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The Golden Rule

26/9/2015

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This week I was at a meeting of Christians engaged in interfaith relations. London is a long way to go for a meeting but the opportunity to discuss issues that arise in interfaith work makes the journey worthwhile and I always come back with a renewed sense of energy and enthusiasm for the work.  The meeting was the Churches Forum for Inter Religious Relations, CIFFR for short. It's chaired by Bishop Angaelos who, as a Coptic Orthodox Christian from Egypt, is very aware of Christian persecution and Christian - Muslim tensions around the world. This grounds much of our discussion in reality and stops us getting too idealistic.  

This week we spoke a lot about the current refugee crisis.  Bishop Angaelos and another committee member had recently returned from a delegation visit to Idomeni on the Greek-Macedonian border where the delegates witnessed for themselves the desperation of thousands of people fleeing for their lives and taking desperate measures to try to reach safety and security, We felt overwelmed as we listened to some heart rending stories from refugees and of the criminality and exploitation, the trafficking and abandonment of people especially when borders are closed and barriers erected to keep people out. These are human beings, our brothers and sisters and while many people are volunteering to help them, many countries and governments are hardening their hearts, debating quotas and closing their borders rather than opening them up. 

It's difficult for any one individual to know what to do and there needs to be some kind of organised cooperative action to deal with the situation effectively and in this surely religions have a part to play. The Director of Mission from  the United Nations High Commission for Refugees told the Churches that this was a moment to put into practice chapter 25 of Matthew's Gospel. In this section Jesus identifies with the poor, the marginalised, the imprisoned  and makes service to them a criteria for final judgement.  The delegation were told "the discourse of God is the discourse of love and how do we embody this as Europeans?" What a challenge to the Churches and indeed to all religions. What would our countries, governments, institutions look like if they were all to embody love?  This is similar to the challenge Pope Francis laid at the feet of Congress when he urged them to live and work by the Golden Rule, ' do unto others as you would have them do unto you'.  'The Golden Rule', the Pope said,' reminds us of our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of development.' It got applause but will it become the criteria by which laws are made? What a world that would be! 

The golden rule unites all religions.  Consider
Confusionism:    Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state.   
Buddhism:    Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.      
Hinduism:     This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.      
Islam:    No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself. 
Judaism :    What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary. 
      

Perhaps we need to be challenged to live up to these ideals. It so happened that the week before last the First Minister of Scotland held an Interfaith Summit which was attended by religious leaders and interfaith practitioners. I had to introduce the discussion on how the government could help interfaith relations and faith communities and one of the things I said was that Government could challenge faith communities more to participate in public life and work in partnership with Government on issues like refugees. In the light of that meeting and the one in London I've been thinking about this and wondering how it can be done.  It struck me that perhaps the agenda for the Summit should have been abandoned and some time given to how religious communities could help with the refugee crisis, especially as the First Minister was going to a special Forum for Refugees immediately afterwards. Should an emergency meeting of the Religious Leaders of Scotland not been called by Interfaith Scotland to discuss the crisis rather than wait for their arranged meeting in November?  Could the Church leaders not have done the same, working in partnership with bodies such as the Refugee Council? Is there not need for a body such as Interfaith Scotland or the Refugee Council to undertake an exercise in what I believe in the US is called asset mapping.  Religious communities are a great asset in society but this has to be made visible and used when needed. I think religious communities would rise to the challenge. 

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Retreating from Life

18/9/2015

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I have been on retreat for the past week. It's a privilege to be able to take time out from normal life and give some time to prayer and reflection. I know many a busy mother who would love to take time off and opt out of normal life for a week or so. For me the opportunity of an annual eight day retreat has been one of the joys of religious life. 

But it's not all as easy as it sounds. For one thing taking a break from news, social media, friends, telephone calls, e-mails, work  means  there's no escape from self.  Normally we don't give much time or thought to what's going on inside us and if we're aware of it  we sometimes run away from it through busyness or other distractions such as entertainment, retail therapy or whatever. But you can't do that on retreat. There's a whole world inside each of us -  layers and layers of complexity and conditioning which unconsciously affects our actions and relationships. The silence and time for prayer during a retreat means some of this comes to the fore and you have to face up to yourself - sometimes the good bits but often the not so good. I have to recognise  the ills of the world reside within me and given certain conditions I could be as evil as the next one. Even trying to live a good life I have to face up to my mixed motives for actions, my petty jealousies, my anger, my fears and all the gamut of human emotions that hinder me from being truly loving. At present many of us are appalled by scenes of refugees fleeing violence, war, hunger, destitution and the inhospitality of nations that are now building walls and fences to keep them out of their country.  We know this is a human problem and belongs to each one of us but on retreat I have to face up to the fact that my inhospitality and selfishness in  daily life contributes to this. I can put out negative energy which detracts from the goodness in the world but I can also put out positive and loving energy which takes the human race further on its journey towards wholeness and healing. 

 Sometimes people take up meditation, hoping that it will bring inner peace and contentment and are then disturbed when they become aware of inner conflicts. They then think they're doing something wrong. But actually they're doing something right because they're moving from a superficial level of living to a deeper level which when faced up to will eventually lead to inner freedom. Detractors of religion often accuse it of offering false comfort and hope, of giving easy answers but actually it's quite the opposite. Religion is about facing up to the evil in ourselves and in the world, struggling with it and working to overcome it. Tich Nhat Hanh talks of good and bad seeds residing within our subconscious and it's our task to recognise this and cultivate the good seeds of love, wisdom and compasssion. 

This is what a retreat does and some form of it is to be found in many religions. In Buddhism the rain retreat was part of the way of life of the monastic community. In Hinduism opportunities for retreat are there for serious practitioners but classical Hinduism also recognises that there is a stage in life, when one retires, which can be given over to more prayer and reflection than possible during a working life. Christian monastics also have retreats as part of their way of life and Sufi orders make opportunities for times of seclusion and separation.  In Judaism this time apart happens weekly when the Sabbath is given over to study and  prayer and all daily work is set aside. This gives a good balance to a week that can easily become overbusy.  Meditation too is a kind of retreat- a very short Sabbath rest - and one that can be taken daily. As I've said it's not  always comfortable but it is a practice which can lead to knowledge of self and personal transformation. That's good for us but also good for the world that will be affected by our growing inner freedom.

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To have Faith or Not?

9/9/2015

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Last week the former First Minister of Scotland caused a bit of a stir because he seemingly admitted on video that he preferred people of faith to those with no faith or who had given up their faith,  Immediately there was a backlash from the Scottish Secular and Humanist Societies about the inappropriateness of the comment, accusing Mr Salmond of causing division within society, suggesting that "With one sentence he has separated the religious and non- religious, affording special place to the religious in his own world view; preferring one half of the country to the other".  Mr Salmond's office responded that he had been talking about people of faith and not of religion.  So was he including in his remarks people who have faith in humanist and secular values and principles? Is it possible to be human and not have faith in something?  

The context for the remark was a video being shot by the Church of Scotland after one of their ministers had given the Time for Reflection at the Scottish Parliament so perhaps Mr Salmond was talking about the quality of the Time for Reflection which he also spoke about in the video. It was a spontaneous remark and not thought out but it got me wondering if I preferred people of faith to those with none.  I don't think I do. I certainly feel at home with many people of different faiths but I also feel at home with people who profess no religious faith. There are some people of faith with whom I don't feel at home because their faith is of a closed, dogmatic, exclusive kind that doesn't resonate with me. There is a kind of religious faith  whose idealism and authoritative stance can cut people off from their humanity and harden their hearts against others.  But so too with people of no professed faith, they too can be dogmatic, lacking in compassion, prejudiced, out of touch with their own humanity. The people I prefer are the open, undogmatic kind, who struggle with what it is to be human and to make sense of their lives, to be ordinary, who do their best to be kind and loving, sometimes in difficult circumstances, who don't take themselves too seriously,  who are committed to the common good. Some of these people are religious and others not and I like them all.

It so happened I also had read two articles about atheism. Each of them suggested that there is a kind of fundamentalism among atheists at the moment and like all fundamentalists they want to impose their belief on society. For these so called 'new atheists' religion is intellectually bankrupt, morally destructive and should have no place in society. But this antagonism towards religion has not been always been part of atheism and atheism can be as plural with as wide diversity of world views and values as any religious or belief group. 
 
In a Point of View on Radio 4 John Gray illustrated this point by considering an  early 19th Century Italian Giacomo Leopardi. Brought up a Catholic Leopardi became an atheist in his teens and while he was a committed materialist he  defended religion, which he regarded as an illusion that was necessary for human happiness. He thought tha if religion were to disappear it would be replaced by philosophies that were even more intolerant and history, especially the last century, has shown the truth of this.  For Gray atheism does not need to be fundamental. It is a belief amongst others and religious believers can respect this as it's possible for atheists to respect religious belief even if they don't understand it.

Other atheists are even adapting religious structures and rituals, realising some need for a secular celebration and gathering. We even have a Sunday Assembly often called the Atheist Church. This is the kind of atheism that could be  open to dialogue and mutual understanding.  Thomas Merton believed that when we seek what is truest in our own tradition, we discover we are one with those who seek what is truest in theirs and perhaps the reverse is true. When we seek what is truest in another tradition we can discover what is truest in our own.  And this can be as true for the dialogue with atheism and humanism as it is for the dialogue with other religions. 

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Roman Holiday?

3/9/2015

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The International Council of Christians and Jews met in Rome at the end of June/beginning of July and I was privileged to be there. I've just written a report about it so thought I might share it.   The theme of the conference was The 50th Anniversary of Nostra Aetate: The Past, Present and Future of the Christian-Jewish Relationship. Nostra Aetate is the document  which came from the Second Vatican Council and transformed the Catholic Churches relations with the Jewish community. This October will be the 50th anniversary of the document and it's likely I'll be saying more about it then. 

Throughout the conference there was a sense of celebration from the first evening when a symphony entitled “The Council “ (2014) was performed by a small youth orchestra and conducted by its composer Federico Corrubolo .  The work was written to represent the events of the Second Vatican Council based on excerpts from Fr. Yves Congar’s journal of the Council. It had the classical four movements of a symphony but included the reading of passages from Congar’s journal though one passage was from a volume by Marco Morselli describing the encounter between Rabbi Jules Isaac and Pope John XIII which turned out to be so significant for Catholic – Jewish relations and consequently for Christian – Jewish relations as it led to the writing of Nostra Aetate.  The whole piece was exciting because so creative and evocative of the solemnity, diversity of the Council, of the need for mutual listening, accommodation to the views of others, of the struggle, enmities, friendships and the final harmony that produced 16 documents that transformed the Catholic Church’s understanding of itself and its relationship to the world. 

Celebratory too was the Papal audience. Just being in a small audience hall, surrounded by marvellous works of art is an experience in itself but somehow Pope Francis was able to communicate that his concern was for people and he seemed unmoved and unconcerned about the pomp and ceremony that inevitably surrounds such events. We had been advised that only the committee of ICCJ and some specially designated people would meet the Pope and please keep the first three rows free for them.  But after the speeches and gift giving it was announced that the Pope would meet all of us which he did giving a warm smile and firm handshake to 250 of us. It was quite obvious that for the Pope there was no 'them' and 'us' and his desire is to be inclusive of all.

We also visited the magnificent Great Synagogue which serves the small but ancient Jewish community, a community which predates the Christian community, having had a presence in Rome before the arrival of the Christian apostles, Peter and Paul. The Chief Rabbi, Dr Riccardo Di Segni graciously addressed us, encouraging us in our task and sharing stories of his encounters with Pope Benedict and Pope Francis.  This meeting came at the end of a day when we had time to explore some aspects of Rome and get to know the city a bit better.

However, it was not all celebrations and there was work to be done. The programme was very full divided between plenary presentations and workshops. There were a lot of words spoken over the three days. Many, if not all of the papers, will find their way into publications and eventually will be published in the conference proceedings. This will be a good reminder of what was said for there was just too much to take in. What I am left with, however, are some thoughts and ideas that struck me as interesting and gave much food for thought.

One of these came during the discussion time following an early talk on the Jewish Community in Rome by Dr Anna Foa. Speaking of the Jewish ghetto Dr Foa stressed that the Jewish community were there for the purpose of conversion, that the ghetto had open doors which allowed a Jewish presence in Rome and peaceful cohabitation between Christians and Jews.  But a new take on the idea of ghetto was that the Catholic Church had had a ghetto imposed on it when the loss of the Papal States meant it retreated into the Vatican State, separating it from the enlightenment and social development of Rome.  This was an interesting take on the Vatican State or the Holy See as it’s often called and perhaps describes a mentality that could be describes as closed and defensive until the winds of change blew through it at the Second Vatican Council.   

A second thought that has stayed with me came from Dr Ed Kessler who talked about how a parent does not take the love from an older child to give it to another when a younger sibling is born. Rather it is possible to love both children equally though maybe differently.  So too with God. To enter into a covenantal relationship with one people does not invalidate or do away with a covenant made to an earlier people.  For God it is possible to have different covenantal relationships with different peoples. This struck me as a good image for interfaith relations even with those faiths that don’t think in terms of covenants.

There were of course many other moments and thoughts – the recognition of how dramatically Nostra Aetate had changed the relationship between Christians and Jews, how good it was that we had moved on from the charge of deicide to recognising the authenticity of the Jewish covenant, how important it was to stress anti-semitism as sin, how exciting it was to revisit our early post-biblical history and realise that the separation between our two communities had taken longer than is often suggested and more.  Of course there are challenges ahead but with the friendliness and good will evident at this conference these can be faced with equanimity and hope.

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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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