24 January 2006

wHaT iS tHe "rAiNbOw fAmiLy" dOinG bEsIdEs mEeTiNg iN tHe nAtUrE ?!!!

I will paste here a bit of an e.mail I received which thrilled me...
Some people think the “Rainbow family” is just a bunch of “hippies” who do not conform and adapt to this system we live, which they interestingly call “Babylon”...
But they are doing so much more than that...First of all, the way they position themselves in society, weather in cities or isolated in the country side, already speaks something for those who think there´s no other way to live in this world...they have been proving that it is possible to live differently without “conforming to this world”...actually the apostle of Jesus, Paul, adverts all christians to live like that in his letter to the Romans, chapter 12, verse 2
One of the goals of the “Rainbow Family” is to seek for peace in this world…not only between men and nature, but between tribes, peoples, languages and cultures...
So here goes the e.mail...

“About 5 years ago I was sitting in a café in Goa, India, and we
overheard some travellers at another table talking in a language
we didn't recognize.
We asked them where they were from and they said "Iran."  I was
really surprised because they didn't fit my idea of Iranians.  
For one thing they looked like hippies and the women weren't wearing burkas.  They told us that there was a counter-culture
movement in Tehran, but that it was completely an underground,
grass-roots movement and in many ways was opposed to the
many of the government's fundamentalist Islamic dictates.


I just filed this information in my mind, as something fascinating. 
Then recently I was at a Rainbow Gathering in Israel and we saw an
interesting notice for an upcoming Rainbow Gathering in Turkey.  It
was titled the "1st PEACE IN THE MIDDLE-EAST RAINBOW GATHERING." 
My friend Eric and I asked around and discovered what this was all about.

It turns out that several months ago the World Rainbow Gathering (held
somewhere different every year) happened in Turkey.    
Well, at that Gathering there were many of the leaders of the Israeli
hippie/New-Age festival scene and also some of the leaders in this
underground movement in Iran.  The Iranians came to the Israelis and
said, "It's really not fair that you call the Rainbow Gathering in Israel the "Middle-East" Gathering,when we can't even get into Israel.  
So they decided to have this upcoming Gathering in Turkey to try to
foster peace and understanding between Arabs and Jews.
...these Iranians would be returning in March to Turkey for
this event…Iran is the most fundamentalist Islamic nation in the
world…(Dates of the Gathering : 29th March till 27th April)
Rainbow is the perfect forum to build deep friendships.  We sit in the woods
for a few weeks and eat with the same people twice a day.  There are no
distractions.  People are there specifically to make friends with other
people who care about spiritual things.
These Iranians seem to be willing to travel out of their country for Rainbow
Gatherings.  It is likely that we will be able to see them again, maybe at
the European Gatherings for instance...”

Yes, the Rainbow Family and Rainbow Gatherings are crossing borders...
This “counter-culture” is reaching Peace where “Babylon” is failing...
Can we learn from them ?!! I believe we can...we can learn a lot from them...
If you´d like more informations you can send a post here and I´ll be glad if we can keep in touch...

SHALOM

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's neat to hear about people following Jesus and living to promote peace and forgiveness.

He came for Every Tribe!