Interfaith Journeys
  • Home
  • Interfaith Journeys
  • Stella Reekie

Saving St Mungo's

27/2/2022

0 Comments

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

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

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

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

0 Comments

Praying for the Environment

13/2/2022

0 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

0 Comments

    Author

    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.

    Picture

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    RSS Feed

    Categories
    Religious Performances
    ​​

    All

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.