I don’t think I’ve ever felt so dispirited about the world in which we live as I do now, and I can’t remember being so fearful for its future. I’ve never lived through a war and was probably too caught up in my own life and work and too busy to engage with some critical moments in the past like the Cuban crisis. I was a student in college when that happened and remember going to bed with the nuns telling us to pray hard as nuclear war was a real possibility. I remember feeling anxious but not sad to the pit of my stomach as I do today about the situation in the Middle East. I am older now, more aware of world events and politics, involved in interfaith relations, more knowledgeable about the history of antisemitism suffered by the Jewish community, more aware of the interconnectedness of all human beings and through television exposed to the reality of the horror of it all.

   I am appalled at the terrible attacks on innocent citizens in Israel by Hamas and at the ensuing retaliation which is killing innocent Palestinians. Governments and civil rights and peace groups have expressed their outrage at what has happened and is happening, and my in-box has been filled with statements of support for Israel and cries for Netanyahu to desist from a war of revenge. The one that touched me most, probably because it expresses so well my own feelings, comes from the Board of Interfaith Scotland:

There are no adequate words to express our grief, despair and horror at the events unfolding in Israel/Gaza over the past 5 days.  We stand in solidarity and are praying for all the innocent lives lost or forever damaged by terrorism, war and violence and will do all we can to support our beloved communities in Scotland as we navigate this difficult time.

For centuries the Jewish people were without a homeland. Expelled from the land of Israel after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the Fall of Masada a few years later they lived in the diaspora and set up thriving communities centred, not on the Temple in Jerusalem but in the synagogue at the heart of their community life. They were a people with a sense of community and home wherever they found themselves. Always a minority, however, they were aware of their exile from a homeland where the Jewish way of life was the norm, and they were in the majority. Through the reading of the scriptures, the celebration of festivals and prayer they remembered that land of milk and honey, how it had been promised to them by God and longed to return.  For some Christians this lack of a homeland was seen as God’s punishment. Jews were destined to wander the earth because they had refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah. Over the centuries they suffered persecution, death, expulsions, the burning of their sacred books, forced sermons, the destruction of synagogues. It was these pogroms instigated by Christians that led to the creation of Zionism and a political movement to establish a homeland where Jews would feel safe which resulted in the Balfour Declaration that promised a homeland in Palestine. It was the horrors of the Holocaust and the tardiness of countries to accept Jewish refugees that led to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 – a moment of great rejoicing for Jewish people and, my teacher of Judaism would suggest, a challenge to Christian antisemitism that had seen the destiny of Jews to forever wander the earth.

There was of course another story – that of the people living in the land. How could they cope with the large immigration of Jews after the Holocaust?  How is it possible for two people to occupy the same land? The United Nations’ answer was to pass a resolution that partitioned Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Arab world rejected the plan, Jewish militias attacked Palestinian villages, forcing thousands to flee and with the end of the British Mandate in Palestine and the departure of British forces, the establishment of the State of Israel and the invasion of neighbouring Arab armies the situation escalated into a full-blown war. The result of the war was the permanent displacement of 750,000 Palestinians more than half of the Palestinian population and the territory being divided into 3 parts: the State of Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip. For Palestinians these events are remembered as The Nakba which is Arabic for catastrophe. Like the Holocaust the Nakba was a deeply traumatic event still alive in the collective memory of the people. It shapes their struggle for justice and the right to return to their homes as the Holocaust shapes the struggle of Israelis for safety and security.

The horrific attack by Hamas on 7th October was the worst suffered by Israelis since the holocaust and will have raised deep fears that even in their own homeland they are not safe. But the bombing and starving of Palestinians in Gaza will not secure their safety or peace. We have two people, two stories, both legitimate when seen from the different perspectives. But how to overcome the enmity that exists between them? The situation is made even more dangerous by the fact that other countries and nations tend to affiliate with one side rather than the other as people do here in Scotland. I don’t know of any other situation of conflict where people polarise so quickly and strongly as the Israel/Palestine one. And yet there are many, many people who long for peace and work for peace – both Israeli and Palestinian who, I think, are let down by their governments whose only recourse seems to be in violence and the desire to destroy the enemy who, as Thomas Merton has said, is seen to be “the cause of every wrong … the fomenter of all conflict. If he can only be destroyed, conflict will cease, evil will be done with, there will be no more war."  We know this does not work and, in the end, when violence ceases there will need to be dialogue. We either live together or die together. Let us hope and pray we find a way to do this.

 I have been invited to take part in the monthly faith to faith dialogue organised by Interfaith Glasgow and St Mungo’s Museum of Religious Life and Art. The dialogue will focus on how positive and fruitful interfaith dialogue can enrich one’s own faith and spiritual journey. It’s one that I look forward to. There’s still a suspicion and fear amongst some people of faith that interfaith dialogue will somehow compromise or threaten their own beliefs and practices. For me this has not been the case. I can honestly say that my own faith and spirituality have been enriched and transformed by my work in interreligious dialogue and my contact and friendship with people of other faiths.
 
My interfaith journey began when I studied world faiths at Lancaster university, met and talked with people of other faiths for the first time in my life and then went on to teach world religions as part of my job in preparing students to teach religious education in Catholic schools at a time when the RE syllabus had moved from being focussed on Christianity to include world religions. This meant trying to give students an insight into the faith of others by explaining some of their beliefs, introducing students to their scriptures, visiting places of worship and encouraging the students to engage in dialogue by visiting the International Flat and taking part in meetings of the Glasgow Sharing of Faiths. To give the students an insight into the wisdom and beauty of a faith I tried to teach it with appreciation and respect, from the ‘inside’ so to speak. Just as a stained-glass window can look quite dull from outside a building but different when seen from inside with the sun lighting up the diverse colours so too another faith can, I would suggest, only be appreciated when we have crossed over, tried to stand in the shoes of another and view it and the world from their perspective. John Dunne, a catholic theologian, sees the work of interreligious dialogue as a crossing over into the world of another and coming back to our own to see it with new eyes. It is this crossing over that brings about a transformation in faith and change of perspective. And along the way I have made many interfaith friends which I greatly value and for which I am very grateful.   
 
So, what have I learned?  I’ve seen my faith from the perspective of another and realised something of its exclusive and oppressive aspects. I was brought up to believe that there was only one truth and that was to be found in the Catholic Church. How wrong we were to think that we were the only way to truth and salvation and that others lived in ignorance of that truth. I have come to recognise, appreciate, and be inspired by the wisdom and truth that I have discovered in other faiths. So too I am glad to say has the Catholic Church. I also appreciate the diversity to be found within faiths. For me this is what makes interfaith relations interesting and challenging because it is very easy sometimes to think that when we use the same words eg God or even religion we mean the same thing. We can’t take that for granted. This is where real face to face dialogue happens and it can’t be done quickly. Recently Interfaith Glasgow in partnership with the Council of Christians and Jews produced a report on Difficult Dialogues. It recorded a dialogue that took place over several years, longer than intended because of Covid. I was privileged to be part of that and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had of dialogue because we really listened to one another and honestly shared our common understanding of shared concepts. It also brought out that there is a variety of understandings of people from within one faith and it’s important not to generalise that what one person believes and thinks is necessarily indicative of what everyone within the faith believes. Interfaith dialogue is a face to face, person to person activity.
 
Getting to know another faith, experiencing its hospitality and visiting its place of worship is to recognise the sacredness of all faiths. When we encounter a person of another faith we are standing on holy ground, we’re encountering the sacred, the divine in that person and in that tradition. It is indeed a privilege. And sometimes it’s to recognise that another faith might do some things better than our own or its scriptures and teaching lead us to reflect and gain a new insight into our own faith. Krister Stendhal- Ras when he was at Harvard coined the phrase holy envy in urging believers to find beauty in other faiths and there are many things that I admire and could be envious of. But I’ve also come to realise that there are both liberating and oppressive aspects in all faiths and that in interfaith relations it’s important to compare like with like. It’s easy sometimes to compare the best of our own religion with the worst of another or even the worst of our own with the best of another. There is good and bad religion.
 
Perhaps above all else my interfaith journey has led me to realise that I am a member of a much wider community than my own. I feel in my being that we believers make up a vast community of people who are striving to live a good life and desire the welfare of all sentient beings as well as our planet. I believe that when we each in our own way commit our lives, perhaps our day to following what we believe to be right together we generate a great energy for good, something Christians would call the Kingdom of God, which while hidden is still powerful. Together we are sowing seeds that we hope will grow and flourish, we are in the words attributed to Archbishop Romero prophets of a future not our own.  ​

​  The 9th Parliament of World Religions was held in Chicago from 14th - 18th August this year.  The website claims that 7,000 people attended with participants coming from 95 countries, representing 210+ traditions which is quite something. The theme for the event was The Call to Conscience, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Parliament’s foundational document which was originally drawn up by Hans Kung called Towards a Global Ethic and accepted at the Parliament of 1993.

The Parliament of 1993 had been called to commemorate the original Parliament of World Religions which had taken place in Chicago in 1893 as part of the Chicago’s World Fair. It was the first major coming together of Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Unitarians, and adherents of the Shinto and Zoroastrian traditions in modern history. At the opening session the chairman declared “
   “We are met together today as men, children of one God. We are not here as Baptists and Buddhists, Catholics and            Confucians, Parsees and Presbyterians, Methodists and Moslems; we are here as members of a Parliament of Religions,     over which flies no sectarian flag.”
 The star of the show was Swami Vivekananda who got a standing ovation after his presentation on Hinduism. For the first time people of the west were introduced to the message of religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism and responded well to Vivekananda’s call for an end to “sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descen­dant, fanaticism…. and all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal”.
 
One hundred years later there was a reconvening of the Parliament in Chicago at which the Global Ethic document was presented and accepted after several years of consultation. I was involved in interfaith relations at that time and remember well the discussions beforehand of the document. Our Glasgow interfaith group spent many a meeting looking at it and discussing it. I wasn’t present at the Parliament but was able to go to an offshoot of it in Bangalore in India – chosen because India was much more attractive than Chicago.  It was an interesting event, and the various workshops and presentations must have taken a lot of organising, but my memory is that it was a bit of a jamboree with nuggets of wisdom and insight among some rather odd events and organisations. It did rather put me off such events. However, the Global Ethic was certainly to the forefront and for some time afterwards was promoted by interfaith groups, academics, and others as an important vision for faiths working together for a renewed future. We had a major interfaith conference here in Glasgow and brought Hans Kung’s exhibition on religions’ response to the Global ethic to Scotland.  The ethic was based on two foundational principles – the Golden Rule, common to all faiths and spiritual traditions and the need to treat people humanely. These were elaborated in a commitment to a culture of non-violence and respect for life; a commitment to a culture of solidarity and a just economic order; a commitment to a culture of tolerance and a life of truthfulness and a commitment to a culture of equal rights and partnership between men and women.

It’s good that the Global Ethic was resurrected at this year’s Parliament but now to be considered side by side with the Earth Charter, the second landmark statement on global ethics and a vital one for our contemporary world. Both documents are said to “offer a rigorous ethical critique of the current world crisis and its root causes – as well as a vision of hope for the future. Both prioritize human dignity, equality, and reciprocity, as well as care for the Earth”.  During the Parliament leaders from Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and Christian communities held a climate repentance ceremony and read 10 spiritual practices for addressing climate change. Among them: "We must care for each other and the planet, deepening our efforts to bring about a change of heart among members of our traditions in the way we relate to the Earth and to other people.

This is not the first such statement from religious leaders. In 2021 ahead of the United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow, COP26, nearly 40 heads of major religions, including Pope Francis, issued an unprecedented call for governments to cut greenhouse gas emissions. And during that Cop meeting the religious leaders of Scotland publicly declared their commitment to working together for the future of the earth.  A lot of talk which needs action. Perhaps those who attended this year’s Parliament of World Religions could be a catalyst for a renewed study of both the Global Ethic and the Earth Chapter and the drawing up of a plan of action to be carried out by faith communities and interfaith groups. This could be the Parliament’s legacy.

This last week Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General declared that the era of global warming had ended, and the era of global boiling had arrived. We don’t need to be convinced of this for we can see it with our own eyes.  Extreme heat and wildfires in Greece and North America, extreme monsoons and terrible flooding in the Indian Sub-continent, droughts and floods in Africa, the melting of ice and snow in polar regions are now part of our daily dose of news and viewed on our television sets. It is terrifying as Guterres said but he also said it is “still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C (above pre-industrial levels) and avoid the very worst of climate change. But only with dramatic, immediate climate action. The air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable, and the level of fossil fuel profits and climate inaction is unacceptable. Leaders must lead. No more hesitancy, no more excuses, no more waiting for others to move first. There is simply no more time for that.”

Strong words from the Secretary General of the United Nations – will they be heeded? Well, in one sense they probably will be.  There will be much talking about ‘climate boiling’ at the next COP due to take place in Saudi Arabia in November of this year, but this is the 28th climate change conference and in the previous 27 conferences leaders have promised to take steps to tackle climate change. In Glasgow in 1921 leaders resolved to cut greenhouse gas emissions and phase out government subsidies for fossil fuels while accelerating the deployment of clean energy. Britain prided itself at being at the front of this. Yet the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has announced plans to grant "hundreds" of new licences to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland, declaring it to be “entirely consistent" with the government's net zero goals. He sees these as being reached by 2050 but how much hotter will the earth have become by then? For politicians winning elections, pleasing the public by focussing on the cost of living seems to be more important than caring for the environment. The present British Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, recently objected to extinction rebellion demonstrators who inconvenienced motorists and commuters as being inhuman (on this occasion it so happened one of the motorists was a mother taking a child to hospital which was unfortunate) and yet she has been responsible for a law to send asylum seekers to Rwanda on a one way ticket even though it has been acknowledged by the Court of Appeal as illegal.   

Joanna Macy would describe this as Business as Usual. And we are all guilty of that to a certain extent. One of the consequences of Covid was that we realised the joy of clean air and the sound of birds singing but no sooner was the danger over than we were on our planes, back in our cars, consuming meat as we did before even though we recognised the contribution of these things to global warming.  And if we focus on Business as Usual, we are likely to contribute to what Joanna calls the Great Unravelling. We would need to be blind and deaf to be unaware of this happening to our world. What Joanna would call us to is the Great Transformation. Sometimes it is difficult to believe this is possible and yet without it we are doomed as a species. Without it I feel there is very little hope for our world. But there is evidence of the Great Transformation. 

Because of the internet I have been able to link in to some of the movements that are around at the moment and reveal an energy for transformation that is often hidden – the Work that Reconnects which is based on Joanna Macey’s approach to the environment, the Deep Transformation Network set up by Jeremy Lent which offers opportunities for people to link with other climate activists and hear about the marvellous work happening all over the world, the Shift Network which advertises the work of Brian Swimme and Matthew Fox, the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology – and there will be more. This is like a great underground river of concern and love for the environment, which is growing and developing, bringing about a change in perspective and on which we can draw for energy when things appear hopeless. Christians might call this the Kingdom of God and Tibetan Buddhists the Kingdom of Shambala. We can all join in promoting it in whatever small way we can. It’s a great movement for good that can give us energy and hope if only we have the eyes to see it and the desire to promote it.   

 It’s quite usual at this time of year for magazines to invite friends and contributors to suggest some summer reading. For the past few years, I have been invited to do this by the editor of the Scottish Catholic journal, Open House.  Normally I have suggested a novel but this year I chose something a bit more serious. (I’m not suggesting of course that novels aren’t serious). The book I chose was
 
The Universe is a Green Dragon, A Cosmic Creation Story by Brian Swimme and published by Bear and Company Publishing in 2001. I must have read it about five times, on my own and with others who have found it as inspiring as I do. I suggested it would be a very suitable read over summer on what we hope might be long days of sunshine on beach, countryside, or garden. It’s a short book, only 170 pages long but filled with an understanding of the story of the universe that I feel is sure to set hearts on fire. 
     
Brian Swimme is a cosmologist with the soul of a mystic and poet so that a book that sets out the powers at the heart of the universe of which we are all a part is never dull or for that matter academic. Rather it gives us an insight into this universe and our own place within it, making sense for me anyway of much traditional theology and the God who is beyond explanations and anthropomorphisms. It is written in the form of a dialogue between Thomas, named in honour of Thomas Berry, the Redemptorist theologian or geologian as he liked to call himself, who believed that religion must now  reinterpret itself in the light of the story of the universe and Youth who while representing humanity reminds us that “the human species is the youngest, freshest, most immature, newest species of all the advanced life forms in the planet.”

Brian Swimme claims to be an unbeliever and yet he is in awe at the wonders of the universe, is responding in love to what he calls the Ultimate Mystery from which all beings emerge, the Divinity of Being, the Life that is beyond life. He wrote the book in response to a challenge from Thomas Berry who asked him to tell the story of the universe “but tell it with a feel for its music.” He does this magnificently. To read this book is to be fascinated by our universe and take a “step into a wild love affair” with life.  It is the kind of book that I wish I could eat so that I could digest its content and language and so make it part of me.  It’s a book I would want everyone to read, especially those involved in environmental issues. I have been to many events about the environment and climate change. Often the content is overpowering and too many facts to take in and the approach is what I would call a ‘fix it’ one. I’ve given up going to ‘fix it’ talks and yet I know that concern for the environment is crucial and that human beings seem to be on a crash course with the universe. Covid seemed to give us the opportunity to reconsider how we related to our environment and yet once the danger was passed, we returned to business as usual, seemingly using the earth’s resources unthinkingly, flying all over the world, talking of progress as though resources are unlimited.

We do need to care for the earth but I feel we will only do that when we fall in love with life, when we understand our part in the great evolution of being, when we understand that our origins go back to that moment of creative activity which we might call the Big Bang and that each of us has been given form at this point in history to, in the words of Brian Swimme,
               
​                provide the earth with her heart and mind
               feel the stupendous beauty and grandeur of the universe
               awaken the earth to its own beauty power and future possibilities
               discover the meaning and significance of ordinary things
               embrace the creative potential poured into us by the universe
 
 Can we do this?  What if we could recite the Song of the Universe each morning and before every meeting re the environment?  What if we declared our place within the whole evolutionary journey and expressed our desire to live for the well–being of all?  Would this not help each of us make our own unique, authentic contribution to this great adventure of life and contribute to the awesome work of fashioning the future of our planet? And would the cosmos not be the better for it?

 This weekend two important festivals take place – Shavuot in the Jewish community and Pentecost in the Christian community. They are linked to the two major festivals of Pesach and Easter that were celebrated just 50 days ago. Like all else in our faiths these two festivals are linked but also show the distinctiveness in the two traditions.  Because Jesus was a Jew and the important Christian festivals remembering his life and death take place at times of significant Jewish festivals it’s not easy for Christians to celebrate them without some kind of reference to Judaism. Jews on the other hand have no need to refer to Christianity when they celebrate these festivals as Christianity is seen as having broken faith with its roots and developed in a totally different way from post- biblical Judaism.   
  
  Originally a harvest festival, Shavuot focuses on the Torah and remembers the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt Sinai. Religious Jews will spend the night studying Torah, the synagogue will be decorated with flowers and there might even be a marriage canopy built around the Bimah as a symbol of the marriage between God and the People that took place when they accepted to live in a covenantal relationship with God. This happened 50 days after the Exodus from Egypt and there is a strong link between Pesach and Shavuot. Pesach was the moment of liberation when a group of slaves left Egypt to spend time wandering in the desert to finally become a people when they accepted God’s Law given to Moses on Sinai and committed to it as their way of life. The days in between Pesach (at least the second day of Pesach) until Shavuot are called the counting of Omer which parallels the wandering of the Israelites in the desert. Counting the Omer is the practice of marking the 49-day journey from Passover to Shavuot by saying a daily blessing and identifying each specific day according to its number. It has been described as a time of reflection to remember that process of moving from slavery to liberation and how that very liberation is only fulfilled after the Israelites became a people when they took on responsibility for their own Law at Sinai. 

While the Jewish community has been counting the days of Omer Christians have been reflecting on the effect of the resurrection of Jesus on his disciples and his community. In church services and liturgies, the resurrection stories have been retold as have the stories of the early days of Christianity (not called that of course) when the apostles tried to share the good news of Jesus’ resurrection and how people responded. It gives an insight into an early community that has been brought together by a profound experience of being in a post-death relationship with Jesus, is trying to work out what this means for them as Jews and what it means to spread this word to others. Ten days ago was the feast of the Ascension which underlines that whatever the on-going relationship with Jesus was it was not in the flesh and the festival of Pentecost tells us that the relationship is through his spirit which keeps alive his presence and influence in the world. Pentecost is seen as the birthday of the Church when the apostles received this spirit which united them and established them as a community.

The parallels between the two festivals is obvious – the fulfilment of Judaism and Christianity’s foundation stories, celebrated fifty days ago and an acceptance of a way of life, expressed in the Torah and in the guidance of the Spirit, that forms both groups into a people and a community. There are also differences. The community of Judaism was associated with a particular people and a particular place. The Christian community was not to be confined to one nation or one language. It was to spread throughout the world and be available to different peoples and cultures. It was however to be united in its diversity and this by the common gift of the Spirit of Jesus, which is also the Spirit of God and simply known as the Holy Spirit.  

Sadly, in the past the differences between the two faiths have led to Christianity being seen as the fulfilment of Judaism in such a way that it replaces it. This is called supersessionism and has been rejected by the main denominations of Christianity. A popular anti-Jewish trope was to see the God of the Old Testament as a judging and censorious God with Jews living in bondage to a Law while Christians lived in the freedom of the spirit with the assurance of eternal salvation which was to be found in Jesus and not in keeping to an out-dated law. This is to show an ignorance of the Hebrew Scriptures that Christians call the Old Testament. Some of the most beautiful passages about the love of God are to be found in the prophets and the whole story of the journey of the Israelites shows God as continuing saving and delivering them from themselves and their infidelities. It is also to misunderstand Torah which is the body of wisdom and law contained in the Jewish scriptures and other sacred literature and oral tradition. It can mean teaching, direction, guidance and law. For Jews the Torah is the voice of God and the Torah Scrolls are the symbol of God’s presence among them, the most sacred object of their faith and to live according to the Torah is to keep alive God’s presence among them. It is not a dead letter of the law and is to be reflected on and its meaning discerned through prayer and study. For this Jews would look for the guidance of God’s Spirit. For Jesus the Law was important. He did not reject it but claimed to fulfil it by interpreting it in a particular way, as did others of his time.  Christians may claim to live by the Holy Spirit, but this does not excuse them from discerning the ways of the Spirit or what the Spirit is asking of them in their personal and community lives. Both communities are engaged in the same thing even in different ways.

Jonathan Sacks has said that to hear the voice of God you need a listening silence in the soul, an ability to listen with faith which he describes as “the ability to hear the music beneath the noise”. This is true for Jews and Christians alike in their embrace of the Torah for one and the embrace of the Spirit for the other. And in this we are in fact walking the same path.