Passover, Freedom and Interfaith      

 

I will confess it.  I’m in Seder heaven.  Last Saturday night was the first night of Passover and I had good friends over for the Seder.  It was a rather Jewish event.

 

This Sunday is the last day of Passover (an eight day holiday) and I’ll be leading an Interfaith Seder.  It will be in our social hall rather than the sanctuary, as we’ll all be seated around a horseshoe of tables, considering freedom from several points of view. 

 

I love Passover.  I love it so much that it caused problems when I was a youth.  My father’s Passover was much more about the food and much less about the why.  In the end, I left the family Seder and held a Seder at my own house.  It was that important to me to take the day seriously.  The first serious piece of music I composed was a cantata for Passover.

 

I love the idea of setting aside a day to remember freedom – not the rah, rah, fireworks and noise freedom of the Fourth of July, but the gut-level freedom felt by a former slave.  The Passover ritual asks that we never forget that we were slaves once in Egypt.  It demands that we consider ourselves as just having been freed.  It demands that we remember the bitterness of slavery.  It demands that we remember just what one human being is capable of doing to another.  It calls us to remember that we all deserve the right to worship as we choose.

 

Which by no odd coincidence takes me to what is on my mind.  A part of the ritual I know prays for the universal Passover.  Praying is good.  Praying is important.  But it is not enough.  An axiom from my youth: praying will never get you half so far as putting the right foot in front of the left.  Or, if you prefer it more conventionally: the Lord helps those who help themselves.

 

But even here a question.  When we pray for the universal Passover, do we mean it?  When we pray for freedom for our brothers and sisters it begs the question: just who do we consider, truly consider, our brothers and sisters?  Forget, for a moment, what we think we should believe: where do we live on this issue?  And what do we do about it?

 

Here’s another question.  How do I move from my interest in freedom for me and mine to devotion to freedom for all of us? … Which is yet again a permutation of that  fundamental Interfaith question.  How do we get from “me” to “we?”  In a culture that has all but deified the consumerism epitomized by “me,” how do we get from “me” to “we?”

 

Passover is not a time for answers.  Passover is a time for questions.  Simple questions like, “Why is this night different from all other nights?”  And harder questions like, “What are we doing to help bring about the universal Passover?”

 

Happy Passover!

A Good Question

 

I received a question through the “comment” page of this website that’s worth some consideration.

 

“How can a humanist or atheist bring something to the table in an interfaith gathering that is not immediately insulting and rejected (even if the message bearer is respectful and loving)?”

 

I don’t know what kind of “gathering” is being referred to (helping the homeless? an interfaith service?), so by definition this will be a somewhat generic reply.  The first response is what not to bring to the table (and this is true for Christian, Jew, Muslim and Buddhist as well as Humanist): and that’s a statement that implies, “I know what’s ‘true’ about God and you don’t” (no matter how respectful and lovingly it’s put).

 

For me, Interfaith gatherings can much too easily become at best an exercise in tolerance.  Not that tolerance is a bad thing (it’s certainly better than intolerance!) but it’s not very productive.  When I only “tolerate” what the other person says (regardless of how respectfully I proclaim how “right” I am), I’m not really listening.  As they say, “The lights are on, but nobody’s home.” 

 

I believe we need not only to be respectful of but also respect each other’s spiritual paths.  As a mundane analogy, I live near but not in Seattle.  I have my favorite way to get to the city (south on I-5, unless it’s rush hour).  But that “path” makes no sense to someone who’s coming from Bellevue.  And it would be nuts for someone who lives, say, in Tacoma to drive north, passing Seattle, just so s/he could turn around and take “my” path, which is to drive south on I-5.

 

In short, you need to drive from where you live.

 

In spiritual terms, Jesus, the Buddha, Hillel, Mohammed, those who put together “The Humanist Manifesto,” and many, many other voices have tried and tried again to teach us to reach out to each other, and to treat each other with love and with compassion.  A Theist may believe that Humanism has been divinely inspired towards love.  A Humanist may believe that Theists are inspired not by God but a call to compassion made mystical.  I believe that the goal is love, compassion and a world at peace, and I have no vested interest in your travelling south on I-5 to get there. 

 

Some people will then argue that what we believe doesn’t matter.  But it does.  Of course it does.  I am who I am because of what I believe.  What I believe helps and sustains me.  What I’m saying is that what you believe may put you on a different path than mine, and if that path leads you to love and compassion then I’m certainly not going to argue or worry about whose spiritual path is “better.”  That, to me, is Interfaith. 

 

So, back to your question.  If a Humanist brings to the table: “God’s a fairytale; but let’s work together” I don’t see much positive happening – even if it’s said more respectfully, such as, “I know God doesn’t exist, but I respect your right to believe what you will.”  That’s just a polite way of saying, “I believe you’re deluded, but I respect your right to be so.” – which is patronizing, not respecting, another’s spiritual path.

 

One of the pieces of baggage you bring with you, even if it’s not your baggage is that some Humanists have been every bit as self-righteous and evangelical as some Theists.   They have used “interfaith” situations as a platform to argue to “rightness” of their path.  It is NOT your fault (at least I hope it isn’t J), but more than a few people have found themselves pre-programmed by past experience when meeting a self-identified Humanist at an interfaith gathering to say, or at least feel, “Oh good grief, we’re going to spend the whole night arguing?”

 

A productive interfaith gathering requires cooperation and intention.  Which means it’s not just up to you!

 

But if everyone at the table is able to get to: “We have arrived here from many paths.  Let us acknowledge, respect and wonder at the diversity of the paths that brought us here, let us perhaps learn a little more about each other and let us do whatever it is we’ve come here to do.” – then you’ve got something.

 

Bottom line: it can be very hard to respect a spiritual path that is not our own.  If it were easy, I wouldn’t have a job!  Interfaith requires work and intention.  Interfaith is more than my respecting the person.  It’s also my respecting that person’s spiritual path, if it leads to compassion and love, even if I don’t agree with it. 

 

Hope this helps.  For a MUCH longer examination of this and other interfaith and Interfaith issues, you might take a look at “The Gift of Living Interfaith.” 

In Praise of Choir

 

Tonight, a bit of a diversion.

 

I will admit to being in the midst of a love affair.  I was reminded of this last Sunday and again last night both during and after rehearsal.  I love my choir.  We rehearse once a week, and while I willingly confess that sometimes it truly seems that their sole purpose in life is to drive me nuts: I love my choir.  And while I am quite fond of individual members of the choir, that’s not the same thing.  A choir is a living, breathing entity.  Or at least it can be.  It is a whole and caring community.  Or at least it can be.  Ours is.  And I am grateful.

 

Granting it’s early April, and granting too that June is nearly two months off, I spent much of today thinking about choir and particularly about the Service of Song my UU choir will sing the first Sunday in June.  Instead of responsive reading, we’ll have responsive singing (thanks to the wonderful "Singing in Harmony" music of Joyce Poley).  Our readings will be sung.  The call to worship will be sung.  The benediction will be sung.  Just about everything except the announcements and sermon will be sung…and I keep threatening to chant the sermon!

 

Ah, the sermon.  I get the day off from talking about interfaith and Interfaith.  I only have to talk about music.  A sermon about music.  That is a joy.  Still work – any decent sermon, even one on music takes work – but a joy.  I’ll undoubtedly talk about song.

 

Song brings us together like nothing else can.  It brings us together even if we can’t carry a tune in a bucket!  I think that’s why chants and hymns have played such an important part of how we create the spiritual.

 

And there’s choral music.  There is something wonderful and spiritually gratifying about singing in community, where each member of a section depends on the other, where each section depends on the sense of community of the other sections. 

 

They say all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  I realize that music is not only my joy it is my play.  I need it.

 

Interfaith has become my call.  I need to be a part of trying to nudge the world towards peace and towards love.  The only way I personally can do that is through Interfaith, and trying to help nudge us towards truly respecting each other’s beliefs.

 

But I also need choir.  I need music.  I need the straight-on connection to the spiritual side of life that for me comes only through song.

 

I am blessed, truly blessed being a Minister at the Interfaith Community Church and Director of Music at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.  Though, of course, I do muddy the waters.  I now sometimes preach at my UU Fellowship, and lead a tiny but dedicated choir at my Interfaith Church.

 

The truth of it is, I don’t think I know how to do ministry without music.  Nor do I know how to do music without ministry.  Nor would I want to try.

Ponderings

 

A humbling week.  On so many levels!

 

I was reminded this week once again of how important health is.  I went through three weeks of meds five weeks ago, trying to get rid of a persistent sinus infection that was fogging my mind.  Went off the meds two weeks ago and now the infection’s back.  I’ll now be on meds for at least another month.  I have friends with cancer, a friend and fellow minister who is battling a vicious immune disease, but still carries on, and I’m knocked for a loop by the return of simple sinus infection.  Humbling.

 

Meanwhile I’ve been reading “I and Thou” for the third time and this time (with the help of a book by Kenneth Kramer) it’s sinking in.  And here’s Martin Buber, trying to (does this sound familiar?) get us to engage in true dialogue with each other. 

 

And I realize yet again, that this is not a new problem.  Perhaps I can add something to the conversation.  But it’s been a very long conversation!  And I’m no Martin Buber.  Humbling indeed.

 

It also makes me realize, yet again, that the problem isn’t intellectual.  That, I think, is the core of the matter.  It’s not that on some intellectual level we as humans haven’t seen the problem.  We recognize that we are inclined to divide ourselves; that we tend to depersonalize those not in “our group;” that we are more comfortable with I-It interactions than I-Thou.  But we have failed to make this intellectual cognizance part of our hearts, our “spiritual practice” if you will.

 

And yet the Dali Lama is coming to Seattle in but a week, and there has been wonderful action on nurturing “Seeds of Compassion”  (www.seedsofcompassion.org).  

I was at a meeting with some wonderful activists in the area just the other day.  High energy.  Real dedication.  And at the meeting, in the middle of my rereading Buber, I’m introduced to something called the “Conversation Café”  (www.conversationcafe.org) whose whole purpose is deeper conversations, which means, among other things, respectful and deeper listening to each other.  What a concept!

 

And yet I couldn’t help but notice who wasn’t at the meeting…namely where were the mainstream ministers, rabbis, clerics?  Good, bright, dedicated, caring people were at the meeting.  But good, bright, dedicated, caring people were also not at the meeting.  Is this one more example of our inability to talk to each other?  I can’t help but feel both hopeful and yet also frustrated at the very same time. 

 

As it happens, I’m giving a sermon this Sunday at my Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Marysville.  One thing I'll be talking about is how we love to divide ourselves, particularly in terms of our beliefs.  Even we who are struggling mightily to unite humanity, seem to be divided. 

 

How do we work together?  How do we change a human paradigm of division so visceral that we rarely if ever recognize it? 

 

I have a wonderful “Spiritual Path Friend” (my term) whom I see every two months.  At our last meeting she urged me to consider not just the head but the heart as I write my book on Interfaith.  I’ve been pondering what she meant since then.  I think I have a better handle on it. … on what she meant, not how to do it!! 

 

Lastly, I cannot end this entry without noting that today is the 40^th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..  I had to be reminded of it.  But I still remember that terrible night, when I first heard.  And I still remember hearing the assassination of Bobby Kennedy on the radio not many weeks later.  Forty years have passed and I still cannot see a flag at half-mast without my first thought being, “Who have they murdered now?” 

 

The mind plays tricks.  I remember Dr. King as being so much older.  But he was only 39.  Bless his name and his memory.