Listening to our Inner Voice

Steve Jobs once said, “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” Listening to this ‘voice’ defines and shapes who we become as individuals and as a faith community. It also helps us either surmount or continue to be bound to issues of race, ethnicity, gender, social status, family background, political affiliation and past successes or failures. Reverend Dharm speaks on the topic of ‘identity’ and the human spirit’s ability to overcome insurmountable odds from the past in order to remember our inner voices of truth and justice in the present which allow us to discover possibilities of being ‘more’ as individuals as well as a community of faith.

Rev. Pratima Dharm was the first Hindu Chaplain in the United States Army. She also served as a Christian Chaplain in the US Army and was deployed to Iraq from 2007-2008 where she organized and led several Humanitarian Aid Missions for the Kurdish people in the northern part of Iraq. She served the traditional Protestant Worship Service on base as Associate Minister in 2006-2007. She was also the Hindu Minister for the first Hindu Worship Service at Walter Reed National Military Hospital in Bethesda, 2011-2013. Rev. Dharm introduced President Obama at the White House Diwali in 2011. She retired from active duty service in March 2015. Rev. Dharm is currently a member of Cedar Lane UU Church. She will become Goodloe’s minister in the Fall of 2017.