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An Ordinary Person

27/1/2023

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Today is International Holocaust Memorial Day, the day when we remember the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis in their desire to eliminate all Jews from Europe.  The Jews were not the only ones targeted. Other groups were also regarded as racially and socially inferior such as the Roma and Sinti people, black people, people with disabilities, gay men and Jehovah witnesses. They too experienced horrific persecution by the Nazis. But it was the Jews who were targeted for complete genocide. The systematic plans to eradicate them all from the whole of Europe and the calculating way in which these plans were drawn up and the gas chambers constructed is chilling. Chilling because all of this was planned and carried out by ordinary men and women. It's easy   to think that we would not be capable of such things but if one human being can do it, we all can do it – we all have the potential within us to perpetrate evil, to collude with injustice and violence in different subtle ways and to standby and watch it happen to others without interfering or standing up for justice, possibly out of fear for our own lives or a sense of powerlessness. 

The 27th January was chosen as Holocaust Memorial Day as it was that day in 1945 that the Russians liberated Auschwitz – Birkenau, the largest of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps which is not too far from Krakow in Poland. Approximately 1.1 million men, women and children were murdered there, over 90% of them being Jewish. It was only then that the depth and horror of the Nazi atrocities was understood. I cannot imagine what it was like for those liberators and the realisation of what people had been made to endure  must have stayed with them forever. I have been to visit Auschwitz when I was with a group of Christians and Jews visiting Poland to reflect on the absence of Jews in a country that had a strong and thriving Jewish community. The visit to the death camp was chilling and sobering. I had always imagined that a place like Auschwitz would have a sense  of evil around it but in fact it was beyond evil and  the horrors of it hard to believe –but  the proof was there before our very eyes. And these were ordinary people – the ones murdered, the ones carrying out the murders and all the others who made  the functioning of such places possible.

HMD was set up after 46 governments signed a declaration in Stockholm on 27th January 2000. committing those present to preserve the memory of those killed in the holocaust. It’s purpose is that we should never forget the depths of that barbarity in the hope that such things would not happen again. And yet they have. There have been subsequent genocides – Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Darfur and also the violence that is recognised as ethnic cleansing perpetrated against groups such as the Uyghurs in China and the Rohingya in Myanmar. The world has not learned the lessons of the Holocaust. Rather it would seem that the Holocaust showed just how cruel human beings can be to one another and unleashed that potential into the world – a bit like Pandora’s box.    

The theme of this year’s HMD is Ordinary People. Yes, ordinary people can perpetrate great horrors, ordinary people can stand by and do nothing, but ordinary people can also do extraordinary things in surviving genocides, telling their stories and working for justice. Here in Scotland we have a woman who was not Jewish but who died in Auschwitz and as far as we know is the only Scot recognised as one of the Righteous of the Nations in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Her name is Jane Haining. She was born in 1897on a farm on the  outskirts of  a small village in Dumfriesshire called Dunscore. She was educated at Dumfries Academy where she was awarded 41 prizes and became Dux of the school in her last year. After school she came to Glasgow, took a business course and worked in the clerical department of J&P Coates in Paisley. Jane was always interested in young people, she was a devoted member of the Church of Scotland and in 1932 responded to an advert for the post of matron in the Girls’ Home at the Scottish Mission to the Jews school in Budapest.  She was responsible for about 35 girl boarders and tried to give them a safe and happy environment while away from home. She loved the work and her charges and feared for those of them who were Jewish in the light of the anti-Jewish laws being passed by Hitler in Germany.  When Germany annexed Austria in 1935 more refugee Jewish children were housed at the mission. The second world war started while Jane was on leave in Scotland but she returned to her post and refused to leave it even after the Nazis invaded Hungary. Shortly after that Jane was arrested and transported to Auschwitz, where she died on17th July 1944.
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For the past 30 years Hungary has organised a national essay competition to reflect on the impact of the life of Jane Haining. The top three winners come to Scotland each year, visit Dunscore and other places associated with her life and work. Yet she is until recently little known in Scotland, certainly not the way she is known in Hungary. We aim to rectify that and I am working as part of a group organised by the Council of Christians and Jews to organise something similar to that carried out in Hungary. I hope we will be successful and that this ordinary woman who did an extraordinary thing will give us hope and inspiration to also stand up for those who are marginalised and discriminated against.

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A Star to Live By

9/1/2023

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 Today is the feast of the Epiphany when Christians reflect on that episode in the Christmas story that tells of wise men coming to visit the stable in Bethlehem and bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus - 3 regal gifts that have led to the interpretation that they were 3 kings though this is not stated in the story as set out in the gospel of Matthew. At least that’s the case in the western Church for Eastern Orthodox Christians the 7th of January is a celebration of the birth of Jesus with Epiphany being celebrated 12 days after on the 19th of January which should give us a clue that the date is not to be taken literally.

I always feel a bit sorry for these wise men as there is, for me anyway, a feeling that Christmas is over by the time we’re hearing their story. I have a nativity set at home (made from recycled paper), which I display over Christmas – it has a figure of Mary with child Joseph, an angel and three kings who are positioned at the side of the main characters as though on a journey but since my nativity set is put away with the Christmas decorations the wise men never arrive. We do hear of them of course in some of the Christmas carols that are sung over the season, and they have certainly taken hold of the Christian imagination that sometimes depicts them as kings and imagines three of them though that’s not stated in scripture. We know very little about them but as with all scripture the point is not so much what is said about them but what their significance is in the Christmas story and what message this might have for us.

The symbolism of the story of the wise men can only really be appreciated in what we know about the life and death of Jesus and the impact he had after his death. It takes us away from any sentimental devotion to Christmas being about baby Jesus but rather reminds us of who and what Jesus is within the Christian tradition. The men from the east remind us that though Jesus was Jewish, his message came to have a universal appeal and took devotion to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob beyond the bounds of Judaism into a gentile world.  The gift of myrrh, a resin uses in embalmment is a recognition of his death, the gold a recognition of his kingship and lordship over all and the frankincense a recognition of his divinity. This is the Jesus who is celebrated at Christmas.

Two elements of the story are interesting and worth reflecting on – the star that was the inspiration for the wise men setting out and the journey to find what they were searching for. All of us are on a journey, a journey that will have its ups and downs, its light and shadow, its obstacles and advantages, its helpers and hinderers, all made worthwhile by the sense of purpose and meaning we bring to it.  Religion has traditionally seen itself as giving this sense of purpose, offering its adherents a practice and way of life that makes the journey meaningful. It offers a final reward, which either in a paradise or heaven or as an escape from the round of rebirth is realised beyond this human existence. There are of course other goals such as working to promote the kingdom of God or the kingdom of Shambhala, as some Buddhists would say, to serve others, make our world a more just and equitable place to live.  

Perhaps we all have our own stars that lead us forward and give some direction to our lives and some may be less noble than others. What is it we want to achieve in life – riches, happiness, health, a long life, power, my way of doing things? Religions I like to think offer a noble direction in that all of them have something to say about love, compassion, wisdom, justice as a way of living. But what about those who have no religion? Here in Britain the results of the recent census reveal that for the first time there are more people who see themselves as nonreligious. What is the story they live by, what is the journey they are on, what is the star that guides them?  Some religious people decry this move to and shake their heads at the thought of a world without meaning and spirituality. But surely this cannot be so. Just because people no longer affiliate with a religion does not mean that their lives are selfish or lacking in love and concern for others. It does not mean they do not have a philosophy by which they live their lives. It might mean that the religious story no longer makes sense to them, and religious people might just have to accept that without judging them. Perhaps we need a new story which unites us all, religious and non-religious.
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I think there is such a story and it’s one that I have become increasingly interested in. It’s the story of the universe which is also the story of humanity. We now know that out of the mysterious order of reality, from which burst forth a great fireball of creativity, evermore complex forms evolved until we humans were given form at this point in history – the “most recent and youngest extravagance of this stupendously creative universe” as the cosmologies Brian Swimme describes us. Each of us carries within us the whole history of evolution. We are made not just of the dust of the earth but of star dust itself. We are empty of any discrete separate existence but are interrelated and interconnected with all of life – our life is one of interbeing as Thich Nhat Hanh would say.  And as such we have great potential for the future of our world and our race.  We can help it achieve love, harmony and peace or we can undermine it. I do believe that if we talked more about this common story that unites us all we would have a star to guide us towards the fullness of life and inspire us on how to live and cope with our journey through life whether we be religious or not. I also think that religions, particularly my own, would be made more relevant by taking this universe story seriously and reflecting on its articles of faith in the light of this story. It’s a story that gives hope not just to our world but also to our religions. We need more of it.


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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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