Interfaith Journeys

The family were all looking forward to the wedding.  Family members on both sides travelled from various places to be there.  We all know of course that there are different ways of getting from point A to point B.  People have different preferences of routes, some preferring the motorways while others opting for the less busy roads, even if it takes a little longer.  The groom's mother and brother travelled up from the south by coach while his aunt and cousin travelled from the same place but by car.  Others travelled by various means from equally various places.  It didn't matter how they travelled or which route they took.  The important thing was to get there and enjoy the festivities of the wedding. 

In case any reader is unaware, this is the time of year that Muslims fast for Ramadan.  A few months ago there was a movement during the Christian time of Lent when a number of Muslims joined Christians in fasting for Lent.  The group called themselves Muslims4Lent and now in mutual solidarity there is a group called Christians4Ramadan.  I have been following a blog hosted by a distant relative who converted to Islam a few years ago.  Having come from a Christian background, she has a passion for Interfaith dialogue, not just between Christian and Muslim but also among those of other faiths and none.  During Ramadan, she has guests to post something of their experiences on her blog every day.  So far we have had articles written by a Christian vicar married to a Hindu, a Christian married to a Muslim, a Sikkh woman, a Buddhist experience in Myanmar (Burma), a Wiccan, a Heathen and an ex-Muslim.  
I have found all of the articles very interesting and eye-opening.  You can check for yourself here, A Hotchpotch Hijabi in Italy. 
I can almost see many Christian hands going up in horror at the thought.  Surely I've now clearly lost the plot altogether!  Actually reading some of these blog posts has made me realise that the many different faiths are each trying to live good lives, aware of the deep spiritual dimension within themselves.  Each one is obviously influenced by their culture and life experiences.  But I have been aware that we are all on a similar journey to the same end goal except that we are travelling from different starting points and going different routes and preferring different methods of getting there.  Jesus showed his love for all with interactions with the Phoenician woman (the immigrant), the Samaritan woman at the well (the one who left the true Jewish religion), the centurion whose servant was ill (the enemy, invader, part of an occupying army) and so on.  He didn't tell them to leave their way of life but still had time for them, showing compassion and helping them.  The Old Testament also has examples of interfaith living.  We are familiar with the story of Naaman the leper, an important official in the country where the Israelites were taken captive.  Moses' father-in-law Jethro was not Hebrew and Abraham acknowledged Melchizedek as a holy man.  Contrary to what many Christians think, God doesn't actually belong to us or our religion.  It's the other way around.  We as his creation belong to Him - and that includes all of humanity.  


What has challenged me this week has been words of the Heathen on the above mentioned blog.  He helps friends find their own faith even if they disagree with him and end up believing something completely different.  Would I do that?  So often we make friends with someone of a different faith really in order to convert them to ours, if we're truly honest.  We think we are right and we have the only true way and we remain friends only as long as there seems to be some glimmer of hope  that they will convert to our way of thinking and come to our place of worship.  That's the main problem in the world, that there is upheaval and wars between those of different faiths, fighting it out as if that would prove who is right.  It's not about watering-down our own faith but it is about really accepting that maybe there is more than one way; that we all belong to God; that we are all on our own different journey of faith; that God loves us all.  Acceptance, not just tolerance.  Very difficult at times but much better than killing each other to try to prove a theological argument.  As Richard Rohr says in one of his meditations this week,  'If you really believe in the values you say you believe in, then put them into practice.  Don't waste any time trying to prove someone else is wrong or evil.  Just live what you believe.'  Amen!  We are all on our own faith path of discovery and I am sure that as God guides and directs me, so he is more than capable of doing the same in the lives of others, whatever faith they seek to follow.  Having listened to the horrors on the news yesterday, I am even more certain that interfaith dialogue is a need for our time so that we can have discernment and be able to know the difference between those who truly seek to live out their faith, cultivate that spiritual inner being and seek to help others and not confuse them with those who twist and misuse the name of a religion and words of Sacred writings in order to inflict terror and killing any who don't see things the way they do.  Such people are not true to the religion they profess.  Tit-for-tat killing gets us nowhere except deeper into the horrors of war.  So, those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus, maybe it's time to put into practice the way he showed us, really follow him in actions as well as words and have a little more interfaith dialogue and understanding.  Love not hate.

What do I think?

I have been greatly impacted by a couple of videos that I've seen shared on social media this week.  The first one was a deliberate ploy to see how people would react when they discover that someone had dropped his wallet.  A number of people were very honest and immediately called after the young man to tell him he had dropped his wallet.  However there was one young man who picked up the wallet, looked around but didn't see who had dropped it so he put it in his pocket.  He then proceeded to do some shopping using a credit card that was identical to the one that had been in the wallet.  He bought a number of things before continuing on his journey.  He kept taking the wallet out of his pocket and looking through it and also phoning presumably some friend.  The man was probably in his twenties and had one prosthetic lower leg that was clearly visible and so I thought that maybe if he was classed as disabled then maybe he was struggling financially, unable to hold a full time job and so this wallet that suddenly appeared would seem like a piece of good luck for him.  Eventually the video clip ended when he actually went to the house of the person whose wallet he had found.  He was taking it back to its owner.  He had not used the credit card from the wallet but his own credit card that was identical to the one that had been dropped.  He had not used any of the money from the wallet but all the time had used his own money.  How wrong I was to prejudge the young man as were many others including the person who set up the ploy in the first place.

            

The second video that left a lasting impression on me was by a lady called Yassmin Abdel-Magied.  She began by asking what people's reactions were when they saw her dressed with a hijab and typical 'Muslim' style clothes.  Hopefully most would not judge her just because she was obviously a Muslim but would be open to listen to what she had to say.  She went on to ask what they would think of her if she said she was a mechanic.  I guess a few smiled, thinking 'no way!'  She proceeded to take off her outer garment and hijab to reveal underneath the bright orange work clothes of a motor mechanic and put on a hard hat over her hair that was tightly fastened with a scarf.  She said that actually she designed racing cars and that this was her day job.  Surprise!    She went on to talk about how often we are not openly biased but that actually deep inside we still have prejudices and biases that are so hidden that we're quite unaware of them.  She went on to tell a story of a man and his son who were in a car when they had an accident.  The father died on impact and the son was rushed to hospital.  The surgeon came to see the young man before operating but said 'I can't operate on him.  That is my son.'  I must admit that my first reaction was that the man in the car must have been his step-father.  Yassmin then went on to say that the surgeon was his mother.  Ouch! I've done it again.

The thing is that my late husband was not English, European or from North America and I lived abroad for about 10 years.  I have mixed freely with many people of different cultures and all walks of life, from highly professional to those in abject poverty.  I also have a person from my extended family who converted to Islam a few years ago.  So I really consider myself to be totally non-biased and accepting of those from other parts of the world and other cultures.  So for me these two videos made me see again that there are sometimes things that are just part of who we are and how we think because we have been brought up in a particular culture  or from a part of the world with a certain way of looking at things.  For me it was a wake-up call to check my reactions to people and situations that might concern religion, gender, sexuality or disability.  I must never presume anything about someone without getting to know them.  As Yassmin says in her talk, very often our first reactions and judgements about people turn out to be wrong.  It was also a reality check for me to not think I'm above having such reactions and thoughts.  Some things are so ingrained in us that it is difficult to acknowledge their presence.  What do I think?  I think I'm not as free from bias as I thought I was.  There is still work to be done and room for improvement.  And you?  What do you think?

Please try to make time to watch the videos.  You'll find it worthwhile.

Conundrum

I have been thinking much lately about the different religions of the world and how people of many different faiths all seem to have something valid to contribute to the overall wisdom of a belief system.  I often think that it would be great if we could somehow amalgamate all the best bits of each religion and make one belief system to suit everybody.  Is that Utopia?  A fantasy?  And yet as Christians we believe that Jesus came for the 'whole world'.  We always say that God loves everyone, so surely it is his own wish to see all of humanity living as one.  At the birth of Jesus the story tells us that the angels sang about peace and goodwill to all people.  We are also reminded that the wise men in the story came from far away eastern lands.  They did not share the Jewish faith and there is no account that they became Jewish after their encounter with the new-born Jesus.  They worshipped him and went back to their own lands.  It seems today that when it comes to religious beliefs, the world is ever more divided.  Some people of no faith reckon that the world would be better off without religion of any kind as, according to their thinking, it is religion that causes most of the wars in the world and that it is religion that breeds violence one against the other.  That's not entirely true but I can see how they reach that conclusion.



So just how can we work to bring about this unity of religious belief?  Or should we?  I am currently reading the Brian McLaren book, 'Why Did Jesus, Moses, The Buddha And Mohammed Cross The Road?', where he explores the issue of the many different expressions of faith in the world.  It is a very interesting read if you haven't already read it.  For me the great conundrum is that as a Christian I of course believe that Christianity is the only true way to God.  I accept that others find their way of expressing their spiritual beliefs but from my point of view their belief system is lacking somewhat.  It doesn't have the whole truth - of course we Christians do! (tongue in cheek!) The trouble with that concept is that most people of other religions each think exactly the same about their belief system.  So it seems we come to a sort of stale mate without any real resolution or way forward.  The conundrum is how can I who obviously believe my faith is right, not just tolerate but accept that those of other faiths have as valid a claim to truth as I have without weakening or lessening my own beliefs?


This can result of course in the sort of thing that we have seen in the past few days and weeks - killing other human beings in the name of a particular strand of a religion whose perpetrators believe that only they have the whole truth and all others are less and if not willing to convert then they should be 'punished'.  And let's be honest here - those of us in 'the west' are as guilty as any other of atrocities carried out in the name of our religion over the centuries (crusades, colonisation, 'civilization', slavery, the Inquisition  the conquistadors of South America  and so on ... ) Even as recently as the 20th century, we think of the Holocaust and the troubles in Northern Ireland.  So as a Christian what is my answer to this?  The immediate reaction for many is understandably to go and blast them, give them a bit of their own medicine as it were.  So everybody is hell bent on killing each other.  The trouble I have with this is that force and strength only prove who is more cunning in battle and has the better weapons at their disposal.  It doesn't prove who is actually right.  And God doesn't take sides in a killing spree even if we do label it a just war.  It also puts you on the same level as those you condemn - killing because others disagree with your way of thinking.  On the other hand I liked the reaction in Australia after the hostage situation in the Sydney cafe when the reaction of many people was to say 'I'll ride with you' - showing solidarity with those of other faiths without necessarily accepting their belief system.  We have also seen images of Christians defending Muslims as they go to worship and Muslims defending Christians as they went to their church buildings.  In Paris recently we have seen pictures of Muslims and Jews hugging each other as they protest and mourn together.  And so the conundrum continues and I don't really have any answers.


All I can do as a Christian is look to the example of Jesus and his teaching.  Jesus did not change religions.  He was never a 'Christian'.  He was a Jew right until his death and visited the synagogues and temple in Jerusalem right until his capture and subsequent death.  The Last Supper was actually a Jewish festival that he and the disciples were celebrating.  When he healed the servant of the Roman centurion or spoke to the Samaritan woman, he didn't say that they had to convert to the Jewish faith.  To the centurion he said that his faith had healed his servant.  What faith was that?  He was not of the Jewish faith and possibly followed Roman gods but he recognised a higher spiritual authority in Jesus and believed in him.  On that occasion Jesus remarked, 'I say to you that many will come from the east and  the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven' - was he saying people from other nations and belief systems?   He also healed the daughter of the Syro-Phoenician woman without insisting that she accept the religion of the Jews.  It appears therefore that Jesus not only accepted people just who they were and where they stood in their own particular expression of faith but never said anything about changing their religious allegiance.  They were accepted by God as they were.  God then is bigger than any one expression of spirituality and has no problem about anyone of whatever persuasion who truly seeks him.  I'm still working on it!

Culture Club

This week began, Sunday 12th October, with a day that is commemorated in many parts of the world.  It remembers the day in 1492 when Christopher Columbus set foot on soil across the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Hispaniola.  Until now, in Spain and the Americas, the day has been celebrated as a day of victory and conquest of the Spaniards over the indigenous peoples they encountered, being a national holiday with parades, ceremonies and speeches.  Recently, however there has been a move to recognize, although not officially, that it should be remembered as a day of the indigenous minority and how they suffered near extinction at the hands of the conquistadors.  Two completely different cultures and religions collided with catastrophic results.



This week in parliament there has been a vote to recognize Palestine as a state in its own right.  There has been conflict between Palestinians and Israel almost without a break ever since the Israeli Declaration of Independence, signed 14th May 1948 that recognized Israel's national home in Palestine.  Since then, Israel has celebrated the day with a holiday for all its citizens.  Again there is a similarity that one nation celebrates a victory and take-over of the land of another nation, leaving them virtually without a land they can call their national home.  The differences based on religious grounds seem insurmountable.  And so we could go throughout the world finding tribe fighting tribe, nation fighting nation because they infringe on 'their territory'.


The problem seems to be that people of a specific culture are so often intolerant of people of another culture, looking on them as evil and needing to be got rid of however that may be.   Within most religions of the world there are different sects that interpret their sacred writings in a particular way.  We are aware of how much animosity there is between Sunni and Shi'ite, noting that terrorists have mercilessly executed Muslims who are not from their particular brand of Islam.  There are other groups of Muslims that differ because of the culture of where they are living.  The same can be said of Jews, depending on whether they are European or Oriental in origin.  Oriental Jews have in the past been persecuted by other Jews but recently have become accepted by the mainstream of their religion.  Of course the same thing applies to Christians.  The differences within the same religion, let alone differences with other religions is often due to the cultural differences of where people live.  Their customs as a nation often colour their perspective on their particular religion and their interpretation of sacred writings, causing different views and practices depending on which part of the world they live in.  If I had been born and raised in India, would I be an evangelical Christian or maybe Hindu?  If I had been born in Saudi Arabia, would I be Muslim?  If so, which strand of Islam would I follow?  Is it any wonder that non-religious people blame religion for most of the wars in the world?

  
 Thinking of different cultures, I was interested to discover that the members of the successful 80s band Culture Club have a very valuable lesson to teach us.  When they first got together to form the band, they realized just what a mixed bag they were.  The lead singer Boy George was an Irish transvestite, the bass player Mikey Craig was a black Briton, Roy Hay on guitar and keyboards was Anglo-Saxon and drummer and percussionist Jon Moss was Jewish.  (Taken from Wikipedia)  Each one of them came from a completely different cultural background and so they decided to reflect this in their name - they were a club of different cultures making harmony together.  Religious people might have considered them out on the fringes of society, outrageous in their dress sense, sexuality and behaviour but if we have eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to understand, we can learn a very valuable lesson from their example. 

We need to ask ourselves which club of culture are we in, recognizing that our outlook and way of living is very much influenced by and reflects the culture of where we are living and how we have been brought up.  Wouldn't it be nice if different cultures could join together in harmony instead of killing and persecuting each other?  I might not be in a position of power to change things on a national scale or have any influence in an international debate but I can make a difference where I am.  I can live in the spirit of Culture Club, accepting others, not as wrong but just being different, making harmony instead of discord with people who might have a different idea of God from me or have different ways of.living and outlook on life.  Let's make heavenly music - together!

  

Thoughts From Down Under

Earlier this week, my elder son Martin and his partner Lisa came to visit for a few days.  They have recently returned from 3 months travelling around Australia, from Melbourne up the east coast past Cairns and then across and down from Darwin through Alice Springs, Uluru (Ayers Rock) and back to Melbourne.  We were able to share in their adventure through their many photos and stories of their travels.  I found particularly interesting the stories of the aborigines and their beliefs.  They are an ancient race having lived on that land for over 40,000 years and so their stories of creation and other spiritual beliefs go back way beyond anything we as Christians may have.  We consider their stories to be just that - stories, myths and legends - not necessarily literally true but they cling on to their beliefs that have been handed down orally over thousands of years.  

A model of a coracle type of ark as on the ancient tablet

I also watched this week a programme about 'The Real Noah's Ark' where a professor and associates reconstructed a boat according to information on an ancient clay tablet.  It was a story of a flood with instructions on how to build a boat to save a man, his family and animals.  The instructions also interestingly said that the animals were to go in 'two by two'.  This particular tablet predated our biblical story of Noah by over 1000 years.  The boat to be built was actually round, more like a coracle than the ark we think of.  Archaeologists have discovered that in that region of the Tigris/Euphrates rivers there were many such great floods in ancient times and many would indeed make super-sized coracles to save their families and belongings.  It is thought that the Hebrew exile in Babylon was greatly influenced by such stories and maybe had some effect on stories that they also handed down to their descendants.  

Uluru (Ayers Rock) is a sacred Aboriginal site but so many
lack respect for the religious views and beliefs of others as
this notice and undeterred climbers show.

We look at other spiritual traditions and think of them as fables, myths and not fact while other religions often look at our holy book in the same way.  So it seems to beg the question -  how many of our Bible stories are just that, stories that have been told and handed down over generations in order to teach some spiritual truth.  Knowing how Jesus himself was a great story teller, it seems quite possible that much of holy writings, beliefs and spiritual stories (of many different religions) are just a way of trying to explain some truth that is often difficult to put into words but are not really to be taken literally.  (I can almost sense the fundamentalists putting their heads in their hands, gasping in horror and  declaring that I have surely 'lost my faith'!)  But why do we condescendingly smile at aboriginal stories and yet are offended if others do the same to us?  Who are we to go bulldozing our way in and telling someone whose tradition is over 40,000 years old that he is wrong and we are right?  The arrogance of such an empire spirit never ceases to amaze me.

The first plane that started the Flying Doctor Service

Another interesting story that Martin and Lisa told was of Rev John Flynn.  He had been appointed to minister in the outback.  In 1912 he established the Australian Inland Mission in order to attend to the spiritual, medical and social needs of those living in the outback.  He built hospitals but is mostly remembered for implementing with a friend what has become known as The Flying Doctor Service.  His concern was that people were so isolated and his greatest desire was to help people to connect.with others.  Over the years he managed to get an aeroplane and a pilot but the problem was how people could access this service.  Another associate invented a pedal radio and so in 1929 people could call on the Flying Doctor Service.  Later transistor radios replaced the pedal kind and people were then able to contact their 'neighbours' many miles away and families were once again in touch with each other.  John Flynn was a Presbyterian minister but rather than trying to get people to travel in order to gather in one building to worship together, he saw their need and tried to meet that need right where they were.  He cared for aborigines as well as white settlers whether they accepted his Christian beliefs or not.  That is why he is remembered to this day.  That seems like a Jesus thing to do - not being consumed with the idea of getting people to meet on the Sabbath/Sunday in the synagogue/temple/church building but rather seeing a need and working to meet that need.

Mmm!  Thank you Australia for the lessons you share.  Much to ponder.    

Mam Said ...

My sister has recently made contact with a lady who used to live near to us when we were all growing up.  That started us reminiscing about her and her family.  One day, the lady who lived 3 doors away from us (the said lady's mother) came and knocked on the door of our home.  She wanted to talk to Mam.  She was obviously upset about something.  Mam invited her in, put the kettle on and 'suggested' to us that we should go outside or upstairs and do something.  We knew that that meant that we were not to be around when they were talking adult stuff!  The woman's young teenage daughter (who had recently contacted my sister)) had told her that she was pregnant, and I'm talking about the late 50s early 60s - not at all acceptable!  Mam sat and listened.  They drank tea and talked for quite a while before the woman went back to her house a little less stressed.  That young teenage daughter, now more than 50 years on, is a mother and grandmother and still very happily married to her childhood sweetheart.  The thing about Mam was that our home was open to anyone who needed help, whoever they were.  My sister and I smiled at the thought that she probably knew some intimate secret about most of our neighbours who had at some point confided in her.  She didn't preach at people or spout Bible verses at them, didn't invite them to accompany us to church on Sunday, didn't even criticise them and never repeated a confidence.  Whenever we made some snide comment about anyone, her reply was always, 'God loves everybody and so should we.  It's not our place to judge.  Our job is to help.'  She didn't just believe in God's all-embracing love, she lived it.

The death of Atahualpa, ruler of the Incas

The news recently has had much to concern us about terrorism, kidnappings and persecution.  Many are sharing thoughts and prayers for Christians who are in such a position in Iraq, and rightly so.  How dreadful that they should be threatened with death just because they don't want to accept the religious biases of their captors.  I couldn't help thinking though about many centuries ago when Christians did the same thing.  We are often reminded of the crusades and how still today they are remembered by many but we sometimes forget about the persecution of those of other faiths during the Spanish Inquisition and hardly ever think about the thousands of Incas who were slaughtered because they couldn't understand the Trinity and didn't want to embrace Christianity.  They were a peace loving race of people who had a very good way of life when they were suddenly invaded by a people who had travelled thousands of miles across the ocean, killing and stealing as they went.  All who didn't accept their way of Christianity were mercilessly annihilated.  The verse 'he who is without sin let him cast the first stone.' comes to mind.  


I am not saying that we shouldn't be concerned and intercede for those we love, those who belong to our particular religious group.  Of course we should.  But sometimes I think it is easy to feel that somehow God is more concerned about Christians than others.  We often don't give a second thought about a situation unless some westerner or Christian is involved as though somehow it's not as bad if someone from another religion is suffering but woe betide if it happens to a Christian!  Let us be clear, God is not a Christian.  God is God.  God doesn't love Christians more than he loves anyone of another religion.  It's like, yes, but God leans more in favour of Christians than other religions surely.  After all we accept his son as Saviour, others don't.  The story of the Prodigal Son tells us differently.  God loves all whether we accept his ways or not, remain within his household or reject him.  We are all equal in the eyes of God and he never stops loving us, no matter what.  Jesus cried out to God to forgive those who killed him.  God is Love, all-encompassing and unconditional Love.  Of course He hates the persecution of Christians.  He also hates the persecution of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists or any other religious group.  People suffer persecution for many reasons.  How many times have we heard of  a young woman being killed to restore some idea of 'family honour' when she didn't want to marry the man of her parents' choice?  The 200 young schoolgirls are still missing in Nigeria, taken into captivity just because they were female and seeking to be educated and going to school.  Homosexuals are being killed in parts of the world just because of their sexuality.  There are those who are persecuted because of their nationality/tribe or shunned and left to die because of some disability.

God's love is all-embracing,  all-inclusive, unconditional.  I ask God that he will help me to not be narrow-minded, thinking only of my own particular religious group but

to see all people as he sees them,  be concerned for all his creation, wherever they are and pray for all who are persecuted for whatever reason.  As Mam said, 'God loves everybody and so should we.' 

Ramadan for Christians?

Although I have mentioned before about the gospel being all-inclusive and that God loves everyone, my mind has turned to it again this week.  I think that maybe this is as a result of it being Ramadan for Muslims and (as I have also mentioned before) I have someone in my extended family who is Muslim.  I have been thinking about her and following her blog as she writes about her experiences during this time of fasting. (You can click onto her blog here.)  We know that God loves everyone but I must admit that Christians particularly in the western world, believe this with a sort of condescending, patronising attitude of ‘yes but we have the truth’ as though we have the monopoly on the truth.  I say this having been guilty of this same attitude myself.  We tend to look at Muslims with a certain western arrogance.  And so this week as I rethink some of my attitudes and realise that I really know very little about Muslims or Islam, I thought that this would be a good time to try and learn more.

 

Rashid Kahn

Earlier this week I watched a programme called A Very British Ramadan. (You can find it here.)  It lasts just over 24 minutes - sorry about the adverts in the recording.  It is presented by Rashid Kahn, a Muslim with a very northern accent!  What I found quite surprising was how everyone seemed to be actually looking forward to the month of fasting – no food or water from sunrise to sunset.  After sunset the subsequent meal (iftar) is very important.  Many meet together, almost in festive mode and share the meal together.  They break the fast with dates and water and then whatever meal they want.  Some of those of Asian ancestry keep up family tradition but there was a group of very English Muslims, who had converted as hippies in the 1960s, and they celebrated together with vegetable soup! 

 

But Ramadan is not just about fasting and eating in the hours between dusk and dawn  but about prayer and charity to others.  There was a group of Muslim bikers (!) who stopped at a café and knelt down on the ground and prayed.  They were doing a charity ride to raise money – not for a Muslim charity but for Great Ormond Street Hospital.  There were those who shared food with neighbours as a gesture of charity towards others and those of other faiths.  One 24 year old young man was looking forward to part of the time (10 days) when he would be in solitude, praying and reading.  He was looking forward to what God (Allah) would be saying to him and what changes he would need to make afterwards to fulfil God’s will.  He said,

Seclusion is everything.  All hope, all fear of the world, worldly attachments and so on are removed and the only thing you care about is the love and mercy of God and 10 days pure – you and your Lord.

 

So I learnt that Ramadan is not just about fasting from food and drink.  It’s not merely a tradition that must be obeyed.  It’s more – it’s about charity, doing good, looking beyond the physical to our spirituality, learning where we need to improve etc.  I feel Christians could learn a lot from our Muslim friends.  I know of times when Christians have used the prayer and fasting thing more as a kind of spiritual bribe for God to do our bidding rather than it being for us to draw closer to learn what God wants to say to us.  For many the time of Lent is more about doing without sweets or some luxury rather than a time to hone our spiritual appetite.  These times should not be in order to fulfil some expectation that others may have of us or that we may appear somehow more holy by doing them (that is a sanctimonious, self-centred reason if ever there was one!) but for real spiritual growth.  I know that God does not love us more because of our efforts – He loves us just because He is Unconditional Love.  That is His nature.  I am not saying either that we should be tied to such disciplines as a necessary part of our communion with God but I feel that there is maybe a place for such times of discipline.  The mystics and the old Desert Fathers certainly thought so and I know that when I have carried out a 30 day Daniel fast (eating as Daniel and his friends did in the Old Testament) I found it of great spiritual benefit and could understand why those in authority took notice of Daniel and his friends.

 

It’s not about watering down my faith and beliefs to accommodate others – not at all!  There are points where I may disagree with Muslims but I think that if I am trying to understand people of other faiths, then at least I need to accept that for some people, this is a way that they connect with God.  Or as Richard Rohr so succinctly puts it,

When another’s experience of God isn’t exactly the way I would describe it, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t had an experience of God or that their experience is completely wrong. … … Could it not be that this Hindu, this Sufi, this charismatic, this Jewish woman has, in fact, touched upon the same eternal Mystery that I am seeking? Can’t we at least give one another the benefit of the doubt? I can be somewhat patient with people who think they have the truth. The problem for me is when they think they have the whole truth.

 

I feel that in the end what matters is that we connect with God in whatever way we feel is right for us.  I’m sure God accepts the prayer of a person regardless of their background – He looks on the heart.  I’m sure that He who is Unconditional Love doesn’t just listen to Christians and ignores everyone else.  Maybe I should try to understand others more from their point of view; see them how they are and not how I think they ought to be; see them as God sees them; not be judgmental towards others; be more willing to learn from others, whoever they are.  I am still learning.