SAN ANTONIO, MAY 9, 2024—San Antonio’s city council invited a local SGI-USA representative to lead the invocation at the start of their regular meeting.
An invocation is a sermon, prayer or moment of reflection to provide wisdom and unite attendees at the start of an event.
The meeting was led by San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg and the city’s 10 elected council-members, with city staff and local residents in attendance.
At the meeting’s start, Dr. Sukh Kaur, councilmember of San Antonio’s District 1, introduced the SGI as a diverse global community that is “centered on respect for the dignity of life.” She then welcomed local SGI-USA representative Nina Gundlach to lead the invocation.
Gundlach, SGI-USA San Antonio Region women’s vice leader, introduced several quotes from Ikeda Sensei as she called on the participants to listen to one another’s wisdom as they “appreciate working and developing together.”
She quoted Sensei in part:
Just as there can be no unhappiness that is strictly limited to others, happiness is not something that we can hoard or keep to ourselves. We are faced with the challenge and opportunity to overcome our narrow egotism, to recognize ourselves in others as we sense others within us, and to experience the highest fulfillment as we mutually illuminate each other with the inner brilliance of our lives.[1]
Gundlach concluded her words reciting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo three times before the city council began their proceedings.
—Prepared by the World Tribune staff
June 14, 2024, World Tribune, p. 4
References
- worldtribune.org/2022/2004-peace-proposal-in-full/ <accessed May 29, 2024>. ↩︎
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