Some Reflections,
I sit here now several hours after I first felt the need to write. I took my time, I allowed myself to breath and to reflect, and to do other items that I needed to do, but now I break from that and come back here to write what is on my mind, maybe even on my heart….
This morning I went to school for morning prayer as I do most Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was this morning prayer that caused me to think and to reflect, and lead to thoughts and ideas as I walked home from school afterwards. Before I get started in expressing my experience today, I feel the need to express some background. The morning prayer is liturgical in nature, and pulls from that which is common from the liturgical traditions. During the week for prayer for Christian Unity (Jan 18-25) on each day (except for the weekend) morning prayer was held, rather than just the normal Tuesday/Thursday. Also each day we had a different tradition put together the service. Those that are liturgical in form of worship presented different but similar morning prayer experience to that of the normal Tuesday/Thursday morning prayer, the non liturgical ones to varying degrees incorporated elements of the morning prayer, though at times in different ways. We had people from, Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian and American Baptist traditions planning and presiding over these prayer/worship experiences.
With each service, I felt a sense of connection, of unity… even when the form of worship was different than my various “norms,” in a couple of them statements were made that I theologically did not agree with, and if they fell in something that all were asked to say together, I remained silent and was in personal prayer. But no matter what.. I always felt a sense of conectiveness and unity. Connected to one another and to the Divine. I have also felt these things in the evening services I have been part of, and in many of my classes here at STM. I have also throughout my life experienced this sense of conectiveness as I have encountered other religious traditions outside the Christian family of traditions, though in these other experiences the language I have used to express that connection, and the Divine may not be remotely similar to what they would say to reference it.
Then today, I came to morning prayer… Looking forward to it, for it is a part of my week that I have come to cherish… I am more faithful to morning prayer than I was to Monday Morning Devotions at GU (I didn’t miss may of them… but morning prayer I haven’t missed since I started going, and I started attending on the 3rd or forth one this school year), for I have found it to be a great practice for me on my spiritual journey. I came out, without the sense of community I normally have, without the sense of calm, or peace, of love, of connection.
Today the Universalist Unitarians (Maybe its the other way around) prepared and presided over this service. I came out unfilled, empty, lacking, and did not sense that sense of unity an connectiveness and sense of community. Odd in a way, as they seek unity between people and community, equality… embracing people of different perspectives and ideas and ways of relating… yet somehow n trying to accommodate have lost. Or at least for me it is lost, that which I sense when in various Christian settings, in various settings of other faith traditions, and in inter-faith settings. It seems odd to me, for in some many experience I have felt some uniting connection, and in this one I don’t, yet with individuals who are members of it I have had experiences when sharing in conversations of that unity, but not in this worship experience… I was also saddened, as we did not at the end share the peace, as we normally do… and thus the shaking of hands, the hugging of one another was not there….
maybe it was due to the missing of what I expected, or maybe it was just an off morning for me…
On Another Note,
I was reading a book that I have to have read by tomorrow called One Earth Many Religions: Multifaith Dialogue & Global Responsibility before I stopped to write this post. As I was reading I started to think about the approach to multi faith dialogue. It came in part do to the chapter near the start where the author talks of different problems, challenges, pitfalls… of the pluralist approach. I think we tend to forget one key step, that is getting to know each other. We tend to go “okay this is you, this is me, there are poor people, there are people starving, we are doing x, y and z which aren’t good for the whole, how can we work to gether for the betterment of the whole, to fix these problems, what does your tradition have to offer, what does mine..) but we never go “Who are you?” and never say “this is who I am” and “This is what I understand you are from what you have said, am I correct?” and “yes you are, or almost, but, or No, I think you misunderstood”
We need to schedule a time were representatives from various traditions come together, sit around in one big “circle” and each one say “This is who we(the tradition they re from) are”, then everyone else goes “This is what I hear/understand of who you are” and the first responding to clarify if needed. Once everyone has shared, continue doing this type of approach to express what each tradition feels they have to offer other religious traditions, and what they see the other traditions have to offer them,” Doing all of this in a spirit of openness and respect, and with a willingness to allow others to see things differently than you, without going “Your right, I’m wrong,” or “Your wrong, I’m right” though maybe “We are both right” or “we are both wrong” or “we are neither right nor wrong” or “we are both right and are both wrong” would be okay. Allowing the other traditions to give us greater understanding of our own traditions, and our role in the larger community.
Then once we know each other, then maybe we can figure out where and how we can address what we each see as needing to be addressed in the world.
but right now we seem to often forget that first part and jump right to the second.
Peace
— Lyle II