First Years, First Rites: Exploring Religious Traditions in the First Years of Life

Sunday, January 15, 2017 at 1:00pm

Included with Museum Admission – Get Your Tickets Now!

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Join us for an inter-faith panel exploring the first year of life. There are many special traditions connected with this important time in our lives. Even though we don’t remember them, they are an essential rite of passage. Panelists will examine these essential rites of passage, comparing them across religions and faith, and discussing their historic roots.

The Panelists:

Thomas (Ty) Crowe is the Director of The Johns Hopkins Hospital Spiritual Care and Chaplaincy Department and the Assistant Director of the System Sponsored Clinical Pastoral Education program.  He was ordained a Teacher in the Shadhiliyya Sufi Order in 1998, and was a member of a diverse Sufi Community in California.   He is a certified Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE) Supervisor and is Board Certified as a Chaplain by the Association of Professional Chaplains.  Prior to coming to Johns Hopkins, Mr. Crowe worked as Coordinator of Clinical Pastoral Education at Sutter Medical Center, in Sacramento, California, for four years.  He was also the part-time chaplain for the Sutter Center for Psychiatry as well as the supervisor for CPE students in multiple settings in Florida including Baptist Health, Vitas Hospice, and Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Mr. Crowe has a passion for competent spiritual care, the professional development of CPE students, and for research and inquiry in spiritual care.

Rev. Joseph L. Muth, Jr. is a priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.  He was ordained in 1974 and has served in six parishes in the Archdiocese. Currently he is Pastor of St. Matthew Church which has a community made up of people from over 40 different countries.  The church has a Folk Group, a Gospel Choir, a Kenyan Choir, and some Sudanese Singers.

The Church also established an Immigration Center in the year 2000 to assist people with political asylum, status adjustment, and family reunification.  Fr. Joe is also at present the Pastor of Blessed Sacrament Church in Baltimore City.  As of September 2010 Fr. Joe has also been asked to initiate a Catholic Campus Ministry on the Campus of Morgan University. Fr. Joe has traveled to Africa three times; in 1989, 1995, and 2006 and has visited Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Rwanda. He has also traveled to Israel twice in 1999 and 2008. He also works with Catholic Relief Services’ Global Fellows Program.  Through this program different priests, deacons, and seminarians travel with Catholic Relief Services staff to one of their projects in the world and then are asked to talk at different parishes around the United States to introduce the Catholic Community to the work of CRS.

Fr. Joe graduated from St. Paul Latin High School, Baltimore, MD in 1966; received an AA degree from St. Charles College in 1968; a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from St. Mary’s Seminary and University, Liberal Arts College in 1970, and in May of 2014. Fr. Joe graduated from Fordham University with a Master of Arts Degree in Pastoral Care.

Rabbi Larry Pinsker was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1976. Rabbi Pinsker holds degrees in Philosophy and Religion (B.A., Antioch College) and Religion and Psychology (M.A., Temple University). He has received Doctor of Divinity degrees, honoris causa, from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (2001) and the Jewish Theological Seminary (2007). He has served synagogues in Niagara Falls, NY, San Antonio, New York City, Toronto, and Winnipeg, and founded Manhattan’s West End Synagogue. Currently he serves Congregation Beit Tikvah in Baltimore.

Whenever the opportunity presents itself, Rabbi Pinsker can be found sitting on the floor or climbing on tables as he tells stories to children (and attentive adults) with his able puppet collaborators. He has been an innovator in developing and leading services for adults, families, and teens, and written High Holiday machzorim (prayerbooks) directed to hearts searching for the wonder and imagination integral to individual and community transcendence.

Rabbi Pinsker has created community-wide programs about Judaism, Jewish ethics, and religion in film and television, and interfaith initiatives at universities including Niagara University, Texas Lutheran College, Canadian Mennonite University, and the University of Winnipeg. His love for Bible, Talmud, philosophy, theology, and other texts of Jewish spirituality have only deepened thanks to the joy and wisdom he has found in learning from practitioners of other spiritual traditions. A career-long advocate of inter-religious dialogue, he frequently joins other faith-community leaders in social justice advocacy and promotion of mutual understanding and respect.

He also has taught hospital staffs and residents extensively about Jewish medical ethics, end-of-life decision-making, and connections between spiritual care and medical treatment.