President Sait Onal's Speech

Dear Friends,
Thank you for coming this evening to share a cup of coffee with us.
Turkish Coffee nights will be a monthly gathering for Red Rose volunteers and friends in the community. Each month we will gather here at the Red Rose building and share our story with you. Each month will be a different activity but there will always be Turkish coffee.
The Red Rose Intercultural and Educational Foundation is a non-political, non-profit, charitable and educational organization whose mission is to help individuals and communities successfully live, learn, and work in our increasingly diverse society.
Our Foundation focuses on helping people understand their own culture, understand others, develop positive inter-group relations, and build strong communities As you will see this evening, sharing a cup of coffee means a lot more than what you would think in Turkish culture.
Drinking coffee is a unique pleasure for the Turks.

Nothing compares to a long, friendly conversation over a cup of Turkish coffee, followed by having your fortune told.
This is best illustrated in the old saying: "A single cup of coffee can create a friendship that lasts for 40 years". Serving a cup of Turkish coffee is a way of sealing a friendship.

In Turkey, it is traditional for a prospective bride to serve coffee to her suitor and his family when they come to ask for her hand in marriage. One strong tradition dictates the typical situation where the family of a young man visits the family of the bride-to-be to ask for their permission for their marriage. The girl whose hand is sought is supposed to bring coffee on a coffee tray, and traditionally this is the only time she has a say in the whole affair. The vote she casts is expressed in terms of how sweet the makes the coffee, ranging from extra sweet (a definite yes) to “no sugar” (a definite no), and at times to salty coffee, a step shorter than not appearing at all.



Coffee has served as a platform for friendship and conversation all over the world and has been a source of inspiration for many works of art.
Thanks to the efforts of merchants and travelers who passed through Istanbul, and even Ottoman ambassadors, Turkish coffee's renown soon spread to Europe and ultimately to the whole world.
This evening the Turkish coffee tradition has reached to our humble Red Rose building in Leola Pennsylvania. We are hopeful that the Turkish coffee will do its magic and help us connect here with you and many people through you. Let this friendship last 40 years and beyond.
We also wanted to share an important tradition and sample of Turkish spiritual life with you this evening. About 700 years ago in Anatolia, present day Konya, Turkey, spiritual master and poet Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rumi uttered this lament, "I want a heart that is split, chamber by chamber by the pain of separation from God, so that I might explain my longings and desires to it.” Rumi spent his entire life searching for those who shared similar longings, whose love of God was as unquenchable as his, a mirror to his soul.
According to Mevlana the most important thing which is necessary for reaching God is love. A plant, animal may be also loved; however, the only creature that is capable of loving with its body, thought and memory altogether is human being.
“Sema” which has performed by “Mevlevi” dervishes by whirling is to reach an agreement with the entire World in love, to keep pace with its universal whirling.

The fact that one hand faces the sky and the other to the Earth is to present love received from God to the entire World. Soul is a core jetting out from God, it is immortal. Soul is desirous to turn back to its source, to God. Sound coming from “Reed” (Ney) is the sound of soul full of sadness, desiring to turn back the initial source.

“Mevlana” has expressed that the Universe was the endless field of existence of God and that human being carried a God-Like quality as a part of a whole by saying “ Hey, whoever looks for God, it is you what you look for…”

Mevlana and his thought transcended the boundaries of his time and thus he and his writings are still relevant and fresh in this day and age, some 700 years after. The universality of his thought finds its reflection in, for example, the famous verses where he says:
Come!

Come whoever you are.

Doesn't matter if you are an unbeliever.

Doesn't matter if you have fallen a thousand times.

Come!

Come whoever you are. For this is not the door of hopelessness.

Come,

Just as you are!
With the tens of thousands of verses he wrote, and with the depths of spirituality he achieved qualities of timelessness and humanistic universality, Mevlana and the sect which was founded after him, have not only influenced the Anatolian - Turkish civilizations but indeed have had far-reaching influences on the intellectual and artistic life of many individuals and nations.
Tonight we had planned and announced to have a live demonstration of Whirling dervishes for you. However, due to the flu, our performers could not travel from New York. We will have a video clip about the dervishes tonight and we hope to bring them to our next coffee night event for a real life exhibit. As would be seen in the foregoing verses, “Mevlana” believed in brotherhood of all humanity and difference among religions would not be related with the God-Like presence. Keeping up with this tradition here in Leola, the Turkish –American community wanted to share this richness with you over a cup of coffee and some delicious Turkish dishes.
We have samples of Turkish appetizers for you to taste and live Turkish music performed by our friends. You will also have an opportunity to learn how to make Turkish coffee.

This evening could not have happened without the help of volunteers from Red Rose, so let’s give them a round of applause. You will have the chance to make friends that will hopefully last forever and check out the Turkish arts and crafts.
Let’s enjoy our evening. Again, thank you for being here to share in the rich Turkish culture.