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Memorial service for Va. man, teen
2008-12-14
FABER, Va. - A Virginia man and his teenage daughter were remembered Sunday as loving, peaceful spirits whose lives at an isolated spiritual community were in contrast to their violent deaths at the hands of terrorists while on pilgrimage to India. About 200 people attended a memorial service for Alan Scherr and his 13-year-old daughter, Naomi, who were killed during the attacks at the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai, India, on Nov. 26. The service was held at Synchronicity Foundation, a meditation community in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains where the Scherrs have lived for 11 years. The community's founder, Master Charles Cannon, urged those gathered in the meditation room and watching over the Internet to live each moment to the fullest. Although Cannon did not mention the terrorists, he encouraged each individual to love all others. Cannon said he and others at Synchronicity would continue to share Alan and Naomi's message that life and love were divine. "Alan and Naomi are not gone. They live on in subtle forms. Their journeys of light and love and truth continue, and if we are aware right here, right now in this very moment they are closer to us than our very breath," said Cannon, who sat beside Kia Scherr, Alan's wife and Naomi's mother, on a stage in the front of the circular room adorned with white flowers. Friends remembered Alan Scherr as a man with a quick-witted dry humor, a great cook and a lover of coffees. Cannon remembered Alan Scherr as trusted brother, friend and peer. "I can rest and find peace in my continuation knowing that he's still here with his hand on our shoulder laughing and smiling and joking and comforting and encouraging us in the continuation of our journey," he said. Naomi was the only child who lived at Synchronicity, a hillside community that includes a monastery, modest living quarters for about 30 and a central community building. She loved music, writing and was "boiling over with enthusiasm" about the "Twilight" book series, friends and relatives said. She was remembered as a brilliant student -- home-schooled but preparing to enter an all-girls preparatory school in New York. "She had -- she would have had -- a very bright future," Bobbie Garvey, a vice president and managing director at Synchronicity, said before the service. The ceremony included chanting by a Vedic Brahmin priest, traditional eulogies from family and Cannon and a flutist performing a native American traditional song. It was preceded by an Indian fire ritual. An eternal flame was lit at the sanctuary last week. Part of the Scherrs' ashes were to be scattered over a sacred area inside the community. "I see them now still with us in subtle form telling us to celebrate life as they did and invest in truth of the divinity of life and each moment of human life as they did," said Cannon, who was one of 25 Synchronicity members who took the trip to India. Four other members were injured during the attacks that killed six Americans. Mark Hayes, a Synchronicity executive vice president and managing director, said the good thing to come of the tragedy was that others around the world and even in rural Nelson County have been able to get a glimpse into what life at the alternative community is like. "In a way, this has opened the doors where people have stepped in they're like, 'Oh you're regular folk, in fact you're nice regular folk,' and it's been really, really great in that way," he said. And those at Synchronicity say they have no ill will toward those who killed their loved ones. "It is what it is, it's just what's happening in the world," Garvey said. "... They're out to kill something that isn't them, but in reality everything's one. It's all one. "So empathy, compassion, and we send love." ___ On the Web: Synchronicity Foundation: http://www.synchronicity.org/
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