Interfaith Peace Garden

The mission of the project is to create and maintain a peace and sustainability educational garden that: 

(1) models how to create a garden that is ecologically beneficial, and

(2) becomes a focal point for a community of dialogue, learning and better mutual understanding.

Initial support for the Garden came from participants in the annual West Shore Interfaith Thanksgiving service,  including people from Temple Beth Shalom, Shiremanstown United Methodist Church, Hope United Methodist Church, Muddy Waters Anabaptist Church, First United Methodist Church, Messiah University and the Mechanisburg Council of Churches.  We are looking to expand that circle, and have received positive response. 

We have adopted a plan for a garden that would include native plants well suited to their place that can help to sustain pollinators, and also plants that have some connection, or some suggestion of a connection, to Biblical, Rabbinic and Koranic texts. The garden is being laid out so that on occasion a group could gather together in the garden for a picnic or public presentation, and so it can be used also for individual meditation.

Our intention is for the Garden to be a focal point around which various parts of the community can come together for programs of learning that can lead to greater mutual understanding.