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About the Temple The Tree of Life Interfaith Temple, Inc., is a non-denominational church, formed as a nonprofit corporation in the State of New Hampshire in September of 2009 and received 501(c)(3) status under the Internal Revenue Code in June of 2010. The three-fold purpose for the formation of the church is to provide a place of worship, to engage in community charitable activities and to ordain and oversee interfaith ministers as graduated from The Tree of Life Interfaith Seminary. We are a community of ordinary people forging the extra-ordinary mission to create a place where we may practice truly seeing the Divine within all peoples of all religions. The founding members of the Board of Directors are: What We Believe We believe that God is expressed as the body of all creation, the heart of each faith tradition and the infinite Soul of each person. When this is recognized, we begin to see ourselves in all beings and all beings in our self. We can begin the practice of loving saint and sinner the same as we look beyond the external conditions to the internal, infinite, truth of each being. No one need be outside the bounds of our love. No one. We can now begin to truly love our neighbor as our self.
We believe that it is through the practice of meditative prayer that we awaken to our Divinity and come to know God. Mother Teresa said that when we pray we talk to God and when we meditate we listen to God. Meditative prayer is not an intellectual experience but rather a quieting of the mind which allows for a humble opening of the heart. In such moments of quiet opening, we experience our deepest desire to be one with our Creator and to become instruments for a greater good.
We believe that each person, being a spark of the Divine flame, has a unique part to play in the Divine Plan. Though it may appear that some play a more visible or far reaching role, in truth, no one's role is more valuable to the whole than another's. Each of us was created to be holy and to offer our unique gifts in service to our fellow brothers and sisters.
We believe that we are here to serve those in need with joy and thanksgiving. Because we strive to see ourselves in all beings and all beings in our self, we naturally feel the suffering of our sisters and brothers as our own regardless of religion, race, creed or nationality. And, we naturally rejoice in the Divinity of others as our own. So, as we serve our neighbor, we serve God.
We believe that the role of suffering in human experience is to awaken our humanity, bring us to a deeper threshold of compassion for our self and others and to bring us closer to our Divine creator. While we may not always be able to control what happens to us or around us, we do have control over how we respond. In turning away from victimhood, we open to receive the gifts inherent in all experience. We embrace the lotus flower as a universal symbol of spirituality as it teaches us that we grow, as the lotus, out of the muck. We, in fact, blossom, not in spite of, but rather, because of.
About the Minister — The Reverend Stephanie Rutt Rev. Stephanie Rutt is an interfaith minister ordained in 2005 by the New Seminary for Interfaith Studies in New York City. She is a founding member of the Tree of Life Interfaith Temple and serves as President and Minister. She is also the founder and creator of the Tree of Life Interfaith Seminary and the Tree of Life School for Sacred Living, LLC, formally the Tree of Life Yoga Studio. In addition to being certified in the Kripalu and Kundalini yoga traditions, Rev. Rutt is the creator of numerous year long spiritual study courses including Rise Up! The Bhagavad Gita: Job Description for a Spiritual Warrior, Living Our Purpose: The Heart of Spiritual Practice, The Lord's Prayer and Beatitudes in Aramaic and the Sanskrit Mantra Course. She is the author of An Ordinary Life Transformed: Lessons for Everyone from the Bhagavad Gita, published by Hobblebush Books in 2006. Rev. Rutt holds a Master of Arts in Psychology, Guidance and Counseling and in the early 90s worked at a mental health counselor at Milford Regional Counseling Services and taught for many years in the behavioral science at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester. Today, she offers spiritual mentoring, focusing on daily spiritual practice as a means to understand and transform the challenges of human experience. As a way of extending service to the community at large, Rev. Rutt founded the Gifts of Grace Foundation which created quilts for local foster care children from 2005 through 2009 and she served as Convener of the Souhegan Valley Interfaith Council from 2004 through 2006 during which she sponsored the To Hear How Others Pray series. The first Sunday of each month, from September through June, the Tree of Life Interfaith Temple offers an interfaith worship service. Our worship is informal focusing on the experience of the Divine. A typical service includes a sermon on a spiritual theme as well as responsive readings, scripture references, hymns, mantras and meditations from a variety of faith traditions. While we do not have a nursery, children are most welcome. Refreshments and fellowship follow.
September 12th (Exception: 2nd Sunday)
Community service is a priority for the Temple. At the present time, the Temple donates all monies collected at monthly worship services and from the Dances of Universal Peace nights to the Smile Train — so every child may smile. The Smile Train is the largest organization in the world fixing cleft pallets for poor children in remote areas around the world. We have also just recently delivered our last collection of quilts for foster care children from the Gifts of Grace Foundation. The Foundation is a 501c3 New Hampshire charitable organization currently in search of a new director with a new vision for community volunteerism. If interested in this opportunity, please contact Rev. Rutt.
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