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A Strange Practice

22/9/2019

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 It felt as though the whole world was on the move last  weekend. On Friday millions of young people all over the world, in towns, villages and cities, went on strike from school to demonstrate against climate change. Inspired by Greta Thunberg who, a year ago, demonstrated on her own outside the Swedish Parliament , they were joined by parents and other supportive adults taking up the challenge of Extinction Rebellion whose vision for the world is one “where love and kindness are the fabric of life …. where all nature and beings are seen as equal, appreciated and understood as interwoven strands”.  Greta’s message isn’t new but her challenge to adults to do something about the world they’re leaving to future generations has captured the imagination and, through social media, has sparked off a global movement.  It was amazing on the television news to see reports of demonstrations in Britain but also the map which lit up towns and cities throughout the world that were  taking part. It showed very visibly what a global movement it is.
 
People joined in from all kinds of backgrounds and many of them will have been religious, inspired by their religious beliefs. All religions have a sense of the sacredness of the natural world and want to treat it with reverence and respect.  But it was the common concern for global warming that united them across national, cultural, ethnic and religious divides. Who’s going to worry about differences in doctrine or religious truths, about who’s right and who’s wrong in the face of a common problem that endangers our very survival.  These differences fade into insignificance in the face of a common threat to our world. It’s responding together to problems like this that helps unite us and encourages us to do what Jonathan Sacks called building a common home. 

 
In the light of this the recent phenomenon of thousands of people flocking to some Churches and Cathedrals to honour and venerate the relics of St Therese of Lisieux seems a bit bizarre.  No doubt some of the people who did this were also part of the climate change demonstrations and perhaps even prayed for the future healing of our planet but the two events set side by side seem to be in direct opposition to one another – one involved with the world and the other with an other-worldly spirituality.  Saints and relics are peculiarly Catholic and some members of the Reformed and Non- conformist tradition find it extremely odd and even idolatrous. 
 
Therese of Lisieux was a young woman who died at the early age of 24, she became a Carmelite nun at 15 and spent her life in the convent praying for the world. She saw herself as a missionary with a great love and concern for missionaries, for prisoners, for what she called sinners.  Her life was hidden and she talked about a little way – of doing everything with love, with the intention of healing the world and in doing this there’s no doubt that she put in to the universe a strong, positive energy. Catholics have loved her, because she said she wanted to spend her heaven doing good on earth and so they find her a powerful support but also because her ‘little way’ is open to everyone and doesn’t require status or heroics. It simply means doing what is ours to do well, with love and a concern for the world which includes creation as well as our brothers and sisters who share our common humanity.  So maybe the two events are not so different after all.


People will have gone to honour the relics that included vigils, reflection, praying out of their own need, that of their loved ones and the world itself. I don’t want in any way to belittle that. I’ve often thought that Catholicism is, like Hinduism, a religion of devotion and perhaps in the past years the approach to religion has tended to be a bit academic and people have been deprived of a personal practice to help support them in their daily life.  
 
Practice is important – as is action for social justice which makes a recent letter from Spain’s Catholic Bishops even more bizarre. The Bishops were warning against the use of mindfulness and suggesting that Catholics were in danger of effectively abandoning the Catholic faith if they engaged in it. I think Therese of Lisieux would have understood mindfulness and appreciated its benefits. It’s a Buddhist practice though now used in the secular world as a help with stress and mental health difficulties. Its focus is living in the present moment, appreciating the present and trying to stop the mind from running away with itself into imaginings that are in fact unreal, distressing and even harmful. When I first learned about mindfulness it struck me as very similar to what Catholics called the Sacrament of the Present Moment.  There’s a 300 year old spiritual classic of that name written by Jean- Pierre de Caussade which offers guidance for living each day in communion with God, accepting each moment at is comes breath by breath as a gift from God and living it is as lovingly and wholeheartedly as possible. It means facing up to the realities of the present.  It was and is seen as a path to God. It was practised by saints such as Brother Lawrence 400 years ago and by Therese of Lisieux 140 years ago and is still practised by many Christians today – even if they call it mindfulness. It seems the Spanish bishops are out of touch with their own spiritual tradition!

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Twenty Years of Interfaith

9/9/2019

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Interfaith Scotland is preparing to celebrate its 20th anniversary. It began life as the Scottish Interfaith Council. It was accepted as a Scottish charity by OSCR, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, on 10th October – the date chosen for the 20th anniversary celebrations. But as you might expect this was not the launch of the Council but rather the end point of many years of discussion and dialogue which had grown in importance after Scotland had voted to have its own Parliament.  

It was on 1st July 1999 that the Scottish Parliament was opened by the Queen. It was, in the words of Ian Crichton Smith “the beginning of a new song for Scotland”. It was a day of rejoicing, redolent with possibilities and hope. There was a new sense of what it meant to be Scottish and a desire to make the Parliament work. There was a desire on the part of the new government to be inclusive of all faiths and none, indicated by the fact that the chair of the newly formed Council was present in Holyrood that day and took part in the joyful procession up the Royal Mile past the Queen and beaming new First Minister Donald Dewar.  

Discussions about a national interfaith body had been taking place since 1992, encouraged by Brian Pearce of the UK Interfaith Network who probably foresaw the implications of devolution for interfaith relations in Scotland in a way that those of us engaged in interfaith at the time didn’t. The Interfaith Network had been launched in 1987 and as part of its work had occasionally held networking meetings of local interfaith groups in Scotland, of which at the time there were only four – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee.  

In 1994 I undertook to explore the idea a Scottish Network. I met with whole range of people from faith communities as well as a number of interfaith practitioners the length and breadth of the country.  There was a lot of interest in this but a certain hesitancy because of a concern that a new structure might divert time and energy away from existing interfaith initiatives and faith community commitments, some of whom were setting up new initiatives to interact with the Parliament. It was about this time that the Churches Parliamentary Office, the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities and the Muslim Council of Scotland were established.

 What emerged as a result of this research was a Scottish Interfaith Consultative Group located within the framework of the UK Network and formed by representatives of bodies that had membership in Scotland and were already affiliated to the Network. This was expanded to make sure there was a fair representation of all the major faiths in Scotland.  Conversations tended to focus on the kind of Scotland we wanted to live in and what the new Parliament would mean for faith communities. One meeting I particularly remember showed that, apart from the Christians,  religious freedom was a real concern among people of the other faiths  – something that had never entered the head of the majority faith.  

It was these discussions and the recognition that others were planning some kind of relationship with the Parliament that led in the end to a more formal organisation – called the Scottish Interfaith Council with representative membership from the major faiths and the established interfaith groups.  Although it was formally recognised as a Scottish charity on 10th October 1999 it had actually been launched weeks before that in St Mungo’s Museum by Patricia Ferguson the deputy Presiding Officer of the Parliament. The link with Government was important and its support helped establish us. As happens so often things happen by chance. It was an encounter with Jack McConnell MSP and his wife Bridget, Head of Glasgow Museums, at a Royal Garden Party that  we got the promise of a senior politician to launch the Council and  a desk at St Mungo’s Museum from which to work.  In the beginning we had to learn how to work together and how to develop this burgeoning organisation.  Almost immediately problems of membership and identity arose – something that we in our naiveté had not foreseen.  

Immediately after the launch of the Council we received a letter from the First Minister’s office saying that he would like to meet with the Council on an annual basis – an extension of the traditional meeting that the Secretary of State for Scotland had had with Church leaders. It was at the second of these meetings that the then First Minister, Henry McLeish, offered us funding which allowed us to employ a secretary and development worker. This meeting with the First Minister continues until today.  Another significant moment was the request from the Moderator, the Cardinal and Episcopal Bishop of Edinburgh to organise a gathering of religious leaders as a response to the attacks of 9/11 2001. It took place in Scottish Churches House, Dunblane, and included a reflection on the values on the Scottish Mace: wisdom, justice, integrity and compassion as values that united us in our common concern for the future of Scotland.  This meeting also continues until today.
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 There never was a master plan for the Scottish Interfaith Council – it grew gradually, eventually changing its name to Interfaith Scotland. But it has continued to flourish thanks to the involvement and commitment of so many people who participated in its development and continue to work for it today.  It has made a significant contribution to interfaith relations in Scotland and to the well – being of our country. Long may it flourish!

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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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