Rev. Karen Parker Addresses Iowa Dialog Center’s Annual Dinner


	(L -r) IDC Vice President Mahmut Ilerisoy and Secretary Mehmet Caputcu present a gift to Rev. Karen Parker at the 2007 Annual Friendship and Dialog Dinner in Des Moines (Photo M. Gillespie).

REV. KAREN PARKER presented the keynote address, “Interfaith Dialog Up Close and Personal,” before an audience of about 100 at the Iowa Dialog Center (IDC)’s Annual Friendship and Dialog Dinner in Des Moines on Oct. 10.

“My interest in interfaith dialog and communication goes way back, because my father was a pastor and was very heavily involved in interfaith dialog across the spectrum of world religions,” said Parker, a recently retired Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) pastor and assistant to the bishop, ELCA Pacifica Synod.

Parker, one of 11 Iowans who visited Turkey with two members of the IDC board of directors in late July, said the experience fit her passion for interfaith activities.

The dinner at the Embassy Suites Hotel on the River was a celebration of interfaith conversation and intercultural experience.

In her prepared remarks, Parker noted that media coverage of the Olympic tradition of sports competition often features “up close and personal” interviews with athletes, which she compared and contrasted with the tradition of interfaith dialog, which emphasizes cooperation.

“If you appreciate and are enamored of [the Olympic] view of the global community,” Parker said, “if you long for mutual understanding and respect for all people, if you are passionately involved, disaffected, or even distant from a faith community, if you are curious, interested in, open and non-judgmental about differences and similarities in people and beliefs, you might just love being part of an interfaith dialog.”

Mehmet Caputcu, IDC board secretary and event coordinator, said the organization schedules the dialog trips to Turkey as one of several means of building bridges and strengthening friendships between the Muslim world and the West.

“Though hailing from different backgrounds, we find common ground through our travels in which we share the same dining table. Iowans are presented with the opportunity to network with new friends. We hope the travel experience will strengthen our commitment to the ethic of dialog and mutual understanding,” said Caputcu, who is pursuing a graduate degree in engineering at Iowa State University in Ames.

“My guess is that if you like to travel and are hardy, you’d love the experience we were privileged to have to get up close and personal with people living in the USA and then traveling with them to hospitable Turkey,” said Parker, adding that the trip facilitated a deeper understanding of the wider world.

Caputcu noted that the IDC was organized in 2005 as a non-profit organization with the goal of helping bring together different communities in order to promote compassion, cooperation and partnership through intercultural interaction, interfaith dialog, and conversation. The IDC focuses on the study of the values and spiritual traditions of the global community, he said.

The IDC, which co-sponsored the recent 2007 Des Moines Peace Fair in recognition of the United Nations International Day of Peace, has also sponsored Whirling Dervishes dance and music events. This year, in commemoration of the 800th anniversary of the birth of Mevlana Jalaladdin Rumi, the IDC is presenting a documentary movie about the 13th Century philosopher-poet.

—Michael Gillespie