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Happy New Year

31/12/2017

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​We’re on the brink of a new year. For some parts of the world this new year has already begun, a reminder that time is relative and that there’s no such reality as a new year. It’s simply another moment, another breath but a consensus that allows us to mark and count the passing of time.  Saying that, it’s good to consider beginnings, to take stock of our lives and look back with gratitude and maybe even regret while facing the future with hope and maybe even courage. 

January is reminiscent of the Roman God Janus who was associated with beginnings, doorways, transitions and therefore endings. Because of this he’s often depicted as having two faces, looking to the future and to the past. For many people, especially as we get older, the New Year is a time of nostalgia, remembering past times but particularly those we have loved, and indeed still love, who have died or departed in some way. We carry them with us but moments like New Year celebrations can bring the pain of their loss to the fore. Hard as this grief can be it’s a sign of enduring love, something to be thankful for.  

It’s good to look back and give thanks for the good things that have happened to us and please God there have been good things. High up on my list will be friends and the many instances and signs of friendship and support that they give me. Without them this journey through life would be much more difficult. I’m grateful too to have some kind of service within the world of interfaith which gives me a sense of contributing to society in a small way and health and well-being that allows me to enjoy this and many other aspects of my life. In spite of much of the negativity that we hear in the news there’s much to be grateful for in our world today.

Iain Macwhirter, the political editor with a Scottish newspaper, The Herald, recently acknowledged that many good news stories never get attention in the press. He set out some of the good things that have happened and perhaps been missed: extreme poverty has fallen by 70% and the UN has announced that extreme poverty should be eradicated within the next decade; the number of terrorist atrocities has fallen massively in the past forty years and is in decline across the world; the UN has adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a great result for the Nobel Prize Winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN; the move to renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. Last year 54% of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption was produced by renewable energy. All this is good news and a sign of hope that things can and do change. In our own small worlds there are also signs of hope. I’ve always been taken by the idea of kingdom spotting – that is looking for signs of the Kingdom of God around us – courage, determination in the face of difficulties, justice, compassion, service, love, struggle to be the best we can be. There are lots of examples of people recycling, caring for sick and aged relatives, caring for children and those with disabilities of all sorts, campaigning for justice and simply living a good, wholesome life in their families and among their friends and neighbours.  There’s a lot of good out there if we have eyes to see it.

But it’s not perfect by any manner of means. There’s much still to be done on an international scale as well as a local and personal one. This, I suppose, is where New Year resolutions come in. I’m not too keen on them as they’re usually difficult to keep and can become a burden, especially if they are associated with things like losing weight, doing more exercise after the festivities of Christmas. What I am keen on is looking to the future and realising that we can play our part in the future of our world and our planet – not so much by setting ourselves specific goals but by changing our mind set and way of  looking at life. I would want myself and all of us to realise that this world will unfold as a result of our choices and actions, that we hold in our hands the future of our race and our planet, that we can offer one another and creation the gift of loving kindness which recognises that we are all brothers and sisters and that  the well-being of one affects the well-being of all.  The choice is ours.  Will we, as  Rabbi Rami Shapiro asks in his book, The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness,  
“ engage this moment with kindness or with cruelty, with love or with fear, with generosity or scarcity, with a joyous heart or an embittered one?
The Rabbi tells us that this is our choice and that no one can make it for us. If we choose kindness, love, generosity, and joy, he says, then we will discover in that choice the Kingdom of God, heaven, nirvana, this-worldly salvation. If we choose cruelty, fear, scarcity, and bitterness, then we will discover in that choice the hellish states of which so many religions speak …...Heaven and hell are both inside of us.

 It is our choice that determines just where we and our world will reside. 

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A Time of Celebration

18/12/2017

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We’re in the busy run up to Christmas.  Many people complain about it but I like the hustle and bustle of this time of year – the bright lights and decorations, the crowds carrying interesting looking parcels, the exchange of gifts and cards and the joy of seeing families enjoying time together. It’s not like this for everyone of course. For many people it’s a time of loneliness and isolation, too poor for a roof over their head, not enough for basic food. Our streets have now more beggars than ever before and for many people the razzmatazz only makes their own situation worse.  

And yet at its heart Christmas is about poverty and simplicity. It remembers the birth of a baby, born away from home, in poor circumstances and forced into exile because of the hostility of the authorities. It’s not really possible to celebrate Christmas in a religious way and not be conscious of those less fortunate than ourselves, of our brothers and sisters who are deprived and of those areas of the world torn apart by conflict and violence.  This is what moves many Christians to simplify their celebrations – cutting back on the amount of money spent on cards and gifts, sharing a meal with a stranger, giving money to charity, organising dinners for the homeless. It in no way diminishes the joy of celebration or the expression of love for dear ones. What it does do is remind us of the true meaning of Christmas.

For many people Christmas doesn’t have any religious significance at all.  It’s cultural – still a family time to brighten up the cold, dark winter days, a time to send cards and contact friends, a time to exchange gifts and  share a family meal, a time of joy and celebration.  The externals are the same but the motivation and meaning behind it all quite different. While in many city centres there are nativity scenes, it’s not the centre of the cultural celebrations and in some instances group or staff Christmas dinners and celebrations are now called festive dinners, winter festivals or whatever. In my experience it’s not usually people of faith who ask for this change. They’re usually happy to call this festival Christmas and remember it’s Christian origins  but it’s those with no religious affiliation or feel there should be no public display of religion who object. Sometimes it can be local authorities who feel that in this secular age they have to be neutral and show no partisanship to any one religion. It’s a sign that Christendom has broken down even if the celebrations are a remnant left over from it.

Christianity is not the only faith celebrating at this time.  For the past week the Jewish community has been celebrating Hanukkah. It’s an eight day festival which remembers a time of religious oppression when the Maccabees liberated the Jewish people from the domination of the Syrian king Antiochus and purified the Temple in Jerusalem. Wanting to light the menorah to celebrate the rededication of the Temple they found enough oil for only one day but miraculously it burned for eight days until the oil could be replenished. Hanukkah celebrates this miracle by burning candles each night for eight days – one candle on day 1, two candles on day 2 and so on until eight candles are burning on day 8. It’s also a time of gift giving and eating traditional foods like latkes and doughnuts cooked in oil.

 It’s important that the Hanukkah candlestick or menorah is placed in a window or public place and there are now many large menorahs set up in cities around the world with one in the Scottish Parliament. These menorahs with their lighted candles celebrate the miracle of the oil in the Jerusalem Temple but they also celebrate religious freedom, are a protest against religious discrimination and oppression and a reminder of the importance of recognising and accepting difference – lessons for all of us and not just for the Jewish community.

The Sikhs too are celebrating this week. It’s not a festival as such but friends from Scotland are joining a party of UK Sikhs going to India for the last of the year- long festivities marking the 350th anniversary of the birth of their tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh who founded the Sikh community and ordained that on his death the Sacred Scripture of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib was to be the only source of authority for the community. The 250 people travelling to Patna will be responsible for feeding those attending the events – and this means something like 10,000 people each day. A friend showed me photographs of the pits being dug to accommodate the fires needed for cooking. It will be an amazing achievement but these Sikhs are no strangers to providing food for thousands of peoples. They did it at the 2004 Parliament of World Religions in Barcelona and do it happily and cheerfully in the spirit of service which is at the heart of Sikhism.  Guru Gobind Singh was born in Patna in India and we have a village of that same name here in Scotland. It was established in 1802 by William Fullerton to provide housing for workers on his estate. He called it Patna after the city of Patna in India where he was born when his father worked for the British East India Company – an interesting Scottish-Indian connection.  

So as we celebrate Christmas at the beginning of next week we can do so against a backdrop of these other celebrations which have an important message for all of us and those brothers and sisters who are less fortunate than we are and suffer from poverty, loneliness and grief as well as war and persecution. We can hold all of them in our hearts.

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A Brave New World?

1/12/2017

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We only see what we want to see.  There’s so much of life that passes us by because we’re just unaware of it and miss signs to it.  Partly this is due to our human limitations that cannot take in all the stimuli that’s presented to us and needs to filter out what’s either important to us or what’s necessary for our day to day living. But once something comes to our attention we tend to see it everywhere. I feel like this about artificial intelligence. I can’t say I didn’t know anything about it but I had relegated it to the confines of science fiction, much of which is rapidly coming true.

I first seriously faced the challenge of AI when I read Yuval Harari’s books, Sapiens and Homo Deus in which he outlines the revolutions Homo Sapiens has passed through in our evolution to be the most developed species in our world today.  The challenge comes from the technological revolution that we are facing today. This could take us beyond who we are at the moment to develop into a new species that is trans-human. I first heard this word a few years ago when I heard a series of lectures by a Franciscan sister, Ilia Delio. Sr Ilia is a scientist who reflects theologically on new developments in science trying to show that science and religion are different languages with much in common and which are trying to find meaning in the same reality i.e. life as we know it today. In her short course she mentioned that scientists are talking about trans-humans and the word has niggled at me ever since. I wish now that I had asked her to expand on it but the moment passed and I didn’t do it.  Now though I understand what she means, having read Harari and having become aware of the many articles and television programmes that are around about artificial intelligence and robots being built to resemble human beings and to think to the extent that they can win in a chess game with a grand master.

This is a new world which challenges many of the concepts of religion and raises the questions that have faced humanity since its birth: what does it mean to be human, what do we do with the possibilities and capabilities that are opening up to us, what is the purpose of life, where is God in all of this, is God’s purpose and plan for humanity that we should transcend our humanity to become cyborgs, what are the values that should drive these developments? There are fundamental questions that religion needs to reflect on, I think.  And it’s happening.

Recently there was a symposium organised by the Pontifical Council for Culture on Science and Religion. The theme was “The Future of Humanity: New Challenges to Anthropology”. Presentations came from leading experts in the fields of medicine, genetics, neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Many of the development in these areas are good and beneficial and Pope Francis expressed his appreciation of science emphasising, as a person of faith would “this appreciation of the sciences finds its ultimate foundation in the plan of God, even if the Church has not always known how to express it” when he addressed participants at the end of the symposium.  But what is this plan of God? For Pope Francis, as for Jesus and for the major religions of the world, well-being is at the heart of it – the well-being of humanity, of all sentient beings and of the very world and universe within which we live.  The Pope said,” science like any other human activity has its limits which should be observed for the good of humanity itself and which requires a sense of ethical responsibility”.

This sense of putting the human person at the heart of new scientific developments is similar to the  responses of others writing and responding to  the challenge of current scientific developments. I believe this with my whole heart but we live in a world that is characterised by individualism, materialism and, it would seem to me, anything that can be developed is developed with no consideration of the consequences. How is the ethical voice to be heard? Where is the dialogue between science and ethics taking place in a way that will make a difference to our future? I ‘m not saying the dialogue between science and religion because there are many non-religious people (and scientists, I’m sure) who would have these same concerns and want scientific developments to be for the benefit of humanity. This is a dialogue which is wider than that between science and religion but one in which religion has something important to say.

 But how is this to be done? One of the participants in the seminar, Eric Salobir OP, is reported to have captured the sentiments of the other participants when at the end of the second day he posed the crucial question: Do we have the collective capacity to steward the technologies?” And another participant, Mustafa Suleyman suggested that there’s a vacuum of a strong coherent ethical voice in the world in relation to the new technologies. “We urgently need a forum to have this conversation about who’s responsible for these machines. It’s important that we assert the imperative of meaningful human control over machines”, he said.
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There’s a new dream and a new world emerging. Thank God religion is involved in considering it and that it’s coming to the attention of all of us. We’re surrounded by technologies and many of them are good but it’s important for us to remember that human beings are at the centre of it all and that personal contact and encounters can help humanise our world and our future

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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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