in part go as follows:

No one else was in

The room where it happened

No one else was in

The room where it happened

I have learned that at Spiritual Life Center the phrase “the room where it happened” has a far different connotation than the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia. At SLC, I have learned that this most often refers to the room where our spiritual community a number of years ago celebrated Easter at an Islamic mosque. This event made national news on television, radio and in the newspapers.

Meanwhile, I have really enjoyed our SLC series on Unity & World Religions. It has been so much more than just Sunday talks. Our music ministry — which is such a gem — has gone beyond fantastic in terms of providing music, song, and dance related to the many different spiritual paths that we have covered.

At the same time, we have had several fascinating experts come in and lead workshops and WOW Wednesday night programs at SLC. But we have also made a number of extraordinary field trips to such places as the gardens at the Vedanta Society of Sacramento. There we saw lotus flowers in bloom and a statue of Lord Krishna in a pagoda on an island in a pond. Lord Krishna, of course, was playing his flute.

I am very grateful to RJ Bullen and Karen Fujikawa, current facilitators of the SLC small group Interfaith Explorers, for all their loving work to make these field trips possible. I believe that the Unity & World Religions series has really created a positive buzz at SLC. It is also interesting that this series is much longer than most of the series we do, because this series is running for approximately three months.

But perhaps my favorite field trip in the series was the one to the SALAM Islamic Center in Sacramento, because this was the place where we celebrated “Easter in the mosque.” I must say they really went out of their way for us. I was so delighted to meet the cofounder of this spiritual community, Dr. Metwalli Amer. I learned that we shared something very much in common besides our love of spirituality. He too was a professor in economics.

They showed us many key parts of their beautiful mosque. We were there during their time of midday prayers. The sanctuary is enclosed in a beautiful sculpted glass wall so that you can see everything going on. After the prayer session, they invited us to take off our shoes and walk in the sanctuary. They explained so much to us about the mosque, Islamic prayer, and other major parts of Islam.

Then we walked over to another part of the center where much education goes on and entered a big room. This is the very room where it happened — where SLC celebrated Easter. We then had the good fortune of having an incredible Middle Eastern lunch provided by our hosts.

But to top it all off, they told us that they had published a book entitled A BRIEF HISTORY OF SALAM. This happened on their 25th anniversary. And you know what? SLC made it into this book with pictures and all. Here is what they wrote:

“When the Spiritual Life Center congregation lost their lease, It’s senior pastor, Rev. Michael Moran, asked Dr. Metwalli Amer if they could hold their Easter service on Sunday, April 8, 2012 at the SALAM facilities. After proper consultation, the SALAM Board of Trustees invited the congregation to conduct the most important annual Christian service at SALAM community center. This act earned SALAM local and national news attention. Both Rev. Michael Moran and Dr. Metwalli Amer spoke passionately about the importance of this kind of mutual collaboration as a way to promote peace and understanding among people of faith.”

As I mentioned a few Sundays ago, many leading demographers believe that Islam could very well pass Christianity and become the largest religion in the world during the 2070s. The relationship between Islamic communities and some parts of American society has not always been easy. It is important that we at SLC do all that we can to make sure that the First Amendment of the Constitution is entirely respected and enforced for all.

Beyond the letter of the law, there is the spirit of the law. We need to work with our Islamic brothers and sisters of goodwill in so many areas to form a “more perfect union” on the community, national, and world levels. Unity envisions “a world that works for all.” There are so many verses in the Quran which express a similar vision.

Playing around somewhat with his words (see Matthew 25:40), I could picture Jesus very easily saying, “And when I had no place to celebrate Easter, you took me in.”

And the people responded, “When did we do that Lord?”

And the Lord replied, “When you took SLC in, you took me in too.”

Many blessings,

Rev. Rick