Peace Pole ceremony set Saturday at Middleburgh chapel

PHOTOGRAPHER: Edward Munger Jr.

A tiny Schoharie County faith community will join some 200,000 locations around the world when it plants a Peace Pole Saturday.

The Native American Community Spiritual Chapel is hosting the noon event.

It will include Native American drumming and singing, craft vendors, prayers and a ceremony to commemorate the Peace Pole.

The event, which will include live music from a folk singer, is an opportunity for people interested in embracing peace for a while, said The Rev. Bob Meunier, a director at the Native American Community Spiritual Chapel. “I think the world is kind of spinning too fast and I think people need to slow down, take a nice deep breath, enjoy what we have around us,” he said.

Meunier and his wife Peggi are both ordained Spiritualist ministers and they practice intuitive counseling and therapeutic touch.

The Peace Pole is a project of the World Peace Prayer Society, which endeavors to spread the message “May Peace Prevail on Earth,” according to the society’s Website, www.worldpeace.org.

The wooden, four-sided Peace Poles were first planted in Japan by followers of the late Masahisa Goi, who created the prayer “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in 1955.

Goi’s followers and others who heard his message began planting Peace Poles as a means of spreading that prayer, which adorn the poles often in several languages.

Today, there are an estimated 200,000 Peace Poles dotting countries on every continent, according to the society.

The chapel in Middleburgh, situated at 104 Wells St., serves as a house of spiritual worship on Sundays. Opened in 2002, the site welcomes about 10 people for regular Sunday services and as many as 25 during special events, Meunier said.

People gathering to focus on peace, he said, is “very powerful.”

“They say that thoughts are things, and prayers become reality and we want to be a part of that prayer where peace will come and if enough people get together and pray on this, hopefully it can become a reality,” Meunier said.

More information about the Native American Community Spiritual Chapel can be found on the Internet at www.spirit-path.com.