I guess I’m not alone in sometimes being mystified by myself and my reactions. I want to be a peace-maker – yet I sometimes lose my cool, and can provoke others to rage, without meaning to. I am part of an inter-faith committee in Geneva, Switzerland, the city where I live. We’ve built up some good friendships, relationships across divides – but the tensions in the world beyond our borders often touch us. Which is no big surprise. At one meeting, with a full agenda, I was trying to hurry things along, to encourage the chair to cut short a debate that I saw as going round in circles. Two Muslim friends stormed out of the meeting, one of them saying that they’d had enough of colonial attitudes…
I can easily forget that I’m British, and that others may see in me part of the colonial past that for me is ancient history, not personal experience. I also learned afresh that some old hurts lie like nerves very close to the skin, and I forget that at my peril.
At another meeting, a Buddhist nun made a for me rather patronising remark about the monotheistic faiths being responsible for so much of the violence in the world, unlike her own more pacified tradition. I hit back with ‘What about Buddhist religious extremism in Sri Lanka?’ I knew nothing, I was told, the Buddhists were simply defending themselves and responding to Hindu terrorism. And I was off into another spiral of anger and violence of my own. And again, I had to swallow my pride and apologise.
But I’d rather go through the anger and apologies, and live in the real, than just avoid all conflict and resolutely stick to the polite and superficial.
Andrew, I love your conclusion. For more in the same vein, I thought this was a great article in the March/April Tikkun: “And I, Where Do I Come? Experiences in Jewish-Muslim Dialogue” by Rabbi Zalman Kastel at http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/may2010kastel. Opening paragraphs:
“I am sitting next to a South Lebanese Shia Imam at a conference of Australian religious leaders. We are listening to Bishop Shakur from the Galilee at the state parliament in Sydney tell us that he is a Palestinian and an Israeli citizen but he can’t be Israeli first because he is sixty-three and Israel is only fifty-nine.
“He continues talking but I am barely listening. I hear Shakur’s comment about a fifty-nine-year-old Israel as a delegitimization of Israel, an implication that it is a colonial project. I feel a burning question: am I an appeaser or will I stand by my people? I stand up and challenge the bishop. “Can there ever be peace if you will not respect my narrative?! Because for me, Israel is not fifty-nine years old, my Jewish connection to the land goes back 3,260 years to the conquest of Canaan by Joshua!”
“This confrontation with Shakur is quite out of character for me.”
The ability to use stories in which one lost one’s cool to show how we can improve our abilities to really connect with each other, as Kastel goes on to do in that article and as you have above, is truly a mark of humility. Humility isn’t being a nonentity, a mouse, it may mean being oneself in all one’s grubby lack of splendor, like being the only one who asks the “stupid” question in class or says the “unacceptable” thing they are really thinking in a dialogue, which enables everyone to uncover the hidden elephants in the room and be real.
Religions have a problem because many religions believe that they have the answers. What is important for people is to have them find common dialogue with other religions and share the best religious practices from every religion. As a Catholic we have some best practices. A Lutheran minister wrote a marvelous book that every person should read. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote “The Cost of Discipleship.” A Presbyterian minister’s wife shared with me the name and the title if the book. Judaism and Islam have also best practices to share but the people and not the religions cause the conflicts.
Bonhoeffer is my absolute hero of the 20th Century. And indeed all the German resistance.
Surely one of the great gains of the last 20 years has been a greater willingness in the mainstream traditions to learn from one another. As a Geneva-based Reformed follower of Calvin, I am slightly amused – but not shocked -.by the fact that most of our Protestant chapels now have an icon somewhere.
A lot of people – pick peace over over reactions – BUt some when faced with – there just going to keep doing the same-ole same-ole – and reactions to anger – a-just – to such in some – When they act like a drunk druggy – same-ole same-ole talk – anger then becomes a second Nature to such actions .
When the poor are treated as such – each time – Anger then becomes the first response – any other peacefull response – has become useless.
I grew up on the rez – and They used to come ride around at night on the rez – and run people over – Talking to them would have solved nothing – But a baseball bat and a lot of nights out walking – The roads – solved that problem . You see take today – there are those – who have self preservation over all – and that goes fare beyond there own salvation – To flat out greed – and they know – they do wrong – thats why there fear so much – when are they going to show up with the Bats. and it only becomes a matter of time – before – some are kicking there door in with a Bat. Then the abuser – becomes the vic ..
I just read a fascinating article by (veteran participant in “religious dialogue”) Farish Noor over at Aliran (Malaysian Human Rights media group) which I believe hits the nail on the head about the failure of religious dialogue – and offers hopeful direction as to where the Left could better invest its energies:
“…let me state that I believe that inter-religious dialogue (as well as inter-ethnic, inter-communal and other forms of dialogue) is a useless, pointless, expensive and ultimately superficial excercise. The reason behind my own scepticism over the issue lies in the fact that I have been in this dialogue ‘business’ (and it is a business, mind you) for more than 15 years now, with no tangible results. As a consequence of having attended more than 50 conferences during this period, I have had the privilege of meeting the Pope, the Ayatollah of Iran, hundreds of Prime Ministers, Presidents, Ministers, Deans, Rectors, Professors and public intellectuals – but with little to show for it…
…Therefore my only advice to my Leftist-democrat comrades in the West is this: dont waste our time with such pathetic dialogue in a vain attempt to play to the politically correct gallery. As defenders of citizenship and the freedom of the individual, the Left has a duty to defend the values of citizenship, secularism and democracy. We are not missionaries or apologists, and we should seek our allies with like minded democrats in all communities. If we do not dialogue with the Le Pens of the world, then why should we dialogue with the Le Pens of the Muslim world too?…
…Democracy’s great service to humankind is its guarantee that we can all believe or not believe in what we do; but it is democracy that guarantees that, and not some parochial politics couched in the compartmentalised logic of communal territories or religio-ethnic parochialism“
I’m a little sceptical too. But rather ‘jaw, jaw’ than ‘war, war’. I’m all in favour of seeking ‘like-minded democrats’, but the world is not made up – sadly – of such people. Peace is coming at long last, slowly and painfully, to Northern Ireland. The British Government had to sit down and talk to the IRA. Some of the extremists had to be included and won over to a peace process.
“The British Government had to sit down and talk to the IRA”
— only after the IRA had conceded to the (then) British Government that they “could not win” using the violent methods they had, until then, employed – and became willing to participate in real peace talks.
(That’s no British Triumphalism on my part – just a historical fact; at the time, I had much sympathy with the Irish Republican goal of a united Ireland, and, like many, grew less sympathetic due to their ugly habit of targeting civilians.)
“I’m all in favour of seeking ‘like-minded democrats’, but the world is not made up – sadly – of such people”.
There are a lot more of them – in just about every country and culture in the world – than many of the professional peddlers of politicised parochial religion would like us to believe.
I omitted to state the obvious: that the “Troubles” in Ireland were rooted primarily in political conflict (Republican vs Unionist) rather than religious (Roman Catholic vs Protestant) in the messy aftermath of British colonization.
And the problems have been resolved (at least to the degree that they have)by political negotiations – not by religious “dialogue”.
Here’s the link to Farish Noor’s article at Aliran: http://bit.ly/3Rj6t1
Lovely guy, this one………..truthful with his inner shit……..no problem with truth, this one…..many thanks, love,. Tony
Hello there Tony!
Are you the same Tony Roeber who channels the marigold fairies in cockney rhyming slang whilst sailing three sheets to the wind — or am I getting you mixed up with someone else?
Anyway – lovely to see you back, sweetie!
You may want to be a peacemaker, Andrew, but until you truly know Peace in your heart your effectiveness at trying to manifest peace in the world will be very limited.
In order to effectively manifest peace in the world, a true, heart-felt realization of inner Peace needs to be the real source of all of your thoughts, feelings and actions. This needs to be your center of response to everything and everyone you deal with. Otherwise, rather than a centered response, all you have to offer is an ego based reaction whenever things aren’t going as smoothly as they might and whenever you are not functioning as skillfully as you sometimes might.
When the conditions and situation are somewhat less than ideal and when your state of being in the moment is not as high as it could be, you will be easily knocked off center and you will temporarily lose your ability to function at your highest level of skillfulness. This is how we all are. When things get difficult, we tend to lose it and behave poorly. We revert to less than ideal habitual behaviors that we’ve picked up as we’ve struggle through life.
It takes a great deal of inner work to learn, not skillful behaviors but rather the true nature of who we are – spiritual beings having a worldly experience. And our true inner nature is that we are joyful, loving, caring beings. A real inner sense of Peace arises from a realization of this. As this realization develops, more and more consistently one’s responses to others and to whatever one encounters arise as natural manifestations of this inner sense of Peace. And it becomes less and less likely that one might get knocked off center and react on an egoic level rather than respond from an essence level of being.
With all of the disparities between religious faiths, it is no wonder that the dialog gets heated and people get mad when discussing their dogmas and tenets of faith. Knowing or should I say beleiving the God is watching us, we must understand that of differences exist between our expressions of faith, these are human differences that speak to our class, culture and level of spiritual enrichment more so than any direct sense of right or wrong.
“The Truth” is ” A truth” in many cases with developed religious concepts. Over time the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church seminary drew gays to it’s registrars offices and they assembled in seminary to deal with their emotions and gender issues, accepting Gays was thought to be wise but some of them did unwise things in their ministries, sin is what this is and we all do it, and hide it.
That is why admission of sin is the best way to serve God’s role in our lives, It keeps us humble and if truth be told ,our sharing of deficiencies and human foibles as well as the more grave sins of coveting, murder and adultery lead us down the narrow path to humility and eventually, to reality. We are sinners first, then repenter, forgivers and finally humble, rather than proud servants of God..
That sense of feeling defensive about our chosen faith’s awkward or contentious practices is human nature of group pride and religious pride, but knowing that we all differ in our religious tenets we should understand that these differences represent deficiencies, not cause for debate over whom is right or wrong, the debate should be about that obvious fact that as religionists, we are all wrong about a good many things, one of them being that their is a chosen religion of God, there is not.
Religion is a pacifier that tides us over until we ascend Jacobs ladder to the top and realize that religious divisions are anethema to the maranatha of God;s will for humanity.
God’s will for us is that we are free willed. Choices lead to the slow building of any given culture or religion. Human choices based on some dubious assertions as to what God is and also nuances like the Noachide Laws of Zion, or the Books of common prayer in Episcopalian epistemology and Islam’s Koranic assertions as to what duty is to adherents, these expressions are base din historical contexts, languages and experiences based in human epics passed along through generations. Genealogies show that different people relate to the historical narratives differently and hence side shoots of faith grow into new religions based on new interpretations of life and history as pertinent to faith.
Zionist wrote a book on whom Jews could murder and why, The Catholics defend priests advances to children and acts of debauchery, the Islamics tend to accusations of violent acts in defense of their culture, womens rights etc etc, all faiths have their problems and also their virtues. Self effacement is the order of interfaith dialog if what we want out of it is truth and better lives and practices, we are asked to brag about our failings not out perceived glories. If we stick to exposing weakness as our offering of humble service to God, we do as Paul did, not honoring himself above that which God assigned him as his ministry, reaching out to all with a smile and acceptance that pride is off putting, grace in self effacement is genuine fellowship based on human love. If we love our sisters and brothers, we share our missteps and inanities, In this way we are creatures of the same family always and religion is just our temporal base of operation, not eternal bliss of perfection, that comes later…..
“You don’t belong here!” “Get out of my land/town/neighborhood.” Whether due to religion, racism, or bigotry, this attitude is incompatible with peaceful (co)existence. So your religion claims a “connection” that goes back 3,000 or more years? As a person, I go back 71 years (or even just a few seconds) and I too have a right to exist. If my family has been in a place for generations and has use (and/or legal title) to the land, then any usurper is a rogue state and can never be considered morally entitled. Of course, we all know that might makes “right” in our world, and once the power of injustice has been put down, another will rise to take it’s place. And guess what – that can be anybody. No matter if I have been wronged grievously in the past, the criteria for right and wrong do not change and I do not get a “pass” for all time to come. Religious philosophy can sometimes be encapsulated in a slogan that doesn’t even have reference to God, but is rather an expression of the god of progress, territorial expansion/colonization or what have you. “Westward Ho!” “California or Bust.” “54/40 or Fight!” “Yankee Go Home,” etc. Thus the North American religion of “Manifest Destiny” – once used to wipe out the “Indians” is now being used to cleanse the “Holy Land” of Arabs (or to remove the curse of communism from Cuba – or whatever it may be that we as a “superpower” don’t like. Or to impose “democracy” (even if unrecognizable) on other countries while we deny it and invalidate it in significant ways here at home. Thus we perpetuate the myth of our superiority and honor the gods of our own religious heritages, not being able to admit that other traditions are equally admissible or valid for many , and which are historically acknowledged and protected by our Constitution. “God bless America” (and our lucky adopted friends)…
Nearly or over 3000 Christian places of worship have been attacked during 2005-2010 in Sri Lanka by extreme Buddhist fundaemntalists led by indiciplined monks. The full list is available with the Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (EASL) . they see Sri Lanka as their country. Most of the TV and Radio channels blast Buddhist rituals ad lib from morning till evening hurting the susceptibilities of other religions stating they are false religions (Mithya Drushtika). The leadrship of mainline churches are puttiong the blame on the evangelicals for going to remote areas and upsetting the Buddhist values there. One leading priests gave an interview to the press at the height of attacks saying we in the main churches are not involved in the acts of sin of converting buddhists. The President has an Adviser on Christian Affairs who is not respected in his own denominations. He keeps quiet about these attacks for he wants to be seen as a friend to0 the perpetrators.
Soory. the number of churches attacked should be corrected as 300 not 3000. It was typing error.