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Dialogue on Mary

10/5/2022

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 We had an interesting interfaith dialogues this last weekend focussed on Mary the mother of Jesus from both a Catholic and a Shia Muslim perspective. The input was intense and full so that there wasn’t much time for dialogue or questions but I hope for future dialogues when it might be possible to bring the four women who participated together simply to respond to one another and reflect on the questions posed by their talks. The meeting was on zoom which had the great advantage of including women from Argentina, Michigan, Catalonia as well as Scotland and allowed attendees to put questions into chat. But zoom also has disadvantages in that it’s more difficult to regulate the time and allow for more personal responses.
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The format of the event was that two speakers from each religion would talk about what we learn of Mary from their tradition and what Mary has meant to them as a woman of faith.  Sr Teresa Forcades, described by the BBC as Europe’s most radical nun, gave the more academic contribution. She is very busy, and it has been said that she always seems to be in two places at once. This was borne out by the fact that she spoke to us from a hotel lounge where she was in the middle of a conference that she was organising. It was enlightening. For Teresa Mary is a model of Christian discipleship for both men and women. A surprise to me was the knowledge that in the New Testament Mary speaks more than any other disciple. In fact, suggests Teresa she is the most active and talkative of the disciples, not a traditional view of the Virgin Mary. The first word that Mary speaks in the Gospel of Luke is “how will this be?” in response to the announcement that she has found favour with God and will bear a child. For Sr Teresa this is not a sign of disbelief as happened with Zachariah when he heard that his wife was pregnant but rather showed her as a dialogue partner with God. Throughout the gospels Mary’s words confirm her as a confident woman who takes responsibility for her faith, is a channel of grace, has taken a radical option for life, shouts out with joy, complains and suffers.

Sr Teresa’s contribution was well supported and illustrated by Mary Cullen, well known in Catholic circles in Scotland, in her reflection on the place of Mary in her own life of faith using a picture, a poem, a prayer and a book. Fra Angelica’s painting of the Annunciation was the picture which, for Mary, showed an idealised, submissive and silent Mary, an image that she had grown up with. Experience, however, has taught her that this was the unrealistic, fanciful and even romanticised vision of patriarchy. Throughout her life and through her friendship with other women of faith she came to know Mary as a woman of strength, illustrated well in the poem of Gerard Manley Hopkins “The Blessed Virgin Mary Compared to the Air We Breathe” and the work of Anne Johnson in her book “Myriam of Nazareth, Women of Strength and Wisdom” as well as the work of theologian Elizabeth Johnson who in her book “Truly Our Sister”  ‘… invites Mary to come down from the pedestal where she has been honoured for centuries and rejoin us in the community of grace and struggle in history’.

The two Muslim women, Sameia Younes and Israa Safieddine took a different approach, basing their contributions on the text of the Qur’an where Myriam is mentioned 34 times and the only one to be addressed by her personal name, even having a chapter devoted to her and her life. According to the Prophet Mohammed Mary is one of the best women of the world, standing alongside Asiyah, the wife of Pharaoh who rescued Moses from death in the Nile; Khadijah, the wife of the Prophet Muhammad who supported him in his call to be a prophet, and Fatimah, the daughter of Khadijah and the Prophet who was greatly loved by him and seen as an example of an outstanding woman. The details of the life of Mary, particularly the virginal conception and birth of Jesus are very different from that found in the Gospels. Mary, as a young child, lives a life of seclusion and dedication to God, looked after by her uncle Zechariah, when she is visited by an angel who tells her of God’s choice that she should be the mother of the Messiah, Jesus. Jesus is born in the desert where Mary is miraculously sustained by a date tree and spring of water. Afraid of what will be said about her having given birth to a son, “carrying him she brought him to her people. They said, ‘O Mary, you have certainly come up with an odd thing! ….Thereat she pointed to him. They said, ‘How can we speak to one who is yet a baby in the cradle?”  But Jesus does speak to confirm that he is of God.
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It's easy in a dialogue such as this one to focus on the differences in the accounts but despite these there was a lot in common. In both traditions it was obvious that Mary is seen as an example of a faithful and discerning servant of God for both men and women. She is not mild and meek but strong and courageous and for us engaged in interfaith work she is above all a partner in dialogue.

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The Story of the Universe

25/4/2022

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Recently I was invited to take the Sunday morning service at the Unitarian Church. It’s both a privilege and a challenge for there is no lectionary or pattern of readings to help with designing the service and the theme is left open for the leader to do what he or she wishes. What helped my focus and became the main reading during the service was an article by Thomas Berry, a Passionist priest who called himself a geologian, entitled ‘The Story of the Universe’.

For Thomas Berry it’s all a question of story. For him there are two basic stories – the religious story and the story of the universe. Most of us in the west have been brought up on the religious story – a transcendent creator God with human beings being the highpoint of creation; the first human beings disobeying God’s commands and being expelled from a beautiful and fruitful garden; this original sin affecting all human beings born into the world, leaving them in a state of alienation from God; Jesus, God’s Son offering a way of salvation  through baptism; the final destiny of life being heaven or hell. Thomas Berry believes that this story no longer works. It belongs to a three – fold universe with God in his heaven, the destiny of those who have lived a good life; with the earth stable and unchanging at the centre and the underworld for those who are not saved.

We now know that the universe isn’t like this. Cosmology teaches us about the flaring forth of energy that we call the Big Bang, about the evolution of the stars, the planets, including our own, about the evolution of life on earth of which we humans are a part. We humans are for the moment the high point of evolution, but evolution will go on beyond us. We are the expression of life, given form at this moment but constrained by the moment and the time in which we live both physically and intellectually.

  So, what do we do with the religious story? Many people, of course, just dismiss it and reject it.  Others cling to it and try to reconcile it with what we know of modern science, and often believers will debate with scientists or atheists, trying to prove that belief in a creator God is rational. These discussions are nearly always confrontational and polarised. But there is another approach which is growing within my own church – that of listening to/ reading the story of the universe and reflecting on what it means for our Christian faith. Over the years the Catholic church has dialogued with prevailing philosophies and current, knowledge as it has tried to articulate its teaching and make it relevant, something known as the development of doctrine. Now that dialogue is taking place with cosmology and ecology. There’s a recognition that we need to heed the story of the universe. We are part of an evolutionary process, on a journey – perhaps to die out like the Neanderthals to give life to some beings more evolved than we are, perhaps to learn how to live well together as a global community.

Where does this leave religion? I’ve come to believe that religion, all religions, have an intuition into the Reality of existence which they’ve expressed in beliefs or doctrines that have, over time, become ossified and divorced from their initial insights.  It’s the old image of the finger pointing at the moon – look at the finger and you miss the moon. So much of religious teaching obscures rather than reveals the Reality it has encountered.  Eastern religions do this better than western ones, even Christianity. But now instead of looking at religious teaching to help us understand the universe, we now look at the story of the universe to help us understand the insights of religion. For example, it’s a tradition to have ashes put on the forehead on Ash Wednesday accompanied by the words “remember you are dust and into dust you shall return”. This was taken as a sign of our need for repentance but it could also be a reminder that we are earthlings, worldlings who come from a common source – the dust of the earth – or as we now know the very dust of the stars. 

One of the challenges in considering the universe story is having to rethink our understanding of God and eternal life. Often God is depicted as what you might call a Sky God, somewhere in heaven, emerging from his isolation and silence to create the world and reveal something of himself. And at the end of life, if we have been good, God or maybe Jesus, will take us to live happily with him in heaven. In the Acts of Apostles Paul, in a conversation with Greek philosophers on the Areopagus, speaks of God as the One in whom we live and move and have our very being. In the letter of John, chapter 4, it says God is love and whoever lives in love, lives in God – perhaps better insights into Reality than a interventionist God. Even the Trinity which seems so incomprehensible when theologians try to explain it could be an insight that relationships are at the heart of life – a reality we know from the Universe story.

 Christianity is at an interesting stage. The story of the universe has the potential to transform it and make it more relevant to the modern age. It also has the potential to transform us and our relationships with nature and one another. We are at a critical point in our evolutionary journey and perhaps the very future of our race  and, of religion, depends on the story we tell ourselves – a story that must be relevant to the modern age and not belong to a medieval one.

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I's a Question of Story

14/4/2022

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 It’s all about story. It’s the story we tell ourselves that determines how we see and respond to the world in which we live. And it’s story that often divides us. We can see this in the present conflict in Ukraine. Putin has one story about Russia and its claims on Ukraine and Zelensky another. At the moment we are in the run up to local elections in Britain and each candidate has his or her own story, usually that they are better than other candidates or other parties. Sometimes there’s not much about the good each might do and could do together with cooperation between parties. Competition not cooperation is the order of the day. Many people think this is so with religions – each with its own competing truth claims. Others who are involved in interreligious dialogue see cooperation as the way forward, respecting the belief of others, while not assenting to them but refusing to let that difference divide us.
 
This week there will be plenty of storytelling in religions. For the first time in over 30 years several religions are celebrating significant festivals this week.  Christians are celebrating Easter, Jains are celebrating the birthday of one of their founders, Baha’is are remembering the day on which their founder Baha’u’llah declared his mission as a Manifestation of God, Sikhs are commemorating the birth of the Khalsa in the festival of Vaisakhi while Muslims are observing Ramadan.

For Christians religious services will focus on the last three days in the life of Jesus. On Holy Thursday the story is about the Last Supper Jesus shared with his disciples before going to his death. This Last Supper has become ritualised in eucharists/communion services celebrated in some denominations daily. On Holy Thursday there is an extra element – at least for Catholics. While the story of the Last Supper is read the priest will wash the foot of 12 parishioners in imitation of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. Being conservative, the Church has in the past stipulated that the parishioners should be men, but Pope Francis has shown by example that not only can women have their feet washed but even people who are not Catholic. As has become his custom the Pope will say Mass in a prison outside of Rome and wash (and kiss) the feet of prisoners, displaying in action, the meaning of the story which is that service, compassion and love of others is at the heart of faith. For Christians this story should be the motivation for how they live and had this been the case throughout history a lot of conflict between religions and a lot of religious wars could have been avoided.  But for some people the washing of the feet was limited to followers of Jesus – leading to rejection of others and even denying them salvation. It depends then, not so much on the story but how you hear that story.

Good Friday focusses on the death of Jesus at the hands of the Roman authorities. Yes, he was brought to those authorities by some of the Jewish ruling group but not by ‘The Jews’. Unfortunately, many churches will read the account of Jesus passion from the Gospel of John, and it talks about ‘The Jews’ and if the person leading the service doesn’t explain that this does not refer to the whole Jewish people of which Jesus was a part, the listeners can come away with the wrong idea. This idea was so prevalent in the Middle Ages that Jews were unsafe during these three days as many Christians would attack them to avenge the death of Jesus, charging them with deicide. This reading of the story has been declared wrong by the Catholic Church in its document on its relationship with other faiths, Nostra Aetate as has any form of antisemitism. 

The story of Good Friday has been and can be read in different ways – focussing on how necessary it was for the salvation of the world. Another way of reading it is to see it as the first step in an integrated action that includes the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. In this way death and resurrection are taken together and reflect the reality of life. We live in a world where death in nature happens for new life to develop and evolve. Death and resurrection can be read as a spiritual practice – letting go of each moment, old ideas, to embrace the next and respond to what life calls us to.

While all this is happening in Christian churches the Jewish community will be celebrating Pesach/Passover with their families at home. It will take place at a family meal where the story of the People of Israel’s escape from the slavery of Egypt will be told and symbolically acted out through the readings and food that is eaten. Some Christians think this is the meal that Jesus celebrated with his disciples before his death, but it isn’t the same. The order of the service is one that developed in the first century of the common era and would not have been the one celebrated by Jews in Jesus’ time. Some Christians like to Christianise it and link it to Jesus Last Supper, but this is to deny it and Judaism its own integrity. As a story of redemption and salvation Jews will be remembering the injustices and conflicts, the crises from which humans need to be saved and praying that this might happen now as it did in the past to their ancestors. But to do this is also to commit to working to make this salvation a reality in so far as we can.

And the other festivals of new year and the story of religious founders that are being told at the same time as the festivals of Pesach and Easter, as well as  the intensive prayer and fasting of Ramadan, must surely give this week a powerful spiritual energy which I believe we can tap in to and harness in our own lives in our hopes and actions for a better world. 

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A Sense of Powelessness

30/3/2022

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At the end of last week Pope Francis dedicated the world, particularly Russia and Ukraine, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He encouraged Bishops throughout the world to unite with this prayer and repeat it in their own diocese. Here in Glasgow over 2,000 people gathered in George Square in the centre of the city to pray the rosary and join their prayers for peace with his.  While the war in Ukraine is no longer the first point on the national news it is still in people’s minds as is a recognition of how fragile peace in Europe has been and is. There is also a recognition that nuclear weapons pose a real threat to the world and to support them because they are a deterrent is a delusion. Above all though there is a sense of powerlessness, of ordinary people being caught up in the hubris and ambition of politicians, of being able to do nothing to make an impact on the situation.

And yet we try.  There have been many statements calling for peace, even letters, from very public people like the Pope, the World Council of Churches, the Dalai Lama and from less significant figures and organisations. I am usually in two minds about such statements and wonder if the motivation for them is a fear of appearing indifferent and the effect is to help the organisation feel they have done something rather than nothing without necessarily making any impact on the situation. It’s very hard to stay with the pain and the sense of powerlessness and do nothing.  At present there is a petition on the internet calling for the end of nuclear weapons, hoping to get one million signatories. It is an open letter from ‘Nobel Peace Laureates and Citizens of the World against War and Nuclear Weapons’, saying that this moment is either the end of nuclear weapons or the end of humanity. But will governments listen to this?  The fact that President Putin has threatened to push that nuclear button but not done so (yet) might cause some politicians to underline how important nuclear weapons are as a deterrent – but only if possessed by the right nations!  
 
Prayer is also a way of helping us overcome a sense of powerlessness, particularly if done in community. Uniting with others, like the thousands in George Square last week, gives a sense of strength and support. No doubt people will be expecting different things from that prayer. For some there will be a belief that a God who is all powerful could intervene to bring about a change of heart and restore peace.

For others this prayer is more a statement of solidarity, that awakens compassion within our hearts and expresses itself in action.  For others the prayer will be said in a spirit of repentance, recognising that the fear and pride that seems to be motivating President Putin lives in our own hearts. The Pope’s act of consecration, something that has a long tradition in the Catholic Church, took place within the context of a penitential service at which the Pope was seen to humbly acknowledge his own sinfulness within the context of the sacrament of penance as well as then administering that sacrament to others. Within the public prayer he identified himself with all of humanity when he prayed
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“we have strayed from that path of peace. We have forgotten the lesson learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars. We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations. We have betrayed peoples’ dreams of peace and the hopes of the young. We grew sick with greed, we thought only of our own nations and their interests, we grew indifferent and caught up in our selfish needs and concerns. We chose to ignore God, to be satisfied with our illusions, to grow arrogant and aggressive, to suppress innocent lives and to stockpile weapons. We stopped being our neighbour’s keepers and stewards of our common home. We have ravaged the garden of the earth with war and by our sins we have broken the heart of our heavenly Father, who desires us to be brothers and sisters. We grew indifferent to everyone and everything except ourselves. Now with shame we cry out: Forgive us, Lord! Lead us now on the paths of peace”.
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 Is this not a catalogue of the sins of humanity and truly should we not be ashamed of them?  We are implicated in them, and we all have the potential to perpetrate great injustices and violence within ourselves. But we also have the potential for the opposite. The generosity of the public in donating to charities working in Ukraine and working with refugees, offering to open their homes to refugees has been outstanding and shown us humanity at its best. Two images from the news stand out in my mind – one is of the large number of families waiting at the Ukrainian border to welcome refugees into their homes and the other image is of a row of empty push chairs waiting at a railway station in Poland for any family that needed one - signs of real generosity and goodness which can inspire and even console us as we do out bit in sowing seeds of peace.

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What to do about it.

15/3/2022

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 “We see things as we are not as they are” is an often quoted saying. Today it’s clearly illustrated in the story being played out by Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. President Putin has an idealised view of what he calls ‘Rus’, a Russia of the first millennium that included Ukraine, Belarus and Crimea and he seemingly wants to return to that and set himself up as Czar of all Russia, even if he doesn’t use the name. For him this is a sacred task and the land of Russia, as it was, is a sacred land. Those nations that disrupt this unity are not legitimate and are to be crushed. Ukraine on the other hand sees itself as a thriving democracy, with a strong sense of its own identity, wanting to be associated with the European Union and part of NATO. For them this present conflict is a war of aggression, and the world is looking on with horror at the destruction of cities in Ukraine, the wanton killings and the millions of women and children fleeing the country – women and children mainly because the menfolk are staying to fight and defend their country. Putin won’t even acknowledge that what he is doing is war – rather he calls it a special operation to rid the country of anti-Nazi elements and restore Russian unity. What’s to be done about it.

Protests, demonstrations, prayers, sanctions, show the breadth and depth of opposition to the war but this makes no difference to Putin who knows that his threat of using nuclear weapons and the fear of other nations that this present conflict could escalate into a third world war keeps the rest of the world looking on powerlessly. One of the saddest things about this war for those of us who are Christian is that the Russian Orthodox Church of which Putin is a member supports him wholeheartedly. Well, maybe that’s not quite true. An orthodox priest in Russia was arrested and fined for criticising the war; there have been anti-war protests in some cities and many of those protesters will belong to the Orthodox Church; the  Russian Orthodox clergy Amsterdam have separated themselves from the Moscow Patriarchate and asked to join the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople; more than 280 Russian Orthodox priests and church officials from around the world have signed an open letter, expressing their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is the head of the Church, Patriarch Kirill who is firmly standing on the side of Putin. Kirill is Ukrainian and believes in the one nation of Russians, Belarusians, and Little Russians (Ukrainians). In a reply to the World Council of Churches he blamed NATO member states for what he sees is a strategy for undermining and weakening Russia which must be protected at all costs. We see things as we are not as they are. What’s to be done about it.

I don’t think I have felt just as despondent about the world as I do at the moment. We’ve come through, or hopefully are coming through, a pandemic which revealed to us our global fragility and need for cooperation. We have faced the growing threat of climate change, particularly at the last COP gathering in Glasgow, and our responsibility for the future well-being of our planet. We are now facing a war which could easily escalate into a world war and even lead to the use of nuclear weapons and the end of the world as we know it. There seems to be a desperation among people at government and local level to show Putin and Kirill how much they oppose the war and call for peace. No wonder people are afraid of the future which, at the moment, seems so very insecure. What’s to be done about it.

There are of course things that can be done – protesting, letting our voice be heard, supporting charities working on the ground to care for the people of Ukraine, welcoming refugees into our societies, making sure that Russians and Ukrainians citizens in our own land feel supported and respected for it happens so often that conflicts abroad can easily spill over to violence at home. Many people are doing this. What about prayer? Will that help? Will it change President Putin’s heart? Perhaps it can send good energy and hope to the peace talks that are taking place at the same time as the bombing and destruction continue. I’m not too confident about that but for many of us it may be the least we can do to feel we are doing something.

Perhaps the prayer that needs to be prayed is that which feels the pain of this suffering, the pain of the inability of our human family to live together in peace, the pain that those suffering and those perpetrating the violence are our brothers and sisters and because of this we are all implicated. And this is not the only war being waged by our brothers and sisters.  This war in Europe is at present dominating our media but there is also conflict in Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, Ethiopia and elsewhere. Perhaps these conflicts are more easily forgotten as they are further afield and don’t touch us in the same way. So too with refugees. Thousands of people in Britain are opening their homes to Ukrainian refugees but there are thousands of refugees from other parts of the world all trying to find safety and deserve equal treatment. Taking time to pray is to open ourselves to this pain. Will this then help us  to see our human family as one and commit ourselves to friendships and relationships that extend beyond definitions. Without that I doubt peace is possible. 

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Saving St Mungo's

27/2/2022

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On 17th February Glasgow City Council announced its budget for the forthcoming year and plans for post-covid recovery. Included in that budget is the statement “ As well as confirming the funding to keep all local libraries open, it will also allocate more than £1 million to reopen community centres and public halls, and £650k to reopen the much-loved St Mungo’s Museum and Provand’s Lordship”  This feels like a victory for all those who campaigned tirelessly for the council to keep local libraries, museums and community centres open. Was this part of the budget the result of that campaigning, did Glasgow City Council listen to the voices of its citizens and realise how committed people were to their cultural and community centres, recognising the value they have in the ethos and development of a city.
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I was involved in the campaign to save St Mungo’s Museum or Religious Life and Art so that it would keep its interfaith and multifaith focus. Glasgow Life had indicated that its plan was to enter into an agreement with Historic Environment Scotland who own Glasgow Cathedral to revamp the Cathedral precinct to attract more visitors to the historic centre of Glasgow. This revamp would include St Mungo’s Museum and could mean a change in its focus to link more clearly with the history of the Cathedral. This has not yet been resolved but it is surely in keeping with the Christian origins of Glasgow to show its growth as the multifaith city, committed to social and interfaith harmony, that it has become.

The idea of a Museum of Religious Life and Art was the brainchild of Mark O’Neill, at that time Senior Curator of History with Gl. Museums. From the outset it was developed with a socially driven purpose, expressed in the mission statement:
to explore the importance of religion in people’s everyday lives across the world and across time, aiming to promote mutual understanding and respect between people of different faiths and none.  Mark and his team were convinced that if the museum was to live up to this vision stakeholders would have to be consulted and included in the museum’s development – even in the decision to call it The St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art. The stakeholders were the various faith communities in Glasgow as well as the Glasgow Sharing of Faiths, the first and, at that time, only interfaith group in Scotland.  All these groups were approached and involved – donating artefacts and giving suggestions about the layout. Once opened the museum became a centre for interfaith celebrations and dialogues and because of the involvement of faith communities from its inception the Museum felt very much like a home from home. It did indeed become a much loved venue and the thought of it closing was like a bereavement and loss of what was considered a safe and neutral space to conduct what were sometimes difficult dialogues.    

The Museum opened on 4th April 1993, one of only two Museums of Religion in Europe. Now there are more and many of those setting up similar museums came to Glasgow to learn from the St. Mungo experience. For these interfaith friends the thought of St Mungo’s closing or even changing its focus seemed incredible and many of them added their voices of protest to those of Glaswegians and the thousands of people who signed the petition instigated by Interfaith Glasgow. 

This is not the first time that there have been plans to close St Mungo’s Museum, nor the first time it has been saved. It’s as though Glasgow Council needs to be reminded from time to time of its significance and the important contribution it makes to good community relations. Hopefully that no matter what future developments there might be stakeholders from Glasgow’s diverse religious communities, interfaith organisations, and anti-sectarian organisations will be consulted
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Praying for the Environment

13/2/2022

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During Interfaith Harmony Week I was asked to take part in a zoom gathering to explore how mindfulness and prayer could help protect the environment or prevent further climate crisis. It’s a good question and challenging one. It so happened that around that time I’d had a conversation with two friends about what we would call petitionary prayer – that is asking God to intervene in a situation to change or heal it. Approaches to this kind of prayer depends on our concept of God. For those who believe in a Sky God – a God who somehow is outside the universe and is in control of all life and can, therefore, intervene to change the course of events, such prayer is not a problem. For others who believe that God is the Ground of our Being, the Reality in which we live and move and have our very being such an approach to prayer is problematic. If God is intimately connected with the processes of life and history, it doesn’t make much sense to ask God to intervene. This would be the case with climate change and the environmental crisis that we are all facing.

For me the simple answer to how prayer and mindfulness can help protect the environment is that prayer can change the mind and heart of the person praying. The climate crisis is human made and will only be resolved by human beings having a care and love for the environment and changing their ways so that they are contributing to the wellbeing of our planet.  Whatever religion is about it is surely about conversion, opening up our hearts, freeing us from greed and selfishness and developing within us a concern, love and compassion for others which in this day and age we know must include our planet. For me there is much in my religious tradition that helps in this conversion.

Our scriptures have a lot to say about creation. The psalms, which are contained in that great hymn book which we Christians share with our Jewish brothers and sisters, are part and parcel of most Christian worship. They reflect the range of human emotions including an appreciation of the beauties of our world. Singing or chanting the psalms, as well as prayerfully and slowly reading them, evokes gratitude and wonder for the giftedness of life and hopefully a desire to care for the planet. When St Francis of Assisi reflected on Ps. 148 which is a great hymn of praise, he personalised the different aspects of nature. So he talked about Brother Sun and Sister Moon, Brothers Wind and Air, Sister Water and Brother Fire, and “Sister Earth, our Mother, who nourishes us and sustains us, bringing forth, fruits and vegetables of many kinds and flowers of many colours”.

It will soon be the beginning of the season of Lent, the 6-week preparation for the festival of Easter. It begins with Ash Wednesday when Catholics traditionally receive ashes on their forehead with the words, “remember that you are dust and into dust you shall return”. In the last few years alternatives to those words have been possible but I like the traditional ones because they bring us back to our origins. We are part of nature. We are earthlings. We do not stand above it or control it. We are made of the same dust as every other aspect of nature, whether it be animate or inanimate. And of course, today we know from science that this dust is not just the dust of the earth but is stardust. To hear these words year upon year is a moment to realise our intimate connection with nature and how we relate to it in a familial way, as Francis of Assisi believed.

Just as there are many moments in the public life of the Catholic Church that help us appreciate the environment so too in people’s private practice of prayer and meditation. This is the moment when we believers will have the opportunity to take these lessons and understandings into our own hearts and make them our own. It is this that gives us the motivation for how we live – the kind of conversion that is called for by Pope Francis and the one that leads to action. For me the preferred way of praying is silent and quiet meditation, to sit in silence, in the fulness of the present moment, aware of that Reality in which we all live, move, and have our very being - a reality known by different names and which some of us call God. To do this is to be aware of myself rooted in a reality which relates me to all of  nature, a stream of life in which I participate. It is to be ever mindful of the precious gift of life and be aware of the great dignity of my vocation to be a life giver, helping the human family further in its journey into fullness of life. It is to feel myself embraced by life and to embrace in my heart this earth that gives me life and sustenance, to feel its pain, to appreciate the goodness and energy of all those who are working for its healing and the overcoming of divisions between people. It is to send out my loving energy and healing to the cosmos as I pray in a formula borrowed from the Buddhist tradition: may you be well, may you be happy, may you be free from suffering.
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For me this is prayer that can contribute to the well-being of our planet and make a positive contribution to the environmental crisis that face us all. 

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Honouring the Memory

30/1/2022

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This weekend sees the end of the week in which we kept Holocaust Memorial Day and the beginning of the UN Week of Interfaith Harmony with its celebration of Human Fraternity Day which remembers the signing of the document on Human Fraternity by Pope Francis and Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University on 4th Feb. 1999.
 
There were Holocaust Memorial events all over Europe and I was privileged to be at the Scottish and UK events as well as the civic service at the Reform Synagogue in Glasgow. As always central to these events are the stories of survivors, some who experienced the horror of the extermination camps and others who escaped them because they were part of the Kindertransport.
 
The stories tell of the heroism of parents who were determined to save their children. Some did this, by going with the SS when they knocked the door, closing it carefully behind them leaving a child who felt abandoned and did not fully understand what was happening. Hannah Lewis remembers her mother doing just that and seeing her mother’s blood on the snow when she witnessed her murder while looking for her and not understanding why her mother did not meet her eyes. Others did what they could to ensure a future for their children, like the mother of Lily Ebert who asked her to exchange shoes when they were in the trucks headed for Auschwitz. Only afterwards did Lily realise that her mother had given her shoes in which some gold and jewellery was hidden in the heels of the shoes. To this day Lily’s most precious possession is a pendant that was hidden in those shoes. At the Scottish event Henry Wuga told of how his parents put him on the Kindertransport to Britain. He was one of 10,000 children whose parents made the supreme sacrifice of sending their children to safety because they sensed the horrors that were to come. Many of them did well but as children they did not fully understand what was happening and Henry remembers the tears of both children and parents as they separated.
 
The pain of these stories has stayed with me long after the event itself. Another moving story was that of a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. Holocaust Memorial Day also remembers the genocides of Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur though we cannot forget the terrible plight of the Uighurs in China, the Rohingya in Myanmar as well as the suffering of so many of the Afghani people today. At the UK HMD Memorial Service Antoinette Mutabazi from Rwanda told how she was third in line to be executed when news came that the bank had been breached and her executioners left to see what they could get for themselves – saved in a way by other people’s greed.
 
These stories set well the scene for Interfaith Harmony Week and Human Fraternity Day. They show us how far we are from that ideal and how important it is that we work to overcome division, prejudice, hatred and ideologies that set ourselves, our group, our religion, our culture, our way of life as definitive for everyone. Someone who to my mind was an ikon of peace and fraternity and a shining example for all of us is Thich Nhat Hanh who sadly died on 22nd January this year.
 
Thich Nhat Hanh’s death was peaceful. He was 95 years of age, though during the last few years he had suffered the effects of a massive stroke which left him speechless. He died in Vietnam, in the monastery he had entered when he was 16 years old. For much of his life he was exiled by the Vietnamese Government for opposing the Vietnam War and travelling in the west, especially America, to speak of peace and encourage the US to withdraw from the war. Martin Luther King was so impressed by this gentle monk that he suggested him for the Nobel Peace Prize, and I believe the reason he didn’t get it was because MLK broke the rules by revealing the nomination.
 
I was privileged to make two retreats with Thich Nhat Hanh and to visit his monastery in the Dordogne region of France which was composed of several hamlets and called Plum Village. I shall never forget these retreats. Thich Nhat Hanh was an ikon of mindfulness and peace so that to see him walk into a room, sit quietly in the lotus position and teach with gentleness and kindness was a lesson in itself. I think he was a genius in that his teachings on Buddhism touched his listeners’ humanity and made perfect sense. This was religion at its best and I do wish I was able to do that for Christianity. Thay, as his disciples called him, had a great respect for Christianity, writing two books about their relationship, Living Buddha, Living Christ and Jesus and the Buddha as Brothers. He felt that Buddhism would allow Christianity to discover the spirituality behind many of its teachings. And it has done that as far as mindfulness and meditation are concerned.
 
Thich Nhat Hanh will continue to be an inspiration through his writings and teaching. He wrote "Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out…. So do not be afraid of death". His death was peaceful. The death of those remembered at HMD was violent but through these deaths and the story of survivors there is a message of resilience and hope and the memory of them all will live on as an inspiration to all of us and a motivation to promote human fraternity. 

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The Shack

18/1/2022

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 Some years ago, “The Shack” was a popular book in Christian circles. It’s a novel, written by William P Young and published in 2007. It became a bestseller and stayed on the bestselling list for years. It’s the story of a father who returns to a broken, tumbled down shack in a forest where four years previously police had found evidence that his young daughter Missy may have been murdered after having been abducted during a camping trip at the time when Mack, the father, had left her to go save his son who was in danger of being drowned after the canoe he was in capsized. This was a tragedy that brought on what Mack calls “The Great Sadness”. His return to the scene of his daughter’s possible murder is in response to a note in his mailbox from “Papa” asking Mack to meet him that weekend at the shack. Puzzled as to who Papa is but suspecting it is God (his wife always refers to and talks to God as Papa) he goes.  The shack is as he remembers it, broken down and abandoned but the blood-stained clothing of his daughter is still there, and he vents his grief in anger and tears. Just as he is about to leave, the shack and its surroundings are transformed, and he is welcomed into a warm, cosy home situated in and idyllic environment where he meets God – not just as Papa but as Trinity. So, he meets God the Father in the form of and African American Woman, Jesus a middle eastern carpenter and the Holy Spirit, a young Asian woman. Mack’s interaction with each of these persons brings about peace and acceptance.

My memory of reading the book over 10 years ago was that I didn’t like it and was rather dismissive of it, thinking it was a bit of nonsense.  Most people I knew liked it, because of its account of God, especially God being a black woman, but I thought and still think that its portrayal of the Trinity gave a wrong idea of God. It’s not that I don’t believe in the Trinity but the portrayal of the Trinity as separate individuals and one of them being Jesus does not resonate with me, nor fit with my theology. For me the Trinity is an analogy that says if God is about anything God is about relationships and if God is that Reality in which we live, move, and have our very being then reality itself is relational. But how does an author, an artist, express this reality apart from depicting relations between people?

What has brought this book back into my consciousness is that I was flicking through Netflix and discovered it had been turned into a film which I watched and enjoyed. It may be that I was able to take the story less literally than I did when I read it and was able to sit more lightly on the theological issue of God and the Trinity. What I was left with was the psychology behind it and the power of religion to bring about healing – not in the sense of simply asking for it but in the encouragement of facing up to issues of heart break and tragedy that can lead to transformation. The film, and the book, is a reflection on the problem of evil, of unjust and senseless suffering, a problem that leads many people to reject any belief in God for how can a good God allow such things?  I’m not sure that the film will answer that question satisfactorily for unbelievers but looking beyond the images and metaphors there is I think a lot of wisdom.

In the first instance Mack experiences an unconditional love which does not judge him but supports and encourages him in his heart break. Do we not all need this and is it not a blessing when we have it? It is this acceptance that helps him face up to his grief. He does this in the film by Jesus inviting him to take a rowing boat out into the middle of a lake. Jesus is standing by the shore, and I found myself thinking, ‘oh no, he’s going to walk on water’. And of course, he does. The boat begins to let in water, horrible slimy oily-like black liquid and Mack is in danger of sinking until he steps out of the boat and with Jesus walks to the shore. This is a depiction of the gospel story when Jesus walks on the water to save his disciples from a storm. Did it really happen? Who knows but looking beyond the literal story the wisdom is that we must face the storms of life and religion can be a support in this as can family and friends?  Another scene is when Mack meets wisdom who teaches him not to judge quickly without understanding something of a person’s circumstance and conditioning, whether that be his own father or the man who abducted his daughter.
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The film doesn’t have the same ending as the book though both allow Mack to bury his daughter and so move on, realising that while this all happened when he was unconscious from a road accident that happened on his way to the shack, it had brought about a personal and inner transformation. So, a book, a film, not to be taken literally – maybe a bit like religion itself. It’s not so much what it says but what it means that’s important and if we were to look beyond the literal I think we would find a great deal of wisdom, not just in The Shack but in religion itself.
 

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Seasons Greetings

30/12/2021

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I’ve had some conflicting feelings about Christmas this year – not the religious side of it or even the commercial side of it. As a Christian I celebrate the feast as a reminder of the birth of Jesus and his significance for the world (whether people realise this or not). I believe that Jesus was an important figure for all of humanity in that he freed up something in the human beings that enables all of us to fulfil our human potential to live for others lovingly, compassionately, and justly. A few years ago, someone said to me that he felt privileged to live at the same time as Nelson Mandela. For me that was a light bulb moment as I realised that some human beings are so significant and important that they extend humanity’s potential and offer all of us the possibility of sharing in that potential.  I remember the 4-minute mile and how Roger Bannister’s momentous race was seen as a breakthrough. It offered others the possibility of doing likewise and indeed surpassing that achievement.  Now 4 minutes to run a mile would seem slow. So too I think there are figures such as Jesus (and other significant religious figures such as the Buddha) who show us what we are capable of in terms of relationships, honesty, goodness etc. They set out a path for us and make it easier for us to fulfil our potential in the interrelatedness that we know is necessary for the future of our planet and species. Jesus, for Christians of course, is the one above all others to do this but he is someone to be admired by all of humanity. And of course, he is by people of all faiths and none.
         
A few years ago, there was a movement to put Christ back into Christmas. The intention was to get away from the commercialisation and materialism of the season and recognise Christmas as a religious festival. For many people, especially children, Santa Claus is probably more associated with Christmas than the birth of Jesus. I have no problem with Santa Claus nor the giving of gifts. In fact, I rather like it.  My own memories of Christmas are that it was a magical time and for parents who can provide some of that magic for their children it surely lays the foundation for happy childhood memories which will produce happy and confident adults. And this need not mean spending a lot of money. There’s no doubt that some people do go over the top and get themselves into debt by spending too much or giving too much. Often children have so many presents that they can’t cope or know what to play with. But gift giving is part of Christmas and I find it quite moving to hear people before Christmas ask questions such as – do you think so and so would like this? It’s a time when people think about others and try to find something pleasing for them. There’s a lot of love around in this exercise and the worry and fatigue sometimes involved in finding the right present is part of the love and part of the gift. It’s good too to see families enjoying the Christmas decorations and fun together. Recently a friend who is not Christian said he thought that society became kinder at Christmas time. That surely must be a good thing for believers and non-believers alike.

What I am a bit conflicted about is the transformation of Christmas into Winterfest. This year I have had more cards with ‘seasons greetings’ than ever before. I presume the intention is to be inclusive and acknowledge that people who are not Christian or religious are also celebrating what is now more of a cultural celebration than a religious one. But are we in danger of forgetting the origins of the festive season, of forgetting where society has come from and opting for a neutrality that denies diversity? Is there a danger of imposing a secularism that appears neutral but is in fact imposing a particular viewpoint that is in fact a belief and denying other standpoints?  There’s no doubt that this has happened in religious societies and at one interfaith gathering many years ago I remember someone saying that at Christmas it looks as though the whole world is Christian and it’s easy to feel a bit marginalised. Now Scotland, like other societies, sees itself as secular and the government, in a report called Belief in Dialogue, has acknowledged that this means recognising difference and giving a voice to all. So, while it is good to recognise that not everyone is celebrating the Christian festival, is it not also good to remember that the Christian feast is the origin of the celebrations? – and my experience is that people of other faiths are happy to acknowledge this.

At the beginning of December, the European Union produced a 21-page directive on inclusive communication (to be withdrawn within days) which suggested that people should not use the greeting ‘merry Christmas’ but rather use ‘happy holiday’.  On the feast of St Andrew at the end of November the First Minister of Scotland sent St Andrew’s Day greetings, saying “St Andrew’s Day marks the start of Scotland’s glittering Winter Festivals, which includes other seasonal highlights of Hogmanay and Burns Night”. Really? Why not mention Christmas – and Hannukah and Diwali and even the winter solstice? Could ignoring Christmas be denying our identity and traditions? Could ignoring the others be side-lining the diverse nature of our secular society by trying to impose a brand of secularism that is in fact neutral and not inclusive of diversity.   


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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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