Miscellanea: Jazz in the afternoon ... film in the evening

Jazz in the afternoon

The Bloomsburg University Jazz Ensemble will perform Friday, April 12,  at 1 pm, and the John Vanore and Abstract Truth will play at 2 pm in Haas Center for the Arts, Mitrani Hall. The performances are part of BU's annual Jazz Festival for high schools and middle schools, but the public is invited.

Photos of the ensemble rehearsing and short video are at www.bloomufocus.com.

A film festival to celebrate women

LUNAFEST, a fundraising film festival dedicated to promoting awareness about women's issues, will be hosted Sunday, April 14, from 3 to 4:30 pm and 5:30 to 7 pm in BU's McCormick Center, room 1303. Three short films will be shown during each time. The screenings are sponsored by BU's WISE: Women Inspiring Strength and Empowerment There is a charge of $5 at the door to benefit the Breast Cancer Fund, Columbia Montour Family Health, Inc. and WISE.

A cinematic look at moving to America

The film Amreeka will be shown Monday, April 15, at 7 pm in BU's McCormick Center, room 1303. The screening is sponsored by BU's department of languages and cultures and the Middle Eastern studies minor. Free and open to the public.

Boogie down Romanian style

Romanian Dance leader Mihai David will be the leader for a dance and party Sunday, Aug. 19, from 4:30 to 6:30 pm at Bloomsburg University's Centennial Hall. The visit is sponsored by Bloomsburg's International Student Association and the Susquehanna International Dancers and a free and open to the public. There will be a reception afterwards off-campus on Millville Road.

Perspectives on faith

A long while ago while in college, I read The Arabian Nights (which is not a children's book at all)*, which lead me to read about Sufism. Along the way I came across this aphorism, by Al-Ghazali (shortened considerably here).

If you love someone because it makes you happy, it shouldn't be said that you love that person. Instead you love being happy. 

There's a toughness and honesty to that quote (even in it's longer form, look about halfway down the page). It's inconvenient to boot. Sufism in general, a great essay by Al-Ghazali (which can be found here)**, and that quote have stayed with me over the years. My personal variation of the quote:

If you believe something to be true that happens to be convenient to your needs, it's probably not true. It's probably just convenient to your needs.

So I think that it's wonderful that the Bloomsburg University student chapter of the Global Awareness Society International (GASI) Student Chapter is hosting an interfaith panel religious tolerance on Thursday, March 22, at 7 p.m. in Hartline Science Center, room 108.

The event will start with a screening  the documentary of "The Muslim Jesus," which talks about the Biblical and Quran's account of Jesus's life and teaching. The documentary does not provide any commentaries on the validity of the stories, but rather provokes reflection on the harmony behind these two narratives. After the movie a panel of religious scholars will speak. Anticipated speakers will include: Rev. James Edwards, Episcopal Priest; Rev. Rick Phillips, Lutheran Pastor; Rabbi Shaul Rappeport, Orthodox Jewish Rabbi; Chaplain Karl A. Polm-Faudre, Buddhist Bodhisattva; Sonia Ammar, devout Muslim and professor of Management at BU. The panelists will be there to answer questions.

** From memory and in a nutshell: In his essay, Al-Ghazali observes that most people he encounters happen to believe what they were taught to believe as they grew up. That seems to him to be an indicator of coincidence and not truth, so he sets out to learn about all religions.

* The non-children's versions of The Arabian Nights feature a series of stories within stories. Heroine Scheherazade tells stories that never quite finish to a disturbed king. The king delays her execution so he can hear the ending. The original core of stories (eg: Fisherman and the Genie, Three Ladies of Baghdad) are believed to originate from what is now Syria. This group of stories within stories, sometimes three or four levels deep, features shifting narrators that have the effect of forcing the reader/listener to consider alternate perspectives ... in a way that is similar to a Sufi parable or Zen koan. Some well-known stories (Sindbad for example) are later additions and not as structurally complicated.

— EGF

Enter the Dragon

Welcome the Year of the Dragon at Bloomsburg University's annual Chinese New Year celebration on Saturday, Jan. 28, at 1 p.m. in Kehr Union Ballroom. The celebration begins with an informal dinner featuring traditional Chinese food prepared by area families and restaurants. Members of the Chinese Student Association (CSA) and the Chinese community members will perform music and dance after dinner. For information, contact Ju Xin, CSA adviser and associate professor of physics and engineering technology, at jxin@bloomu.edu.

The ceramic dragon was made by Nathalie Cornelius Foster and fired at the anagama kiln of Karl Beamer.