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Enjoying Lent

14/2/2021

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Lent is nearly upon us. It begins this Wednesday with Ash Wednesday designated as a day of fasting and abstinence, at least for the Catholic community. I always feel a bit embarrassed when it comes to fasting in Christianity when I compare it to Ramadan or the 21 day fast of the Baha’i community. For these communities fasting means no food or drink for the hours of daylight. The discipline of Ash Wednesday is no meat and only one meal though even then two small repasts are allowed. Doesn’t sound too penitential. The whole point of lent, as with the other fasts, is conversion of heart, an opportunity to reflect on life, consider our pattern of living and open ourselves to personal and spiritual renewal.  While a whole scale fast is not envisaged there is a tradition of fasting from or giving up some comfort or obsession. As children we always gave up sweets for lent though we did save them to be eaten on Easter Sunday. Nowadays people might give up alcohol, meat, sweet deserts, social media, television or fill a plastic bag with an item a day that can be taken to a charity shop when lent finishes. All this in an attempt to gain some kind of inner freedom.
 
There’s no doubt that a bit of discipline is a good for us but this year in these days of lockdown there has been a lot of discipline and renunciation. People have suffered because they haven’t been able to visit loved ones, meet friends, enjoy their usual methods of entertainment to say nothing of working from home while home schooling children. I’m lucky because I don’t have to do any of this but the invitations that come in thick and fast for interfaith and other events show that for many people lockdown has been as busy if not busier than usual.  The cessation of a lot of our activities has not meant much of a breathing space. So perhaps this is the discipline for this lent – to take a bit of time to allow ourselves to breathe, to relax, to be happy just to sit and savour a cup of coffee. In the busyness of life this can seem to be a luxury and extravagance that doesn’t fit in well to a daily timetable. 
 
There’s a suggestion within Judaism that after death God will ask us ‘ What use did you make of the good things of life?. I think, or hope, the expected answer would be ‘enjoy them’.  For many people fasting and enjoyment don’t go together but there’s a way in which they do and maybe there’s a Lenten lesson in that.
 
  Recently I watched the film Babette’s Feast which incidentally Richard Gere says is his favourite film of all time. I had already seen the film a good number of years ago and it had imprinted itself on my imagination.  The film is about a small puritanical Danish Lutheran community living in an isolated part of Jutland. The small sect is ruled and guided by a pastor with two beautiful daughters who renounce a future of love and fame to remain by their father’s side.  On their father’s death they become the leaders of the sect, taking an unappetising gruel to the poor and sick, offering a simple supper to the community in their home when it meets for worship. It’s a hard life, lived as it is in an unforgiving landscape and poverty but the believers, who have by now greatly decreased in number, are staunch and faithful living a strict asceticism devoid of pleasure and comfort - and sometimes even charity as they bicker amongst themselves and remember past hurts and infidelities. The climax of the film comes when the community sits down to a dinner to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of their founder – a dinner cooked by a famous French cook, Babette, who had had to flee France fourteen years previously and had taken refuge with the sisters. Babette had won the lottery and spent all the prize money on ingredients such as turtle for soup, quails, blinis, china crockery, glasses and the finest of wines. It was a seven course meal from the finest of French chefs.

The community sat down to the meal determined to “eat as if we never had the sense of taste” to avoid falling into the sin of gluttony or indulgence.  The film is beautifully shot and while keeping to the promise of not commenting on the food the faces of the old men and women are transformed as they experience and obviously enjoy the exquisite taste of such good food and wine. They are in awe and wonder at the joy of this experience and it’s this transformation which I’ve never forgotten. I can see in my mind’s eye the closed, tight faces that relax into appreciation and wonder, the men and women who at the end of the evening join hands and dance round the fountain. It’s a miracle of sorts.
 
So what does this have to do with lent. Well, there is a belief that to really appreciate what we have is a way to simplify our lives. To appreciate the clothes we have and take joy in them would lead to buying less, to savour and enjoy the food we eat would lead to eating less, to be attentive to the beauty of the created world would lead us to care for it, to savour and enjoy each minute would lead us to stop our rushing about and to give thanks for what we have. Gratitude, wonder, enjoyment are spiritual values and practices which are appropriate for lent – not exactly penitential but I suspect as transforming as any ascetical way of life.

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A Light in the Darkness

28/1/2021

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Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day, that moment when the nation and indeed the world remembers the atrocities not only of the Holocaust that murdered 6 million Jews as well as Roma and people with disabilities but also the subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Sudan and Darfur. As always the memorial services have been very moving and inspiring. We are now at a stage, 76 years after the liberation of Auschwitz – Birkenau, when many of the survivors of the camps, who for years have courageously told their stories, have died. Now we hear their stories from their children and grandchildren and stories of those saved by the kindertransport which, while saving their lives, separated them from their families whom many of them never saw again.
 
One of the constant themes of Holocaust Memorial Days in ‘never again’. We remember for a reason – to reflect on the degradation that we human beings can sink to and to hope and pray that it will never happen again.  But it is happening again. Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia happened after the Holocaust; the atrocities in Sudan and Dafur still continue; the world watches the discrimination and violence perpetrated against the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Uighar Muslims in China; we see refugees and asylum seekers turned away by affluent countries. And I am implicated in all of this because the perpetrators as well as the victims are related to me in this one human family of which we are all members. This connection and realisation are painful.
 
Joanna Macey talks about honouring the pain of the world, the importance of opening our heart to it and not running away from it.  This means lamenting my own sinfulness and that of my brothers and sisters and determining that things should be different. But what can I do to make a difference when so many of these atrocities are politically motivated and organised. Can I make a difference? 
 
The late Lord Jonathan Sacks has a story that he tells in an interview about the Holocaust. He calls it the butterfly story and it goes something like this: there was a holy, wise and distinguished rabbi who could see into the reality of things. On a visit to a certain village two troublemakers thought they could catch him out. One said to the other, see I have a butterfly cupped in my hand: I will ask the Rabbi if he knows what is there and, if he indeed answers that it is a butterfly, I will ask him if it alive or dead: if he says dead, I will open my hands and it will be alive: if he says alive, I will crush the butterfly and it will be seen to be dead. So they approached the Rabbi and asked what was in the fellow’s cupped hands- a butterfly answered the Rabbi. And is it dead or alive? The Rabbi looked them in the eye and said ‘the answer is in your hands’. Life and death – the answer is in our hands. What a good way to illustrate the verse from book of Deuteronomy which says “I call on heaven and earth to witness against you today: I set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants might live” (Deut. 30: 19).
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The theme of this year’s Holocaust events says the same thing in another way, ‘Be a Light in the World’ which we will do by always standing up for and promoting life wherever we are. In his latest encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis encourages us: “choose to cultivate kindness. Those who do so become stars shining in the midst of darkness”. Kindness is within the reach of all of us. It “frees us from the cruelty that at times infects human relationships, from the anxiety that prevents us from thinking of others, from the frantic flurry of activity that forgets that others also have a right to be happy……… (it) can create a healthy social atmosphere in which misunderstanding can be overcome and conflict forestalled…….it opens new paths where hostility and conflict would burn all bridges” (FT 224).

The Holocaust and other genocides succeeded because people, our brothers and sisters, were seen as less than human, described as vermin or cockroaches, classified as ‘them’ and not ‘us’. It’s not a long way from this kind of thinking to active discrimination and hate speech which we know from experience can lead to violence and even extermination. Kindness can rescue us from this path. It may seem insignificant but it has ripples and consequences that can lead our human family towards life, hope, peace and reconciliation. 

​The future too is in our hands.

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The Jewishness of Jesus

16/1/2021

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This has been a busy interfaith week but one of the most interesting events was a lecture from Professor Amy-Jill Levine who is Jewish but also a scholar of the New Testament. As a Jew she is fascinated by Jesus who is perhaps the most famous Jew of all times and who has led millions of people to a knowledge and worship of the God of Israel. What Professor Levine wants to do is to set Jesus within his Jewish context which can be refreshing but also disturbing. It challenges ways of reading the New Testament that can be anti-Jewish.

For centuries Christians have believed that Jesus was unique, that he challenged the prevailing culture of his time and had a revolutionary approach to life. He was the one who liberated people from the dictates of the law to initiate a new freedom in the Spirit, he was the one who revealed a God of love compared to a God of wrath found in the Old Testament. But seen from a Jewish perspective Jesus’ uniqueness was not so much in challenging the mores of his time but in his teaching. Jesus evolved as we all have done from the dust of the earth and lived as a Jew in a particular context of time and place. The place where he lived, Galilee, was not a backwater. It was cosmopolitan, situated on the silk road route, people living there would have encountered other cultures and beliefs and it is possible that Jesus spoke Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin.

A popular notion in Christianity is that Jesus had an intimate, filial relationship with God and called God Abba unlike the Old Testament God that was distant and transcendent.  But the God of Jesus is the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  It is the Christian heresy of Marcionism to reject the Old Testament and to say there is a distinction between the God of the Old Testament and New is doing just that suggests Professor Levine. There are wonderful passages in the Old Testament that speak of God as Father and God’s intimate love for human beings. One of my favourites is from the Book of Wisdom “Yes, You love all that exists, you hold nothing of what you have made in abhorrence, for had you hated anything you would not have formed it. And how, had you not willed it, could a thing persist, how be conserved if not called for the by you” (Wis. 11:24-26). The God of the Old Testament is the God of Jesus and where else would Jesus have learned and developed his relationship with God if not within the Judaism of his time.

Recently christian feminist scholars, in their efforts to find a place for women in a patriarchal institution, have depicted Jesus’ relationship with women as unique and contravening the mores of his day. Jesus did have a relationship with women, they were among his followers, he taught them and they cared for him. A favourite story used to illustrate how radical Jesus was in his relationship with women is that of the Samaritan Woman. It goes like this: Jews and Samaritans were enemies; Jesus is crossing Samaria and asks a woman from Samaria for a drink – something no Jew or man would do in public; has a conversation with the women which shows he is the Messiah; the woman (who is declared to have five husbands) brings her townspeople to Jesus. Professor Levine gave us another take on the story. The woman comes to the well of Jacob at mid-day, not because she is an outcast but because she’s likely to have needed water. In the previous chapter of John there’s the story of Nicodemus who comes to Jesus by night. In contrast the Samaritan woman comes in the full light of day at the same time as Rebecca came to the well and was recognised as a fitting wife for Isaac, reflecting as so many of the stories about Jesus do a story in the Old Testament. She could not have been an outcast but must have been respected by her townspeople or they would not have accepted her message and come to Jesus to see and hear for themselves. Nor need she have been a prostitute or shamed woman because she had five husbands. We do not know her circumstances. Did she have a levirate marriage whereby she married the brother of her dead husband?  Was she widowed?

Professor Levine’s work shows a deep love and respect for Jesus. He is, she says, the first person to be called Rabbi in literature, his parables are outstanding teaching aids for adults that “are the best stories ever”. However, she also feels that if we christians get Jesus’ context wrong we get him wrong. To make Jesus out to be different from his time or a rebel against his culture and religion is inaccurate and a ruse to underline the uniqueness of Jesus. It can lead to a denigration of the Judaism of his time and a rejection of the Judaism of our time which can have terrible consequences, the worst of which we remember at the end of the month on Holocaust Memorial Day.
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New Year Resolutions

28/12/2020

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​Christmas has been different and difficult for many of us this year but we’ve survived it and we’re now in a period of recovering from card writing, parcel posting, shopping and cooking  – all of which somehow became more insistent this year.  Now we’re back to lockdown and, for some perhaps, a feeling of isolation, even with skype and zoom possibilities. It feels rather flat and quiet with no new year celebration to look forward to. It’s so different from last new year when I was invited to bring in the new year at a 1920’s themed party. We put together clothes that somehow expressed the spirit of the 20s and even attempted to dance the Charleston. There was a sense of excitement and hope as there often is at new year as we entered what might turn out to be another roaring twenties decade.  This was the  decade which followed on from the Spanish flu of 1918 and was a time of economic growth and prosperity after the devastation of the First World War. It was not to be. 

Unknown to us (but not to everyone) there was lurking a tiny, deadly virus which would disrupt the economy, cause chaos and reveal to us all the vulnerability of humanity and the cracks in our societies with the widening  gap between rich and poor.  The Coronavirus has been the topic of conversations, a motivation for social action, given us a recognition of our dependence on key workers and a growing sense of thankfulness and neighbourliness.  Now as we move into another calendar year there’s much to reflect on and hope for as we dream of a better world which will demand a change in all of us if that dream is to become a reality.

New Year is a time for resolutions and new perspectives. So what might they be?

For me one of them is to try to stand in the shoes of my brothers and sisters who are suffering because of poverty, war, abuse, discrimination, neglect, isolation. I was very aware in writing the first paragraph of this blog that the reality I described of Christmas cards and presents, family and celebrations was not everyone’s reality. Any flatness I might feel is a consequence of not having the opportunity to meet friends and family as would normally happen at Christmas. In itself that’s a sign these things are a reality for me but they’re not for everyone. There are people with whom I live cheek by jowl who have no family, no home, no money, no possibility of the kind of family and community relationships that I have. Life is flat for them all the time. There are neighbours who are lonely, friends for whom Christmas evokes sad and not happy memories and for whom all the razzmatazz around Christmas is painful. This is as true of the reality of Christmas as the joy.  Others for whom the virus has exacerbated mental health issues and the many who in this year are grieving because of the death of loved ones, made even more painful by their inability to be there as their family member died of be consoled by the presence of family and friends at funerals.

Another is to deepen my understanding of ecology. Covid 19 and its restrictions have shown us how much we humans pollute our atmosphere. We heard bird song more than we have done for a long time, we saw blue skies. Some in India saw the Himalayas for the first time in years. We rejoiced in cleaner air as airplanes were grounded and cars were left at home. But now as restrictions are easing we can see the pollution creep back again. Can I feel the pain of this world on which I depend and to which I am intimately related? Can I walk on this earth with reverence and respect doing my little bit to overcome pollution and waste?  Can I cut down my consumption to live a more simple lifestyle?  

There is so much that needs done that it can seem overwhelming. At my age and stage I can do little but I can pray a prayer that feels the pain of the world, offers compassion and hope  to a world and society that I hold in my heart, believing that this  good energy can have a positive and transforming effect. Tibetan Buddhism has a name for this kind of meditation. It’s called Tonglen and is a practice in which we breathe in the pain of others and our world, perhaps visualising this pain as a dark ribbon and breathe out compassion and love, again perhaps visualising this as a light coloured ribbon.  
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Tonglen and similar  meditations  make tangible the reality that we can never pray or meditate as isolated individuals, that we approach God or that Reality in which we live and move and have our very being united to our sisters and brothers and indeed the whole cosmos. It also reminds us that our desire for justice, love and compassion is united to that of many, many good people whose kindness and generosity have been so visible during this past year.  We are part of a great movement towards wholeness and reconciliation. We can have confidence that “the love, courtesy, generosity and beauty that is put into to the world will never vanish from the world. And when it’s time it will restore itself instantly” a quotation from Cynthia Bourgeault that can give us hope as we let go of one year and welcome another. 

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Advent

14/12/2020

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Advent is a time of spiritual preparation for Christmas when Christians live in a spirit of expectation and anticipation. It’s a time to remember and to give some extra time to prayer and reflection.  This year I’ve had two interesting Advent moments.
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One was with a Shia Muslim group who wanted to show their support for Christians celebrating at a difficult time and with reduced family gatherings.  At Eid we had had a shared prayer to give support to Muslims who were unable to meet with their extended families. Our Muslim friends wanted to reciprocate by supporting us and assuring us of their prayers.
We heard about the significance of Jesus in the Qur’an and how much he is loved and respected by Muslims who see him as one of the greatest prophets and messenger to humanity.  The prophet Mohammed felt a special closeness to him and the tradition records him as saying, "Both in this world and in the hereafter, I am the nearest of all the people to Jesus, the son of Mary”.  Within the Christian tradition we are used to having different stories about Jesus, especially stories around his birth. The gospels of Mark and Luke tell different stories about the birth of Jesus though popular tradition has merged these into one so that many Christians don’t recognise the diversity in the gospels. This should make us open to the different account in the Qur’an, realising that it is the significance and truth Jesus does not belong solely to Christians though the realisation that Jesus is greater than any religious system and cannot be contained within it can deepen our understanding of the impact of Jesus in the world.
The other moment was an Advent/Hanukkah celebration with a reflection on Advent and the story behind Hanukkah.  Hanukkah is a festival recognising the importance of religious freedom when the Maccabees cleansed and rededicated the Temple that had been desecrated by the Syrian King Antiochus Epiphanes. The miracle remembered at this festival is that purified oil, enough for one day, lasted for eight until it could be replenished. A candle is lit on each day of the festival so, as it was the fifth day of the festival, we lit five candles and heard a Hanukkah blessing and song.
The advent reflection showed us once again how similar the Christian and Jewish traditions are. It came as a surprise to some that the first Sunday of Advent is the beginning of the Christian year, not 1st January.  Some were surprised that there is such a thing as a liturgical year. And like at the festival of Simchat Torah the Christian church begins a new series of gospel readings. This year it’s the gospel of Mark and it will be read on most Sundays throughout the year apart from special feasts and seasons such as lent. The gradual lighting of the hanukkah candelabra or hanukkiah is a little like the four candles on the advent wreath that are lit each Sunday during  church services or during personal prayer if there is a wreath at home.
The word Advent means ‘coming to’ and traditionally Christians think in terms of three comings of Jesus who for them is an image of the invisible God and the One who brings God near and reveals God’s presence amongst us. The season begins by remembering that at the end of time we believe that Jesus will return to bring about the establishment of God’s kingdom.  We also remember the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem in present day Palestine.   Like the Jewish tradition this is not remembering a past event but rather a recognition that through his Spirit and in his community Jesus still walks amongst us and that God comes to us in the events of our everyday lives.
Christians use each of the Sundays in Advent to focus on a theme or character from the infancy narratives as a focus for prayer and reflection.  The readings from our Sunday worship, which during advent includes the prophets, particularly the prophet Isaiah, gives us something to reflect on as well as a disposition to live by.
This year we have been aware of the effects of Covid 19. For example we’ve heard in Church the message to ‘stay awake for we know not the day not the hour when God will come and call us’. There will be few of us this year who don’t know someone who has unexpectedly been called to eternal life either because of or with the virus and we know that this is a call that we will all face some day. Are we ready? But there is also a call that comes to us in our everyday lives. Covid 19 has been such a call – it came unexpectedly but has given us the opportunity to reflect on and perhaps even change our priorities.  
For Christians the journey through Advent in a spirit of prayer and reflection affects all the practical preparations for Christmas, hopefully transforming them into acts of love. And this year an act of love will be to have reduced family celebrations  - as all other faiths have been doing throughout this unusual year. But I for one will be remembering the support of our brothers and sisters from both the Jewish and Muslim faiths. That’s something to be grateful for.
  

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An Interfaith Encyclical

29/11/2020

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Pope Francis’ latest encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, is an example of what Jonathan Sacks would call side by side interfaith dialogue as distinguished from face to face dialogue.  An encyclical is traditionally a letter to the Bishops of the Catholic world but this one, as with some others, is addressed to the whole of humanity because it deals with issues that are relevant for all.

Relations with Islam frame the document. It begins with the story of St Francis of Assisi’s meeting with Sultan Malek al-Kamil of Egypt in the 13thcy during the fifth crusade.  While the story is true – there is the gift of an ivory horn from the Sultan preserved in St Francis’ Baslica in Asissi as proof – it has become the stuff of legend. In some versions Francis, accompanied by Brother Illuminato, was on a peace mission, in others his desire was to preach Christianity and perhaps die as a martyr. Whatever was the truth of the situation the two were men of peace. The Sultan had offered peace to the Christian army five times and sought peaceful coexistence with Christians.  Francis urged the crusader not to attack the Muslims during the siege of Damietta. When they met each recognised the other as a man of God. The story is that they spent time conversing with one another about the things of God. As a result of this encounter Francis encouraged his brothers not to engage in arguments or disputes with Muslims and non- believers while using opportunities to witness to their own faith by actions rather than words.

The encyclical ends with another Christian’s encounter with Islam. This one is Charles de Foucauld who lived as a hermit in the Sahara desert in Algeria among the Tuareg, a substantial Berber ethnic group in North Africa. He was murdered there and is considered to be a Christian martyr. His approach was like that of St Francis, living close to and sharing the life of the people. He preached, not through sermons but through the example of his life, studying the language and culture of the Tuareg and publishing the first Tuareg-French dictionary.  He was challenged and impressed by the Tuareg’s  faith.  He wrote “The sight of their faith, of these people living in God’s constant presence, afforded me a glimpse into something greater and truer than earthly preoccupations”.   In Fratelli Tutti  Pope Francis describes him as one who “made a journey of transformation towards feeling a brother to all ….. he wanted to be in the end a brother to all”.  The very last words of the encyclical are that God might inspire that dream in each one of us”.

An example of this brotherhood is seen in the friendship between the Pope and Ahmed el- Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University in Cairo.  Both men signed a document entitled Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together at an interfaith gathering in Abu Dhabi in February 2019.  Pope Francis explicitly acknowledges the encouragement of the Grand Imam in the writing of Fratelli Tutti which he says takes up and develops some of the great themes raised in the Human Fraternity document where together the two religious leaders declared “God has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and has called them to live together as brothers and sisters”.  
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The Pope and Imam stood side by side in Abu Dhabi, so we can imagine them standing side by side spiritually and intentionally   in the reading and the writing of this encyclical. To underline this point a representative of the Grand Imam was at the launch of the encyclical – the first time a Muslim has ever presented a papal document. The Muslim was Judge Mohammed Mahmoud Abdel Salem, secretary general to the Higher Committee  on Human Fraternity established to promote the Abu Dhabi document.  Commenting after that event he said” I was really very moved when I first read Pope Francis’ message. I felt that the Pope is representing me in every word, in everything he said.”  The Grand Imam also publicly welcomed the encyclical calling Pope Francis his brother and agreeing that  “ Pope Francis’s message, Fratelli Tutti, is an extension of the Document on Human Fraternity, and reveals a global reality in which the vulnerable and marginalized pay the price for unstable positions and decisions… It is a message that is directed to people of good will, whose consciences are alive and restores conscience to humanity.”


The final interfaith moment for me are the prayers which conclude the encyclical. As with the Pope’s previous encyclical Laudato Si there are two of them. One of them is an ecumenical Christian prayer and the other is a prayer to the Creator which can be said standing side by side with our brothers and sisters of other faiths, particularly the Abrahamic faiths. To have a prayer like this in a papal document cuts across face to face dialogues that examine and debate the validity of interfaith prayers. In the face of the crises that face all of humanity why would we not want to pray
                May our hearts be open to all the peoples and nations of the earth.
                May we recognise the goodness and beauty that you have sown in each of us,
                and thus forge bonds of unity, common projects and shared dreams. Amen

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Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

14/11/2020

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Last week Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks died at the age of 74 which is not so old in this day and age.  Although it was known that he was ill his death came as a shock to everyone who knew him, either in person or through his writings.  He was a highly respected leader within his community and a great champion for Judaism but was also a towering public figure in national and civic life. He was a regular contributor to the BBC’s Thought for the Day; he sat in the House of Lords; he wrote over thirty books; he was a popular public speaker who affirmed the spiritual dimension of life and the place of religion in public life. He had a message for us all. But he was also a human being, a man who dearly loved his wife and family and perhaps the most moving tribute of all was that of his youngest daughter spoken with heartfelt sorrow and love at his funeral which had to be small because of Covid restrictions.

Two books in particular that I found helpful and inspiring were the Dignity of Difference and The Home We Build Together, both of which were a reflection on civic life and a call to face up to our responsibility for the future of the world and the society in which we live. They taught us to appreciate diversity and our unique identities within the context of a common civic identity. They taught us how to hold the tensions between the values and beliefs of our individual faiths and a secular world, all the time seeking and working for the common good.    Rabbi Sacks was unashamedly and proudly Jewish. The platform from which he spoke was that of Jewish wisdom and theology but he communicated it in such a way that it spoke to the human condition and was seen as relevant to national and civic life. This is a gift I think. Religion has a lot to offer the public sphere but is often dismissed or ignored because its relevance is not obvious or understood. Those of us, like myself, who are not Jewish heard echoes of what he said in our own faith and were encouraged to reflect on how we too could speak about our faith and values in a meaningful and relevant way. This is necessary if we are to show the world that religion, which is considered by many to be problematic, can indeed by part of the solution.

The Dignity of Difference was first published in 2002 and republished twice that same year – a sign of how popular it was. Coming as it did in the aftermath of 9/11 and the talk of a clash of civilisations it was “a plea for tolerance in an age of extremism” and suggests that “One belief, more than any other…is responsible for the slaughter of individuals on the altars of the great historical ideals. It is the belief that those who do not share my faith—or my race or my ideology—do not share my humanity.” 
The answer to this, Rabbi Sacks suggest in many of this talks, is to extend our understanding of the ‘we’ to include the ‘them’ and to recognise our common humanity -but not at the expense of denying difference. Diversity is a gift of God that can expand our horizons and enrich both our personal and social life.  However if we are to live together in peace and harmony we have to make space for one another. We have to recognise one another, learn from one another and above all engage in dialogue with one another.

 The Home We Build Together gives us a vision of how to do this. We cannot live in society as though the dominant culture is like a country house into which others are welcome as long as they conform to the host’s ways nor in a culture that is like a hotel in which we might recognise one another in passing but each living in its own silo, separated from all the others. Rather we should recognise our common home in that we are citizens of both a nation and a world that supports the future and wellbeing of us all. The very last statement in the book says it all:
“What then is society? It is where we set aside all considerations of wealth and power and value people for what they are and what they give. It is where Jew and Christian, Muslim and Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh, can come together, bound by their commonalities, enlarged by their differences. It is where we join in civil conversations about the kind of society we wish to create for the sake of our grandchildren not yet born. It is where we share an overarching identity, a first language of citizenship, despite our different second languages of ethnicity or faith. It is where strangers can become friends. It is not a vehicle of salvation, but it is the most effective form yet devised for respectful coexistence. Society is the home we build together when we bring our several gifts to the common good.”  

If the coronavirus and the threat of climate change have taught us anything it is that we surely share a common density, are facing common problems - problems that will only be solved if we work together to change our ways and thus  safeguard this precious home we share together. Rabbi Sacks remains a living inspiration to us all.


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May We Be Well

1/11/2020

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These are difficult, dark days. There’s such a lot of uncertainty and fear around. I happened to be in the centre of Glasgow this week and there was a real pall of sadness around the place. For one thing it was wet and dark, shops were closed and empty, roadworks lay uncompleted, many people wore masks. There was an air of unreality about it all. It was like being in a science fiction movie. I’ve never been too sympathetic of those people who have in the past claimed they never watched the news because it was always so upsetting.  I now know how they feel. 

The news’ reports on television are either about corona or about the American presidential election. It’s difficult not to be worried or downhearted.  What is the world going to be like after an election during which both candidates forgot each other’s name or one is so determined to pull out of the Paris agreement on climate change that the world may be tipped over into a state of no recovery? Then there were the killings in France to say nothing of Syria with its catastrophic wars and coronavirus epidemic, the abductions of women and girls in Pakistan, killings in Cameroon and Nigeria – the list could go on. I’ve now joined those who don’t look at the news too often even though I think we can’t hide from these realities. For me it’s important to face up to reality and be aware of the world to which we belong and which we in our own small way affect. What seems to be happening is that we’re all affected by a deep collective unconscious fear, sorrow and anxiety that’s around at the moment.

We all respond in different ways to this collective fear and anxiety – some by refusing to abide by any rules because they think it infringes their liberty; some by thinking  they’re immune to the virus and so continue to congregate and party; some by being so afraid of getting the virus that they withdraw  from normal interaction with people. It’s not surprising there’s a spike in mental health issues. 

Is there an answer to all of this?  I’ve just finished reading Active Hope by Joanna Macey and Chris Johnstone and it’s given me hope and a practice to contribute to what the authors call the Great Turning - that movement which will move our race and our planet towards a more life-sustaining way of being. The practice  I want to mention is called the Great Ball of Merit. This is a visual meditation which invites you to be open to all beings living now in our world, all beings who have ever lived and to be aware that in each of these lives some act of merit was performed.  There was, at the very least, one act of goodness though for many there were lives filled with generosity, courage, strength, healing, kindness , teaching etc. Now imagine yourself sweeping all those acts of merit into a great ball. Imagine it growing, rejoice and give thanks for it, knowing that no act of goodness is ever lost.  It is an immense resource for the healing of our world.
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 I’ve found this helpful, inspiring and consoling. It’s a balance to all the negativity.  There are vast numbers of people who have in the past and are still today doing great things for the world, working for what Christians would call the Kingdom of God in small and big ways. I’ve found myself in these days holding this great ball of merit and offering it for the healing of the world using a simple Buddhist prayer:  may you be well, may you be happy, may you be free from suffering.
As I’ve been praying this I’ve come to realise that to pray may you be well, may you be happy, may you be free from suffering  is to see the world and its suffering as separate from myself.  But I’m part of the world. I’m implicated in its suffering and injustices by the way I live, perhaps even by where I live in that I live in a country that has benefitted from white colonialism.  I can’t identify just with good people. I must identify with all as we are all, good and bad, brothers and sisters. So I began to pray ‘may we be well, may we be happy, may we be free from suffering.  I immediately felt a connection with the virus, with all those reacting to it in helpful and unhelpful ways, with the American presidential campaign and with the suffering of so many of my brothers and sisters throughout the world. So often I feel powerless. But I can hope and do believe that sending love and compassion into the world sows seeds of goodness and compassion in a way that can bear fruit.



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Interreligious or Interfaith?

18/10/2020

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​I was at a meeting of the religious leaders of Scotland recently. The focus of the conversation was on climate change and what faith communities are doing in the run up to COP 26 which should have been happening in Glasgow next month but now postponed until next year. We were asked to reflect on the possibility of religious leaders issuing a statement on the environment and were given a suggestion as a focus for discussion – always a good idea but sometimes difficult for the person who initially draws it up.  The thing that struck me, and others, about the statement was how secular it was. There were good things in it – welcoming people to Scotland, understanding the gravity of climate change, asking that governments respond effectively and committing the religious leaders to be agents of change. No-one could disagree with those sentiments but it lacked vision or warmth. It didn’t acknowledge the belief that religions have of reverencing and respecting the earth, of how faiths understand our interconnectedness not just with one another but with this planet on which we all depend.  It didn’t call people to see the earth as a gift to be treasured.  It was, I think, an attempt to be inclusive of all whether believers or not. And I wondered if there is a danger in that.
 
Interfaith relations have changed over the years and some Christian Churches, including the World Council of Churches, are now inclined to talk about interreligious dialogue rather than interfaith. The Catholic Church has always used the term interreligious dialogue ever since the Second Vatican Council set the Church on the path of dialogue. The body that deals with dialogue is called the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, not Interfaith Relations. This quite clearly shows the parameters of this dialogue and distinguishes it from other dialogues such as that with Marxism and New Religious Movements. What has led some of the other Christian Churches to speak of interreligious dialogue has been the development of the interfaith movement which has brought about government funding, a focus on social cohesion and security and an extension of the dialogue to include people of non- religious beliefs in keeping with equality legislation.  Interreligious dialogue differentiates the pastoral and theological concerns of religions from that of the public square.     
 
Traditionally a four –fold model of interreligious dialogue proposed by the Catholic Church in its document ‘Dialogue and Proclamation’ has been accepted by the Christian churches: the dialogue of theological experts, the dialogue of religious experience, the dialogue of action and the dialogue of living together. I’ve been lucky to engage in all of these at some level and have come to value their different contributions to expanding our understanding of others. I’ve enjoyed the challenge of some of the theological dialogues, the exploration of the similarities and differences between religions and the opening of new horizons in my own faith. It’s an area which is vital but sadly lacking in Scotland since the closure of the Centre for Interfaith Studies at Glasgow University.   
 
The Dialogue of religious experience has included inter-monastic dialogue which for decades now involved Catholic and Buddhist monastics not just in dialogue but in visiting one another’s monasteries and participating in their way of life. I’ve had my own taste of that in my visits to Samye Ling Tibetan Monastery and Holy Isle and my years of deep and honest conversation with my good friend Ani Lhamo.  So too I’ve been able to have nourishing and inspiring conversations with my  many interfaith friends and can sometimes be more honest with them about my experience of faith than I can with those who share my religion.

Then there is the dialogue of living together and sharing ordinary everyday life as neighbours or co-workers. Living as we now do in a multi-faith, pluralistic society this is a dialogue which many engage in while not naming it as such. This is the dialogue that cements friendships and is the bedrock of a respectful and open society. And finally there is dialogue of action, of engaging with one another for social justice and the common good.  This is one close to the heart of Pope Francis who for years now has spoken about the reality of fraternity (sic), of the interconnectedness of all humanity  and our need for all to work together to overcome the sufferings and injustices that afflict our world.  So is Pope Francis more interested in interfaith than interreligious dialogue? This brings us back to where we started and that statement on climate change.
 
There is no doubt that living together in a world that is not just plural but also unjust is a concern for religions. For the sake of the future of our planet and humanity it’s essential that we work together and contribute to a just and peaceful society.  We need, I think, to learn to speak a language that will be understood in the market place and not revert to traditional dogmatism.  But we need to speak from our own vision and beliefs about the sacredness of human life in all its aspects and show how our contribution to the work for justice comes from a vision that can be inspiring and liberating - but also reveals the shortcomings of those who uphold and advocate it.  Religions speaking together for the sake of justice need to be humble about how they have contributed to injustice. They should be working with people of all faiths and none but must also share, I think, their own vision and belief that shows that working for justice is an integral part of who they are. In doing this they have something significant to add to their dialogue with the world. 

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Sisters and Brothers All?

4/10/2020

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Today, the 4th October is the feast of St Francis, the last day of the season of creation and the day chosen by Pope Francis to publish his third encyclical, Fratelli Tutti.  He travelled to Assisi yesterday to sign it in the chapel that contains the remains of St Francis, a saint known for his poverty and simplicity and love of nature.  Pope Francis is obviously inspired by his namesake and lives out much of his vision. He is committed to poverty, justice, lives simply and is dedicated to care for creation.  So many people admire what he is trying to do to live up to the challenge of his name and his attempts to change the power structures of the Church. But he seems to have a blind spot when it comes to understanding women.
 
Encyclicals are often eagerly awaited within the Catholic Church and then much debated and talked about. This one has caused quite a bit of controversy even before anyone has read it because of the title which is Italian for ‘’all brothers”.  Well what about the sisters? Vatican Media insists that that title includes women, saying the subtitle of the encyclical is dedicated to fraternity and social friendship. So women are overlooked not just in the title but also in the subtitle. So what has changed you might ask in a Church that is deeply patriarchal and hierarchical?  Nothing, many women would suggest. 

I’ve no doubt that there was no intention to exclude women and that Pope Francis wouldn’t want to do this but language is important and forms the way people understand and read the world.  The language of brotherhood and fraternity is male and can give legitimation to the marginalisation and even oppression of women today as much as it has in the past.  Violence against women, stereotyping their role in the family and society, forbidding them equal status within religious communities is as common today as it has been in the past – and not just within the Catholic Church.  What about the Jewish traditions that forbid women becoming rabbis or  allow husbands to refuse them a divorce, or the Muslim women who are working for women friendly mosques and a recognition that the Qur’an can also be recited publicly by women?  Women are still not treated equally.  In too many countries they are treated like servants with no independence, forced into marriage, subject to violence, rape and murder and now we have an Encyclical that is seen to exclude them.

The Catholic Women’s Council, a coalition of Catholic Women’s networks from around the world that campaigns for the full recognition of women’s dignity and equality in the Church has written an open letter to Pope Francis which says,
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“the masculine noun will alienate many, at a time when women in many different languages and cultures are resistant to being told that the masculine is intended generically. This is particularly true in English-speaking countries, where exclusive terms such as "mankind" and "brethren" are no longer used when referring to humankind…….  this issue presents a problem for many who would otherwise be fully engaged with the encyclical and committed to working with you for lasting social, spiritual and environmental transformation. At best it is a distraction, and at worst it is a serious stumbling block”

Many men don’t sympathise with this outlook, naturally enough, as they’ve never experienced this kind of exclusion. One has said to me –“it will only be a distraction if you let it”. Well I won’t let the title be a distraction from its message which I have every confidence will be a good one but that doesn’t stop me regretting it, recognising the impact that it can have on women and knowing that I will have to explain the title to many women – as I have had to do when talking about the document on Human Fraternity signed by Pope Francis and Sheikh Al-Azhar in February 2019. Nor will I feel angry or dismissive of Pope Francis whom Mary McAleese, the former president of Ireland, thinks is ‘overhyped’ and ‘a big disappointment for those who had hoped he would reform the Church in particular concerning women and abuse.”  Nor do I have great expectations of immediate reform of an institution that is as ancient, hierarchical and patriarchal as is the institution of the Catholic Church.  It’s entrenched in tradition, has few women working within its governmental structures and has a culture of clericalism that Pope Francis with the best will in the world and an outward looking vision is part of. For me it has to be accepted as it is. I recognise its institutional aspects, which I’m glad I’m not part of. I regret some of these but recognise the good that it does locally and globally, including the Pope attempts at reform.  I’m grateful for the faith that has come to me through the Church and I can live within it without taking its institutional aspects too seriously. I’m happy being on the margins.  

So we have a new encyclical. I look forward to reading it whenever the English version is available and no doubt will be writing about it sometime in the future.  I’m going to call it Tutti rather than Fratelli Tutti as a friend suggested! That ignores the sexist language.

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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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