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A Time to Retreat

18/9/2018

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I’ve just spent a week on a beautiful Scottish island. I was on retreat – a week away from television, the internet, work, e-mails, diary. Nothing to do but reflect, pray, walk and rest. It sounds idyllic and many people would love to have such an opportunity – or would they?  When I tell friends I’m going on retreat I’m often asked, will I be alright? What will I do? Some even admit it would spook them to spend such a week on their own and it’s true that a retreat is not just about peace and harmony but about facing up to all the turmoil, tensions, conflicts, fears, hopes etc that go on in all of our minds but that we often run away from with distractions of all kinds.
 
There are retreats of different kinds. Some take place in community with some kind of teaching taking place each day. Others offer a daily meeting with a director to reflect on issues coming up in the hours of prayer. Within the Christian tradition retreats can last 8 days though the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola are done over 30 days. In the Buddhist tradition some retreats can last 4 years and even more and some Buddhists do more than one.  These retreats are an immersion into Buddhist teaching with some periods of silence, regular pujas and meditations. The point is to observe the mind, its intricacies and dark places in an effort to move beyond illusion and face reality.
 
Within the Catholic Church there are two kinds of religious life – active religious and  contemplative. Active religious orders, like my own, were founded as a response to a social problem and members of these orders are committed to education, the care of the sick, the welfare of the poor, care of the environment. refugees etc. There’s hardly an issue of injustice or crisis in the world that doesn’t have a religious order committed to combatting it. These religious do pray and meditate but the focus of their lives is their service to others.  Contemplatives live in community though there are those who choose to live a solitary life as a hermit. The focus for all of them is a life of  prayer For some people this way of life is difficult to understand. I often find that religious life with its vows of chastity, obedience and poverty is questioned but accepted because of the good work that religious do. Contemplative life is more difficult to understand.
 
A life focussed on prayer and study, whether as a solitary or a member of a contemplative order, is a very countercultural way of life for a generation that lives in constant communication and finds it hard to be away from their smart phones. It’s also hard to see what relevance such a way of life has for today. For many it seems selfish, opting out of the normal problems of earning a living and running a household.  The reality is that contemplatives set aside these concerns to live at the heart of life and take its sufferings and problems to heart, feeling the pain of the world and praying for it. It’s a force for good in the world and when things are hard I often think we should remember the amount of prayer that is happening around us and draw upon its strength. Even for those religions that don’t have a monastic way of life, prayer is part of their daily life. Jews meet three times a day to pray, Muslims meet five times as do Catholic monastics and Buddhist monastics have their regular daily prayer and meditation. One of the focuses of this prayer is praying for others.
 
No matter what people might believe about God, prayer is a force and energy for good at a very human level. Scientists tell us that we all have an electro-magnetic field around us which generates enough energy to light up a light bulb.  Biologists speak of morphogenic fields – fields of energy which store our genetic and inherited memory. We are putting energy out into our environment and it’s up to us whether it’s good or bad, positive or negative.  There’s no need to be religious or to believe in God to recognise this human and scientific reality. Buddhists who don’t claim to believe in a personal God, send loving kindness into the world when they pray that all beings may be well, may be happy and free from suffering. People can give and receive good energy from another through kything. We are emitting energy through our thoughts and intentions all the time. And to recognise that this energy is out there and can be directed at  me can help me draw on the strength of others when times are hard.
 
There’s a lot of bad energy about.  The daily news shows us what greed, power, domination, abuse and violence can do. We see its results in the way we treat one another and seem to find it impossible to live in respect and harmony with one another. It’s easy to be aware of this negative energy and wonder what the world is coming to or how we as a species are so capable of inflicting cruelty on those who appear, but are not in fact, different from us. How do we treat one another so badly? How we contaminate and abuse this planet on which we all depend for survival?
 
But there is good energy out there, not just in the form of social justice projects and good just enterprise, but also in the form of prayer and intentional good energy being sent out into the world and the universe. This kind of energy is hidden and not always understood.  But it should not be forgotten. Even if we cannot personally get involved in great projects that aim to change the world we can intentionally live our lives well. We can try to live not from the head which analyses, judges, compares, criticises, sets us apart from one another but from the heart or the heart mind as some people talk of it. From this stance we can look with sympathy and love at our world and quite deliberately send out healing energy. Every morning as we face another day we can have the intention to live it well, to spread an energy of kindness and compassion wherever the day takes us. For some this is a religious practice but at heart it is a human practice that can give hope to us and to our world. 
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In the Name of the Other

3/9/2018

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Last week we (the Bishops’ Committee for Interreligious Dialogue) organised a colloquium on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.  Levinas was born in Lithuania of a Jewish family and only escaped extermination in Auschwitz because he had become a French citizen. He spent the war in a prisoner of war camp while his family perished in the Holocaust.  Reflecting on this suffering was the basis of his philosophy.  Influenced as he was by Heidegger and Husserl,  his philosophy is difficult and the language complicated. Like theologians philosophers have their own vocabulary, yet underneath it are concepts that are meaningful and relevant. We were lucky in our colloquium as we had two experts on Levinas – Dr Steve Innes who introduced us to the difficult concepts and language and Dr Margie Tolstoy who brought us back to the essentials and the heart of Levinas’ work.

If I understand it correctly the ‘other’ is at the heart of Levinas’ philosophy.  For Levinas a person is more than any description or idea that we might have of them. Nothing can fully describe the other. To reduce a person to my idea of them is to deny them real autonomy and is in fact a violent act because it encourages me to claim what the other is about even before they have spoken.  We have to allow the other to be other, to be different and it is this recognition of otherness that not only allows us to relate to them but to experience God through them. This experience of otherness is for Levinas the basis of ethics. Personal relationships are an exploration of the other whom we can never totally know. The other is a mystery whose mystery and difference is always to be respected.

It reminded me of Thomas Merton‘s saying “A person is a person in so far as each has a secret and is a solitude of their own that cannot be communicated to anyone else……..a love that breaks into the spiritual privacy of another does not love them: it seeks to destroy what is best in them and what is most intimately theirs.”  And the corollary of this is to care for and take responsibility for the wellbeing of the other.

It’s very obvious that this is exactly what the Nazis didn’t do – they judged and reduced the Jewish community to something less than human, they refused to allow the Jews and others to be themselves and to respect their difference.  With his experience of Nazi persecution and the horrors of the Holocaust it’s understandable that Levinas should put the other at the heart of his philosophy. And the Nazis were not the only ones to dehumanise others.  One of the characteristics of genocides is to use the kind of language that equates a group with animals, vermin, insects or disease. And the human race has seen more than its fair share of genocides.  We never learn.  Even in a milder form any kind of hate speech and racism, whether it be anti-Jewish or anti- Islamic, is dehumanising and violent.

Levinas’ focus is on the other and his recognition of the sacredness of the other is profound and important but there is also a sense in which we are the same. The idea of other can be distorted and exaggerated to divide people into ‘ them’ and ‘us ‘which set us apart from one another.  We are different but we do all share the same human nature; we belong to the same human race; we are interconnected and interrelated. The Golden Rule tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves and Buddhism reminds us that this is true because our neighbour is ourselves.  To harm another is to harm ourselves. Differences, while they are to be respected and honoured, are also superficial.
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The point of the Levinas colloquium, organised as it was by our Committee for Interreligious Dialogue, was to help us reflect on the impact Levinas could have on interreligious dialogue. It’s obvious I think.  To recognise the differences in faiths, to allow them to be themselves, to recognise that they are different and that perhaps it’s impossible to truly enter into their psyche, to recognise that in their differences they have a wisdom and message for all of us. But members of other faiths are human beings seeking a meaningful way of life for themselves and the world. While it’s important to recognise their otherness it’s also true that we can learn to understand them, dialogue with them and break down any barriers that  set us apart.  We can try to learn their language and understand the world from their perspective. To enter into the world of another is to tread on sacred ground and to dialogue with them is a sacred act. Levinas reminds us of this 
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Religious Dress

19/8/2018

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There’s been quite a to-do in the press and social media recently about the wearing of the niqab and burka, seen by some as a symbol of the oppression of women and by others as a symbol of religious freedom. Expressing dislike of it and even talking about it is seen by some as freedom of expression and by others as islamophobia and criticising it is considered a denial of freedom of expression.  It raises all sorts of questions and has become a bone of contention in many European countries. Denmark is the latest one to forbid the wearing of the niqab, burka in public, not ostensibly because of any discrimination against Islam but for security reasons. It has caused quite a stir in Britain because a rather flamboyant politician, who would actually defend a woman’s right to wear the niqab or burka, was insulting about it.  It’s the insults that, unfortunately, have given rise to islamophobic comments and created controversy.  

I’ve often wondered why a woman in a modern country like Britain would want to wear the niqab. I’d have to confess that it’s a bit disconcerting for me to have a conversation with someone whose face is covered apart from her eyes and I do find contact easier when I can see facial expressions. But religious dress is not confined to Islam or to women. Monks as well as nuns wear distinctive dress and I haven’t heard that they’ve been banned from wearing this in public. But wearing it has been banned in public schools in countries such as Germany and France ‘to make sure it doesn’t unduly influence pupils’ though I’m not exactly sure how wearing a particular dress would do that.  It’s all part of a secularity that wants to exile religion from the public sphere, not a secularity that I’d agree with.  I prefer a secular society that makes space for everyone, that appreciates diversity; that allows freedom of expression and doesn’t impose its own expression of citizenship. Secular societies are in danger of doing what religious societies did in the past and some do today – imposing a uniformity which can make people feel excluded with their various identities, whether these be religious or not, unacknowledged and disrespected.

I can imagine that it’s this perceived lack of respect for Islam at the moment that leads some women to choose to wear, not just the hijab, but the full covering of the niqab or burka. There certainly seems to be more women doing it now than even a few years ago. It has  become a statement, I think, of being proud to be Muslim and to witness to this in a very public way. The more it’s criticised the more it becomes a symbol of religious freedom  while in a country like Iran, where it’s imposed on women, not wearing it becomes a statement of religious freedom. Would it be so essential to completely cover up in a society that was much more open to Islam, understood it and didn’t identify it with terrorism?
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 Religious dress like all religious symbols and practices comes from a particular context but sometimes that context is forgotten in the significance given to the ritual or dress that takes on a sacredness and importance far beyond what it was in the beginning.  This was the case with the religious habit that many sisters wore for years.  It became synonymous with dedication and commitment and did have religious significance until history showed that what was thought of as a religious garb was in fact the dress typical of the time in which the community was founded. It then became unnecessary to wear what was an outmoded costume which cut us off from the rest of the population and made us different. We now have the freedom to wear what we want.

For Christians the veil belongs to this category. For centuries Christian women wore a head covering, particularly in Church. It was a sign of modesty, separated them from the pagans who didn’t wear a veil and imposed by a patriarchal society that stipulated how women were to dress and behave in public. Wearing a veil pre-dates Islam and would have been modest dress in the Prophet’s time.  The Qur’an stipulates that men and women have to dress modestly and while the Prophet’s wives were required to shield themselves from public gaze it is debated within Islam whether this even means wearing the hijab today never mind the niqab or burka.  For some Muslim women wearing the hijab is a genuine expression of their religion but for other women, equally committed it’s not necessary. This is not to call for any prohibition of wearing the veil but to respect it. However, I would hope that women whose participation and contribution to the future of the society in which we all live is important and valuable would not separate themselves by a more extreme form of dress which cuts them off from normal discourse. For me it would show an at-homeness as well as  an interest and concern for the common good on which we all depend.  But it is a decision that they must make and not one that is imposed upon them.
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Revisiting the Past

5/8/2018

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It’s the holiday season in Scotland and this year we’ve been blessed with good weather. I’m just back from my holiday in Ireland. It was a kind of pilgrimage to the land of my forefathers and foremothers, trying to find out a little more about my family background and get in touch with my roots, something that everyone seems to be into at the moment.

The journey began for me in Sligo which is where my maternal great grandparents came from. I knew a little about their circumstances and the poverty of the Catholic community in that part of the world, made poor in many instances by the policy of the British Government and English landowners who had confiscated the property of native Irish landowners, who were primarily Catholic, and distributed it to the predominantly Protestant settlers brought over from Scotland to populate the North of Ireland. Penal laws had placed significant restrictions upon Catholics. They were forced to practise their religion in secret and while the emancipation act of 1829 brought some kind of justice, tensions between Catholics and Protestants continued with most Catholics being disenfranchised because their poverty did not allow them to pay local taxes or rates on which rested the right to vote. It was a tense situation, made worse by the famine of 1817-22 when the potato crop, on which Irish peasants were dependent, failed and this at the same time as British landowners exported most of the crops grown on their lucrative land. The subsequent outbreak of cholera, and the Great Famine of 1845-49 led to hundreds of thousands of people dying of starvation without help from the British Government or British landlords. It decimated the population of Sligo by a third and thousands emigrated to America and Canada from Sligo port – mostly on sailing ships. The journey must have been terrible. By the 1850s steam ships were transporting emigrants to Glasgow and Liverpool. For some this would be a stopping off point for sailing to America and Canada.

My great grandparents made this journey in the 1870s with their first born. I can only guess how awful it would be to have experienced and, indeed been brought up, in the aftermath of both famine and disease. Obviously they longed for a better life.  I don’t know if they intended going further but they settled in Glasgow and an area of Glasgow which was burgeoning with new industries and businesses so work was available. This had led to a large influx of Irish and Highlanders but led to overcrowding and slum conditions so life was difficult even if there was work to put food on the table – probably endured because better than the conditions from which they had come. Nor did the Scottish population welcome them with open arms. There was the usual fear of immigrants – taking away jobs but especially with the Irish, of a takeover by Catholics.  The ensuing sectarianism and anti- Irish sentiment has been called Scotland’s shame. It’s been a blight on Scottish society and while there are still some expressions of it legislation such as Race Relations and Equality Acts  have outlawed the blatant anti- Catholicism that existed when I was growing up. The consequence of this, however, was that Catholics like other immigrant religious communities tended to live in rather a closed community albeit warm and loving.  Catholic schools exacerbated this and it was possible, up to not so long ago, to meet Catholics who hadn’t spoken to a Protestant, never mind anyone of any other faith. 

All of this pain and conflict I carry in my genes. In some ways nothing has changed, as is obvious from the plight of immigrants that we see daily on our television screens.  We have such an ability to cut ourselves off from the suffering of others, to harden our hearts against them and to leave them in dire situation. At least the poor Irish had work which allowed them to better themselves but present government legislation doesn’t allow asylum seekers to work even though they could make a very good contribution to the infrastructure of our country. In other ways things have changed, especially with regard to sectarianism.  Christian ecumenism has brought about new understanding of Catholic and Protestant denominations. Christians work, live and pray together happily and most anti- Catholic feeling is, I think, more tribal than religious. Scotland really does strive to be tolerant and welcoming but there is still a prejudice amongst some of those who are different. Perhaps today one of the biggest prejudices is against religion itself and religious people expressing their faith, either in what they think, what they wear or what they believe. For some people a secular society means having a place for everyone and accepting their right to speak and act out of their personal beliefs but for others it seems to be about imposing a secularism or non- religious view of life on everyone – something they would criticise religion for doing. And sometimes this criticism of religion comes from a place of hurt and rejection.
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Nearly all religions have a history of suffering, struggle, conflict and persecution. I think we carry a lot of suspicion and pain in all our genes. We are still connected to our painful histories. And this pain can rise to the surface at unexpected moments. It can influence dialogue between people of different religious and non-religious beliefs. It can influence the dialogue in unconscious ways.  It needs to be acknowledged by each of us who engages in dialogue, acknowledged and then let go of as we face one another in friendship and honesty with a concern for our common human struggle and the common good of the community in which we all live. 
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Who's Who in Interfaith World?

21/7/2018

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I recently visited our local Ahmadiyya Mosque with the Chair and members of the Scottish Bishops’ Committee for Interreligious Dialogue.  We were responding to an invitation that had come in response to a letter we had sent to the community for Ramadan and Eid. It was a very happy visit. We were welcomed most warmly and received generous hospitality which included a copy of the Qur’an.  It’s a privilege to be welcomed into another community’s place of worship as it is to be welcomed into someone’s home. Interfaith Glasgow’s Festival Exchange has shown how positive entering into another’s space can be and helps us to stand in another’s shoes in some little way though I find it’s quite hard to do it completely.

 In all my experience of interfaith work I have felt very at home visiting places of worship, being present at religious rituals and festivals, meditating with people of other faiths but I’ve not been totally at home. It’s been a bit like visiting an auntie - there’s a connection, a recognition in some instances of similarities and an understanding of the faith that’s at the heart of the community’s religious life.  But there’s also been a strangeness in it, it’s not quite home. Often it’s the culture in which the religion sits and I’ve been intrigued by people who are able to adopt not just the beliefs of another faith but its traditional language and culture.  I’ve never felt any temptation to convert though I have experienced what Krister Stendahl called ‘holy envy’.  That is I’ve found aspects of other faiths that I’ve admired and wished could be reflected in my own. And I’ve certainly learned a lot about faith including my own expression of it through interfaith relations.

The focus of the Ahmadiyya community on unity and harmony was impressive as was their joy and commitment to their faith. The Ahmadiyya see themselves as a movement within Islam. They were founded in India in 1889 by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad who wanted to revive the true spirit of Islam. He emphasised duty to God and creation, the equality of mankind and care for the needy, respect for all religions and the importance of keeping the law of the land and being loyal to the government of the country.  All of these are good things and, on the whole, it would be accepted by many of the Muslims I know and yet the Ahmadiyya are not accepted by Muslims and are seen as heretical in that their founder saw himself as a messiah, a prophet for this age. This is so heretical to the majority of the Muslim community both Sunni and Shia that they will not call the Ahmadiyya,  Muslim.

The right to self- definition has caused some debate, consternation in interfaith circles.  In Interfaith Scotland, as with other interfaith groups, any application from a group that comes under the umbrella of a major world faith needs the acceptance by other members of that faith before gaining membership. This meant that when the Ahmadiyya community recently applied for membership of Interfaith Scotland they didn’t get the approval of other Muslim groups but were offered associate membership which would allow them to engage in dialogue. They didn’t accept this and withdrew their membership. This isn’t the first time this has happened. 

At the very beginning of Interfaith Scotland the first faith group to ask for membership was the Pagan Federation. Some faith groups objected for all sorts of reasons but it was suggested that changing their name would make them acceptable. This didn’t hold water with the Pagans who wanted to reclaim an ancient name that they said had been harmed by the prejudice of later faiths.  They did accept associate membership. The same thing happened with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  While they declare themselves to be Christian they’re not recognised as such by other Christian denominations – mainly because they hold to a further revelation given to Joseph Smith which sets them apart from mainstream Christians. They see themselves as revivalist – reviving the true Christian Church – not that far from the Ahmadiyya understanding of themselves as the true Islam.  Because today the emphasis in on religion and belief there tends to be no judgement about what constitutes a valid faith or even religion – sure for some people Jedi is a valid religion.  Do groups have the right to self-define?  Are the major faiths also simply self –defining and do they have the right to say who belongs and who not?  Definitions and boundaries have their purposes and give a sense of belonging. Where the problem comes is when the newer groups think of themselves as the true faith so that part of their desire for  inclusion means a rejection of their parent faith or at least some parts of it. In their own way they are also being exclusive.The important thing is not to exclude them from the dialogue  but to keep the conversation going while understanding the complexities of identity and belonging. 
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A Wild and Precious Life

8/7/2018

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Mary Oliver is a favourite poet of mine. In her poem, ‘The Summer Day’ she asks ‘what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’ What an amazing phrase – our wild and precious life. I just love it and yet so many people don’t know their life as either wild or precious, but rather as mundane and uninteresting. We must remember, of course, that many have no choice about their future, being born into systems that are unjust and oppressive. Others are the victim of war, abuse, poverty, torture, rape – the list is endless. For them life is wild in the sense of out of control and unruly-not the freedom and exhilaration of the natural world that Oliver is so fond of.  But there are also those who live in developed, peaceful, well to do societies whose lives are also far from wild and precious. Here in Britain, though also in other European countries, loneliness and isolation are seen as real ills affecting modern society to the extent that the Government has even appointed a loneliness minister and I’ve been invited to a dialogue on the subject to reflect on how faith communities can help overcome the problem.  There are lots of answers to that question but one of them might be that religion offers a story to live by and a sense of the preciousness of life.
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The Abrahamic religions have a common belief that we are all made in the image and likeness of God with depths that even we cannot plumb. Eastern religions stress the interrelatedness of all living and sentient beings and our connectedness to the natural world. I like Joanna Macy’s idea that because of evolution each of us (in the form of our DNA)  reaches back to the very moment when life and DNA itself began and has journeyed through time to be given form and substance at this point in history. We are not just any old person, we are indeed precious beings, called forth from the beginning of time, with a particular life to lead and contribution to make.  

One of the things that makes life precious is that someday it will end. It’s a gift that is passing with each precious moment. In another of her poems, ‘Welcoming Death’ Mary Oliver says that when death comes ‘like an iceberg between the shoulder blades’ she wants ‘to step through the door full of curiosity’. She wants to say that all of her life she ‘was a bride married to amazement’, a bridegroom taking the world into her arms. ‘I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world’. What wonderful images! What an image of a life fully lived, of someone that has embraced life, that has truly entered into it and matured within it. This doesn’t mean that it will be easy. Whatever life’s about it’s not about ease or comfort, nor I think about happiness or wealth. Of course we want people, particularly, those we love to be happy and the Dalai Lama often says that the goal and purpose of life is happiness. People search for it in many ways and are disappointed if they don’t achieve it. Some have unrealistic expectations and think it should come easily, while others are prepared to work for it.

Somehow this notion of happiness being the purpose of life doesn’t fill me with the same excitement or cause my spirit to rise in the way Mary Oliver’s poetry does. Embracing life in its fullness means, I think, embracing the negative as well as the positive. It’s facing up to the fact that life can be difficult, chaotic, a struggle at times. Suffering is part and parcel of what it is to be alive and none of us can escape it. About 50 years ago Margaret Craven wrote a book called “I Heard the Owl Call My Name’ and I’ve never forgotten what I think is its profound lesson. The story is about a young priest who has a terminal illness and his bishop knows that there is an immaturity in him and doesn’t want him to die without having experienced life. He sends him to a remote Indian village in the Pacific Northwest, the hardest parish of his diocese. Here the young curate is able to enter into the hopes and fears, the sufferings and joys of the tribe. Here he learns the complexities of what it is to be human and to live in relationship and community. Here he has his prejudices and stereotypes challenged. It’s only when he took the sufferings of the community to his heart that he becomes part of them. It’s only when he embraced the fullness of their life, good and bad that he was able to be other than a visitor. And it’s only then that he is ready to pass through the open door that leads beyond life when at last he heard the owl call his name.
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So what is the purpose of life - to seek for happiness outside ourselves? Surely this is an unrealistic goal.  Is it not to know what it is to love and be loved, to recognise the dark and light that there is in all life, to understand that suffering and struggle can be the means of growth and maturity, to remember that things constantly change, that all things pass and to let that happen? Is it not to contribute what we can to the future of our planet and community by living well. I once had a friend who, when she was facing death, said she was glad to die because life had been such a struggle for her. This always struck me as rather sad. Yes there are difficult times but for me life is much more of an adventure, an appreciation of that wild and precious life that has taken me along paths undreamed of and into lands hitherto unknown.  ​
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Mindfulness

23/6/2018

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This week I went to a meeting on mindfulness. I had of course come across mindfulness mainly in my contact with Buddhism, but also through the work of Jon Kabbat-Zin who almost thirty years ago used mindfulness and meditation techniques to reduce stress and help people with mental illnesses. I heard of him through a friend who found his techniques invaluable in her constant struggle with depression.

Mindfulness has now become main stream in medicine, education, prisons, business even.  In fact it’s become a business in itself. Courses can cost quite a lot of money; people can do degrees in it and then a teacher training course to teach it! I even know a Buddhist monk who did such a course – even though he had probably been living mindfully for all of his religious life. It’s a symptom of the world we live in where paper qualifications are sometimes valued over experience and people feel they haven’t achieved anything without a qualification of some sort. It’s the same with spiritual direction. Once on retreat I was encouraged by a spiritual director to get involved in spiritual direction and when I mentioned the need to do a course he said I was too intelligent to believe that.  Whether that statement was true or not I do feel that there is a bureaucratisation and secularisation of religious practices going on.  Do they need to conform to the ways of the world where there is a price on everything?  I do realise of course that if someone is offering a course and a service for which they are being paid then it’s important to know that they are qualified and capable of doing what they are advertising.  In the past people would have sought out individuals whom they trusted as having lived and experienced mindfulness and meditation.  But maybe it’s not so easy to find these people today – and so easier to do a course on it.

In the past meditation and mindfulness practice would have been taught within the context of a religious faith. Buddhism and Hinduism, the religions of the east, are particularly associated with it but it’s to be found in all religions though I think it’s true that Buddhism has helped Christianity rediscover this tradition, which is not always obvious in formal institutional Church worship. Today there are meditation groups in Christian churches that are teaching people to meditate within the context of Christian faith and mindfulness resonates with what in Catholicism is called ‘ the sacrament of the present moment’.  The aim of this is different, as you would expect, from Buddhist meditation and from its secular counterpart.  For Christians, or at least for this Christian, even when I’m sitting still and silent, attending to the breathing, letting go of distractions, meditation is to be aware of the gift of the life force that courses through my veins, to be open to the power of love, compassion, healing. I cannot meditate without being aware of my relationship to the Transcendent, to the Source of Life and Love, the Ground of Being, to God in other words though the word God more often obscures Reality than it reveals it. In meditation I feel called into the adventure of life – and sometimes it needs courage to embrace that.
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For Buddhists meditation is more about watching the mind, observing how erratic it is, recognising the games it plays on us when we get caught up in our imagination and take our perceptions for reality.  We all know how our mind can run riot and have us imagine disastrous scenarios,  how judgemental it is, how critical and negative, how difficult it is to slow it down never mind let it rest in peace. Buddhists talk about monkey mind and in the West at least we are trained to think, evaluate, discriminate,  jump from one thing to the other from the moment we enter the education system so it’s no wonder that some Buddhist think that it’s more difficult for westerners to meditate because we are going against our conditioning.  And it’s also no wonder that many people are looking to meditation and mindfulness as a way of finding peace in what for all of us can be a chaotic  and troubled world.

There is no doubt that mindfulness and meditation have become very popular and fulfil a need or desire for peace in people of all ages and from all walks of life. The meeting I was at this week was free – no money involved though it was possible to make a donation. It happens weekly and has been happening for many years. The leader has been practising it for decades and has come from a Zen background. It was very well attended and the format was simple – a half hour talk about how our mind can lead us down the path of negativity and then a body scan for half an hour in which we were imaginatively guided to relax each area of our body.  It was a half hour of relaxation, a time to set aside worry and anxiety  and it was obvious that people left feeling uplifted and energised by it. And it had nothing to do with religion – supposedly.  No creed was preached to set up any conflicts about belief but it did have a spiritual message about well-being and care which people responded to.  Perhaps those followers of religion who are worried about its demise need not be and perhaps this way of pursuing spirituality will lead some  people at least to seek for meaning and even return to religion to find it.
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National Identity

9/6/2018

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The BBC published the results of a recent survey yesterday which showed that of all the countries in the United Kingdom the Scots had the strongest sense of national identity.  Most of them were supporters of Scottish independence so it’s not surprising that this should be so. I wasn’t surprised at these results but a bit surprised that most respondents saw this sense of Scottishness being dependent on being born in Scotland or one’s parents being born in Scotland. So what happens to those who don’t fit this category?  Are they to be forever strangers in this land of ours?


According to this I should have a strong sense of Scottishness – true at one level but not another. I was born in Scotland, my parents were born in Scotland.  One set of grandparents was born in Scotland but the other set was born in Ireland.  And one of my Scottish born grandparents’ mother came from Ireland.  They all came from the north of Ireland – Sligo and Enniskillen, both places that suffered from the potato famine of  the 1840s and the subsequent cholera outbreak which led to hundreds of thousands  of people leaving that part of Ireland.  They were all Catholic and when they came to Scotland, mainly Glasgow, they formed a very closed community.  This was partly because of the sectarian attitudes among Scots who feared for their jobs and the influx of poor Irish families with their large families who lived in over-crowded slum conditions.  It was not unusual to see adverts for jobs or accommodation for rent which said ‘Catholics need not apply’. Among the Irish there was a suspicion of anything British that had been the cause of the famine so they didn’t quite want to fit in. When I was in school fellow pupils with strong Irish affiliations would refuse to stand for the national anthem which was played rather more often than it is now. There was a sense of being on the edges of a society that was predominantly Presbyterian.  We lived our own community life which was centred on the Church which not only offered religious services but was the focus for all our social contacts and friendships. I believe this is called a sacral community – a community that is organised along religious lines – religion and community totally integrated.  What made this even stronger is that we had our own schools.  Looking back on my upbringing I went to Catholic primary school, Catholic convent secondary school, trained as a Catholic teacher, became a Catholic nun and then returned to teach in the Catholic school system.  It had its own advantages but it was a narrow and circumscribed upbringing. It was only when I went to university and lived on campus that I lived in a secular situation and for the first time met people of other faiths.


Because of this background I never felt very Scottish, or Irish for that matter.  I only really felt Scottish when Scotland got its own Parliament.  Because this had come as a result of a referendum there was a sense that it belonged to the people – at least those who had voted for it! Somehow it became alright to acknowledge my Irish, Catholic origins and at the same time acknowledge my concern for the future of Scotland. I could claim a Scottish civic identity and be proud to be a citizen. I know that others from other faiths and cultures felt the same. For me this idea of citizenship was reinforced by all the discussions that took place before the independence referendum. No matter whether the results were to people’s liking it or not it gave an opportunity for us all, with our different backgrounds, to think about and discuss  what kind of Scotland we would like to live in and how we might contribute to it. This may not have been the case for everyone but it was very true for those of use involved in interfaith relations.


Since those days I have felt very Scottish, not in the sense of a narrow nationalism, but in a civic sense. I like this. It gives an identity which transcends religious, cultural and national identities but allows an acknowledgement of them. It seems to me that this would be important in those countries (e.g. Myanmar/Burma) that identify nationalism and religion which then leaves those who are different as outsiders and denies them citizenship.  This is a kind of nationalism that is dangerous and does not allow for difference.
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It is, I think, this sense of common civic identity that allows faith communities to work together for the common good here in Scotland, something that is growing in interfaith relations.  All faith communities have their concerns about community, their young people, their places of worship, their elderly which takes up a lot of time and energy. Not everyone can be involved in interfaith relations but there is an increasing desire to work together, to widen participation in social projects, to engage with government, to dialogue about issues of common concern. We meet together as members of different faiths, with respect for our different cultures and viewpoints but we can transcend these differences because we are united in our common concern for the future of this land that we share and this society in which we want to participate. Thank God our society and Government are such that this is possible in a way that it is impossible in so many other parts of the world. It’s no wonder that so many in the BBC survey said they liked living in Scotland.  
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Table Talk

27/5/2018

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I learned a new word this week though I’m unlikely to remember it. Deipnosophy is a rare word, defined by the Collins English dictionary as mastery of dinner table conversation.  While certainly not claiming to be masterful about it, it’s true that conversation over food does play quite a part in interfaith relations. Sometimes it’s over a meal as was the situation yesterday when a local Muslim community invited a good number of us to attend iftar – the breaking of the fast which, for Scottish Muslims, can last for eighteen hours at this time of the year. It’s always an honour and privilege to offer and receive hospitality from those of other faiths. It’s the bedrock on which friendships are formed – friendships that allow for honest and sometimes challenging dialogue.

Not all dialogues are over a meal, however. More often than not it’s over tea and biscuits but even this allows for good conversation and a relaxed atmosphere. Just last week I was involved in such a dialogue which was honest and challenging. The focus of the conversation was the story in the Hebrew Bible in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, even though God had promised that he would be the father of a great nation.

The story in the Jewish tradition is known as the Akedah – the binding of Isaac. It’s seen as a symbol of martyrdom and the supreme example of self-sacrifice in obedience to God’s will. It’s remembered at Rosh Hashanah which, as well as being the New Year, is also a day of judgement and an opportunity to ask for forgiveness for past sins.  During the synagogue service Jews pray that God will consider the binding of Isaac and how Abraham suppressed his compassion to perform God’s will with a perfect heart. They ask that God’s compassion and love will override God’s anger and judgement. 

The story in the Christian tradition is the same as in the Hebrew Bible but it’s known as the sacrifice of Isaac – foreshadowing for us the sacrifice of Jesus. For Christians the Hebrew Bible is a forerunner to the life of Jesus and characters such as Isaac have been seen over the centuries as a type of Jesus. It’s not possible I think for Christians to read phrases like ‘your only son’, ‘on the third day’ ‘lamb for a burnt offering’ ‘laid it on his son’ and not remember the death of Jesus, described in the Gospels as God’s only son, who carried the wood of his cross and went to his death like a lamb to the slaughter but who rose again on the third day. Now the question is, was the story of Isaac meant to prefigure Jesus or was the life and death of Jesus interpreted in the light of the story of Isaac? No matter what the answer to this might be one of the Jewish participants felt very uncomfortable with this way of looking at scripture – was it an abuse, was it a takeover, was it a distortion?  It’s always good when we can be honest with one another but it’s always a challenge to hear such a perspective. It helped me understand that calling the Hebrew Scriptures the Old Testament might be more honest as our different ways of interpreting them is significant and it’s not dismissive or insulting to Jews to call them that.

The story in the Qur’an is similar to that in the Bible. It’s about the sacrifice of Abraham’s son but in this version Abraham sees himself sacrificing his son in a dream and asks him what he thinks.  His son tells him to do as God commanded and so they both submit to God.  It was of course a test and, in the words of the Qur’an, ‘God ransomed his son with a momentous sacrifice’ (ie the ram). The question for Muslims is whether this son is Ishmael, the first born son of Abraham and Hagar or Isaac the son of Sarah? The story doesn’t mention the name of the son but the birth of Isaac is mentioned in a verse after the story of the sacrifice so the Muslim tradition believes it is Ishmael that was to be sacrificed.
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Three versions of the same story, more or less. It’s been subject to much debate over the centuries in all the faiths.  It’s a difficult story. What does it say about God or Abraham that they would kill their own son?  Does it reflect a society which was moving beyond human sacrifice to animal sacrifice?  Is it about faith and obedience?  Does it contrast religious faith and commitment with familial love?  What is more important?  When I was growing up it was not unknown for parents to cut contact with their children if they married someone from another Christian denomination, never mind another faith.  How heart-breaking this must have been – a heart break that probably never healed but accepted as part of their faith. Now that seems barbaric.  I for one see this as inhuman and cannot believe that God would want such a sacrifice.  At the same time sacrifice is part of life and we are all called at different times to let go of all that is dear to us. I don’t see this as an agency of God but rather part of life.  For some this is truly tragic when it comes as a result of war, terror or disasters but all of us will at some time experience illness, death, the loss of someone dear to us, children leaving home or whatever with the final letting go when we breathe our last. This means the story of Isaac does not just contain religious truth but reflects a human wisdom which in my opinion represents religion at its best. ​
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A Vision to Live By

12/5/2018

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We had a visitor from the United Nations in Scotland this past week - Mr Adama Dieng, the Under – Secretary- General and the UN Secretary- General’s Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide. He had come to Scotland to meet religious as well as civic leaders in order to promote a plan of action for religious leaders on how to prevent incitement to violence that leads to genocide.

Mr Dieng has had his fair share of witnessing atrocities in countries such as Rwanda, Sudan, Burundi, Sebrenica. He has heard witness statements that described the rape of women as old as 84 years and as young as 4. He has heard stories of terrible atrocities between people who at one time would have been friends and neighbours, of competing affiliations that obstructed dialogue and work for reconciliation.  He spoke of the growing retreat from multi-lateralism into national concerns that were governed by selfish interest. It was all very overwhelming.  What a world we inhabit. Can anything be done about it?  Can that great institution, the United Nations do anything about it? Part of its work I suppose is to alert us to the reality of the world in which we live, to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, to disturb our false sense of peace and comfort. It can speak out against atrocities and call for peace but often these are simply ignored.  And then it can write reports and action plans setting out steps to prevent atrocities and create peace. But what happens to these reports. Many of us who have worked with government bodies are aware of how easy it is to write reports and plans of action for them to simply be a tick box exercise and then be put on a shelf and forgotten about.
 
Reports demand good publicity, good distribution and a strategy for implementation. Often they rely on the enthusiasm of the people who were consulted in the writing of them as the ones who have really engaged with the issues. That’s how this particular visit by Mr Dieng came about. The report is aimed at religious leaders - seen as important and significant in promoting peace and preventing incitement to violence.  This may not appear to be so obvious in a Europe that is becoming more secular but the United Nations with its global vision recognises the importance of religious teaching and practice in accomplishing many of its sustainable development goals. Mr Dieng himself did say that what was needed was more spirituality.

What I think he was asking for was a change of heart, a conversion that recognises our solidarity and interconnectedness as part of the human family, that is convinced we are all affected for good or for ill by what our fellow human beings do, that we all have an investment in the future of our planet and can no longer afford to get caught up in selfish concerns whether these be personal, national or international. We need a sense of inclusivity, solidarity and a shared vision of peace and cooperation. It’s like the feminist slogan ‘the personal is political’. If only the whole world was converted to such a vision. There are, of course, many people who are or who struggle to make this a reality in their lives. People, communities, organisations working to eradicate poverty, overcome disease, establish justice for all, dialogue across ethnic, cultural and religious divides. There’s a lot of good going on and it’s important for me to remember this and not get bogged down in evils and atrocities that render me feeling helpless and hopeless. Christians often describe these activities as working for the Kingdom of God and I once heard it said that Christians should become Kingdom – spotters. If we look around we can see the Kingdom everywhere – in big ways and small.  What helps me is to see these incidents as part of a great whole, to feel that my little efforts are part of this whole and can contribute to it in some way. I think intention is important in all of this. It’s good to realise that everything we do can be for the benefit of humankind and the healing of the nations and to begin our day by having that intention, either in prayer or meditation or simply by having the intention for the day. I know this as a morning offering.  Once made, we live our lives normally, giving and receiving as we all do in our daily lives. What it does is, it gives us a vision by which to live, a sense of purpose and partnership in the great work of healing the nations and contributing in some small way to peace. And it’s not only empty words.   The intention to have all that we say and do contribute to this vision must surely affect how we act and relate to one another even if we often fail.
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All religions have sense of the brokenness of our world and put before believers a vision and practice for contributing to its wholeness and well-being.  Over and over again I think the world needs more religion – but good religion. In all religions there is a spirituality, a pearl of great price which is often hidden and obscured by the institution but once found is a source of real inspiration and hope. 
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    I am  a Catholic nun, involved in interfaith relations for many decades.  For me this has been an exciting and sacred journey which I would like to share with others.

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