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The Narrating Self.

20/9/2017

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I came across the idea of the experiencing self and the narrating self recently. There’s nothing new in this of course.  The fact that our narrating self helps us forget the agonies of the experiencing self is even recorded in the gospels when Jesus suggests that the pains of childbirth are forgotten in the joy of a new life. It’s age old wisdom though it’s very unlikely Jesus would have analysed experiences such as this in terms of the experiencing self and the narrating self.  We’re all aware of the stories that go around in our minds, formed by experience but conditioned by upbringing and culture.  Buddhism and the Vedanta tradition within Hinduism is particularly good at recognising how much our perceptions and understandings, our way of viewing the world  are  located in our minds and not in reality.  Meditation and mindfulness techniques are meant to take us out of our minds, into our bodies and the reality of the present moment. But still the stories go on. 

It’s quite interesting to look at the world in terms of the stories that seem to be a motivation for action. In Myanmar, for example, the prevailing story seems to be that only Buddhists have a right to citizenship and a national identity. Hence the Rohingya Muslims are aliens with no official recognition or right to be in Rakhine State even though they had a presence there before Burma was established. To ensure the safety, security and purity of Myanmar, as well as the Buddhist religion, they should go.  What’s particularly distressing about this is that the persecution of the Rohingya is led by a group of Buddhist monks, known for their militancy rather than the wisdom and compassion which is central to Buddhist teaching. These monks tell a story that Buddhism is in danger, that Muslims are ready to take over the country, that Myanmar will only be great again once the Muslims have gone.  And yet Muslims are a minority – something like 4% in a country where 90% are Buddhist and from what we see on television poor and powerless. 

The monks in Myanmar are not the only militant Buddhists – Sri Lanka, Thai Land, Tibet and Japan in the past. We shouldn’t be surprised – people are people with all their complexities as religions are religions with their own set of complexities.  There’s a tendency in the West to idealise Buddhism I think. It promises peace and happiness, offers a meaningful practice, seems more spiritual than other religions.  It benefits in the west from being a minority faith where its institutionalisation is not as obvious as its spirituality but it’s a religious institution like other religions, with its own story, its own oppressions and liberations.  Once it becomes married to a nationalistic outlook it can be as dangerous as other oppressive regimes.

The present situation in Myanmar has highlighted the position of Aung San Suu Kyi – once hailed as a human rights activist and admired for her determination and courage in the face of an oppressive regime but now castigated because of her silence over the Rohingya.  She too will have a narrating self that gives her a story that influences her actions. The world thought it knew that story but obviously not. Aung San Suu Kyi always underlined the fact that she was a politician, not a human rights activist. She sees the world politically so we can only guess, as some commentators have, that her story is that to speak out would antagonise the military, the Buddhist monks and a majority of the population, leading perhaps to her downfall which no doubt in her opinion would not be good for her country.  Does her narrating self allow her to deny the reality and experience of the Rohingya, their terrible suffering and persecution. From what she has said it seems it can and does, even to the point of suggesting that the suffering of the Muslims is exaggerated and misreported.

How dangerous stories can be and we see many examples of them in the speeches of the President of the USA, in the belligerence of North Korea and the violence of ISIS.  But stories can be changed.  An example of this is the story that Christianity, or at least the Catholic version of it, tells itself about the Jewish community. For centuries the story was that Jews were God-killers, blind to the truth, rejected by God in favour of the Christian community. It led to great persecution, suspicion, fear, hatred even. And it all changed in what seemed like the twinkling of an eye. It happened at the Second Vatican Council when the Document on the Church’s Relations with Non-Catholic Religions was published, promulgated and disseminated.   There are only 5 paragraphs but the longest one, section 4, is given over the Church’s relations with the Jewish people. It recognises that Jews are not to be held responsible for the death of Jesus, that God never goes back on his promises, that Jesus and the first apostles were all Jews, that  Christianity has a familial relationship with Judaism and has indeed grown out of it. It’s this new story that has allowed for friendships and relationships between the two faiths to grow and flourish. It has allowed the Jewish community to acknowledge the importance of Jesus as a member of their community, to acknowledge Christianity as a power in spreading the word of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

​The Vatican document was a real turning point, one that changed the story of many centuries and led to a new way of being with one another. It is a continuing sign of hope that such changes do and can happen.  We need more of them  in our world today. 


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A  Common Language, A Common Home?

6/9/2017

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Recently the Scottish Bishops’ Committee for Interreligious Dialogue organised an intra-Christian colloquium to explore a theology of land in both Judaism and Christianity. It was led by Fr David Neuhaus whose personal story is interesting and inspiring. David comes from Sth. Africa and was born into a Jewish family. He went to Israel as a young man, became a Christian and then a Jesuit. Now he lives and works in Israel, teaching at universities there but involved in Palestinian projects. He is able to hold within himself the integrity of being Jewish and Christian, understanding the Jewish love of the Land but also the suffering of the Palestinian people – a good example of what interfaith relations often demands as we try to see and respect different perspectives. David is a scripture scholar and he shared his wisdom and learning generously. There was so much. I wish I could remember all he said but a week later some things stand out for me.

The first thing was his naming the Old Testament in the Christian Bible as just that. That might seem strange but there was a tendency a few years ago not to speak of the Old Testament but rather call it the First Testament or the Hebrew Bible. This was in deference to the Jewish community and the new appreciation that came after the Second Vatican Council that the Jews were still people in a covenantal relationship with God and their scriptures had their own integrity not to be dismissed as old or out of date.  It became politically correct to avoid using the term Old Testament. For David old meant wisdom and veneration and for the Christian community the Old Testament sheds light on the New which doesn’t actually make sense without it. Nor is the Hebrew Bible identical with the Old Testament. For Jews the Bible, known as the TaNakh, has fewer books than the Christian Old Testament and Jewish and Christian versions of books such as Esther and Daniel differ as does the ordering of the books that are common to both. The two scriptures, while forming a shared common heritage and language, are different and have their own integrity which means that naming the Old Testament as the Hebrew Bible is inaccurate even if done for a good motive and out of a respect which might well be misguided in this instance.

This sense of the integrity of different scriptures comes out at scriptural reasoning sessions when Christians, Jews and Muslims share reflections on texts around a common theme. Often the basic story is similar but the language and details different. This would be obvious in a story such as that of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son – Isaac for Jews and Christians, Ishmael for Muslims. It would be easy to claim one as right and the other wrong rather than to look for the contexts of the stories and the theological reflections that gave rise to them and to their position in the different scriptures. Scriptures are religious documents with a theological message. They make sense within the context of a particular community but not necessarily within the context of another. They are to be read with their own logic and through their own spectacles.  We should learn to read and understand the scriptures of other faiths in this way while being open to a wisdom from which we all might learn. There is of course another reading of scripture which belongs to academia and that too has its own integrity, to be understood within its own particular context.

Land was central to the weekend’s discussions and with it the idea of borders. Fr David suggested that the land created by God according to the book of Genesis was not bordered until human beings were expelled from Paradise and therefore a result of sin. A story that illustrates this well is that of Babel. Asked what Babel was about we responded – building a tower –no; trying to reach God –no, wasn’t trying to reach God a good thing! ; trying to be God – again no!  The verse in the book of Genesis that refers to Babel is not about a tower but about a city:
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“Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

The story of Babel is about setting up borders, about a people who had been told to multiply and fill the earth confining themselves within their own constructs which, according to the Bible, led to confusion and dispersion.  Today we live with borders, not just the borders that nations and tribes set up for themselves but borders imposed by others. This year we have been remembering the partition of India, the Balfour Declaration and the partitioning of Israel/Palestine. We are witnessing conflict and suffering because of the borders imposed on the Middle East by the Sykes-Picot agreement, to say nothing of the carving up of Africa by colonial powers. We witness so called developed nations closing their borders to refugees and immigrants. The bible story truly reflects the determination of human beings to live separately, to look upon those who come from another place, speak another language, live according to another culture or religion with suspicion, fearful of our own position or truth.  Borders both physical and mental have caused so much suffering and yet they can give us a sense of identity and a place to belong. But can they not only be, or become, places where we meet and encounter one another in friendship and peace?

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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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