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A Museum of Religion

30/4/2018

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Glasgow has many fine museums but the one I like best is the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art. This summer it’s twenty five years old and last week four of the people involved in the museum from the beginning shared their memories of its origins and history. I was one of those four people and it was such a joy to be with old friends and remember the significance of this museum not only in my own interfaith journey but in the interfaith journey of Scotland.

Mark O’Neil who was the original creator of the museum and whose vision brought it into being told us the story of its origins.  The building itself was erected by Glasgow Cathedral as a visitors centre but when money ran out to staff the centre it was handed over to Glasgow City Council.  The inspiration to turn it into a museum of religion came from no-where, said Mark.  He was very aware of the large number of religious artefacts in Glasgow’s collection and of curators’ hesitancy in dealing with them.  Most curators were happy to relegate artefacts (celtic cross for example) to the category of history or archaeology rather than religion. At the time there was only one other museum of religion (apart from a museum of atheism in St Petersburg) and that was in the University of Marburg in Germany. Now there are five museums of religion in the world and Glasgow can boast of being the second of these.

Right from the start the local interfaith group, the Glasgow Sharing of Faiths, was consulted. I remember that initial meeting and found the idea interesting and even compelling but was not at all aware of how significant the museum was to be in my life. Most religions took to the idea apart from the Churches. Both the Catholic Church and the Church of Scotland were very unsure of the idea and very unsure of the reality when it was opened.  This was because artefacts from different religions which reflected common themes and devotions were set out side by side.  So we had a statue of the Virgin Mary and her son Jesus next to one of the Goddess Isis and her son Horus – both with child seated on the lap of their mother. We had baby Jesus, baby Krishna and baby Buddha side by side.  For some people, I remember, this was seen as compromising the integrity and purity of faith. It was a challenge for some to realise that religions had common expressions. I loved it.  It put any one religion into perspective and was truly educational in that it helped people look at religion objectively.  But it did also have a display which set out the basic beliefs and tenets of each of the faiths so the museum didn’t deny the integrity of each faith.

The reason St Mungo’s became so significant for me was that right from the start it was committed to dialogue. It organised educational events but always in a dialogical and interfaith way.  For about fifteen years I was part of a group that put on an annual Meet Your Neighbour event. The major faiths (especially the ones that were already engaged in dialogue) put on some kind of display about their faith over a weekend. But as well as that, we had activities of all sorts and often musical interludes.  We often had a concert on the Sunday afternoon and I have vivid memories of the conference room being so packed that we opened the glass doors that formed one wall of the room so that people could stand outside and look in. The high point of this was the tenth anniversary when we decorated the museum and had a great party with circle dancing and singing and all sorts of jollities. The thought of it brings a smile to my face.  These were happy days though of course they had their own stresses and strains.

I eventually came to work from St Mungo’s.  When we set up the national interfaith body of Scotland (then called the Scottish Interfaith Council and now Interfaith Scotland) we were given the use of a desk by Glasgow City Council, the gift of a computer by my community (the Sisters of Notre Dame) and my services. These were small beginnings with no funding whatsoever. St Mungo’s Museum was very important in those early days, giving us room for dialogues and support in so many ways. The council only moved out of St Mungo’s when we were given funding by the Scottish Government and were able to employ a development worker and part time administrator.  Since then Interfaith Scotland has found premises with a meeting room large enough to use for dialogues but Interfaith Glasgow continues to work in partnership with St Mungo’s and it continues to encourage dialogue between people of all faiths and none in so many interesting and challenging ways.
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St Mungo’s Museum definitely has a very important place in the history of interfaith in Scotland.  The faith communities in Glasgow always felt very at home in it and very supported by the staff. At one point there was a move to close the museum but the response from faith communities was so great that the decision was reversed. It’s a loved institution and shows so clearly how important secular institutions are in developing dialogue between faiths. Sometimes they can offer more challenging and interesting dialogues than interfaith groups can, they can reach people beyond the usual religious groupings and draw in a much wider audience in their educational and dialogue work. Here’s to them and to a bright future for all of them but particularly for St Mungo’s.

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Middle Class Saints

15/4/2018

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I’m often asked to speak to the Women’s Guild of the Church of Scotland (now called the Guild in the interest of equality) about becoming a nun.  The women enjoy hearing about how the Second Vatican Council turned the idea of religious life upside down.  Central to this was Chapter 5 of the Vatican document on the Church entitled ‘The Universal Call to Holiness’.  Up to that point there was a tendency in the Catholic Church to think of call or vocation as referring to nuns, monks and priests but not to more ‘ordinary’ folk.  Well that changed at Vatican 2 when the Church Fathers recognised there was only one vocation in the Christian Church and that came at baptism. All Christians were called to be holy and to live this out in different ways – marriage, religious life, priesthood or whatever but no one group was expected or thought to be holier than another. I’ve often thought this was one of the most important outcomes of the Second Vatican Council.

This week Pope Francis has picked up this theme in a new document entitled ‘Gaudete et Exultate’ – ‘Rejoice and Be Glad’.  It expands this universal call to holiness and to sainthood.  It’s easy to think of saints as extraordinary people and in the Catholic Church one of the criteria of being formally canonised as a saint is evidence of heroic virtue.  That’s quite off putting – how do we exercise heroic virtue?  All religions have their saints – individuals recognised for their love of God and for their commitment to their spiritual path.  In the past for women this often meant breaking out of traditional roles. Saintly women like Mirabai in Hinduism and Rabia in Islam refused marriage to commit exclusively to loving God as did many women within Christianity. Religions team with the stories of saintly people.  Growing up as I did in another age, we were told stories of saints. Their goodness and holiness was held us an ideal and example to be followed.  No doubt many of us were inspired by such commitment but for most the idea of holiness was beyond them and saints formed a kind of elite within the community.

Pope Francis’ exhortation once again puts the ideal of holiness before Catholics – indeed he even suggests that it’s an antidote to a meaningless and mediocre existence. I’m not too sure many people will resonate with this idea. The very notion of holiness conjures up someone so heavenly minded to be no earthly use, someone cut off from living life to the full. Well that’s not the case.  The Pope talks of what he calls a middle class kind of holiness and that is to live life fully, lovingly, honestly wherever we find ourselves.  For me there’s an echo of the Bhagavad Gita in that.  When Krishna tells Arjuna that it’s better to do your own duty imperfectly than do another’s well he’s suggesting that we all have our own particular paths to follow, our own particular way of life. To try to emulate another’s or copy a way of life that appears more religious or somehow holier is useless. The Pope suggests that although some testimonies of holiness could be helpful and inspirational we are not in fact  meant to copy them – “for that could even lead us astray from the one specific path that the Lord has in mind for us” – a bit like Scott Peck’s ‘walking to our own drumbeat’.  That’s where we will find happiness and fulfilment, which doesn’t mean the path will be easy or without its challenges and tribulations.  But those challenges and tribulations can be what forms our character and proves our commitment to love and service. I often think the holiest and most heroic people are parents of children with disabilities. This is a life-long commitment which is a training in holiness though not many of these parents would call themselves saints. 

Holiness is to be found in our ordinary everyday lives. There is, as the Vatican Document says, only one vocation, one basic call but we live it out in different ways. At the heart of it all are loving  relationships  -   and for me these are  with self, others, the created world and God, however we understand or name  that Ultimate Reality.  It’s to understand our interconnectedness with all that lives, has lived, will live so that we see ourselves as part of a great whole, making a small but important contribution to the world around us as best we can.  It’s in the ordinary giving and receiving that’s part of daily life that we grow and help others to grow.  This is the kind of holiness that our world needs.

 It so happens that this week a friend sent me these words of Gus Speth from Vermont Law School : “ I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, apathy …. and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation – and we scientists don’t know how to do that”.  Well religions do and the  Pope’s newest exhortation is an encouragement to do just that. ​

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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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