Merton's Vision: Transfiguration, Transformation and Transcendence

On a very unassuming street corner in Louisville, KY, just cattycorner-and-a-step behind the Catholic cathedral, Trappist monk Thomas Merton had a life changing revelation in 1958.  He suddenly saw the interconnectedness of all people, clearly, as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes.  The echoes and implications of that revelation continued to reverberate throughout the remainder of his life and in his writings.

Transfiguration: Not Cheap Grace

Thomas Merton's deep awareness of the interconnectedness of all people may be dismissed as flowery, at first glance.  I can imagine people mocking it like some kind of sentimental hippie love in, with strangers holding hands and singing kumbaya. 

It can come across as cheap grace for people to claim an instant bond of togetherness.  It seems to deny the messiness of life and the need to work hard building relationships and fostering commitment through trust.  It is like walking up to a total stranger and proclaiming love to them.  There is a kind of truth in that--an appreciation and respect for all people and a nod toward an ultimate bond we all share--but it also does not meet most definitions of love which require personal investment over time and self-sacrifice.  No matter how wonderful a vision, something is always missing without a deeper relationship.

But that is exactly why Merton's continual efforts at social justice and interfaith dialogue were so necessary.

Transformation:  Come Down From That Mountain!

Like the disciples Peter and John during the Transfiguration, Merton had a mystical experience.  This fleeting glimpse into Truth--what Christians call the Kingdom of God--can be profoundly uplifting at first.  It is tempting to want to stay there.  Further, it might even seem like an obligation to stay there.  Once you have a toehold onto something you may describe as the Kingdom--or Nirvana--or peace on earth--or Shalom--why leave that to return to the ugliness you find elsewhere?  Peter wanted to pitch tents at the spot of the Transfiguration (Luke 9:34).  However, Jesus had them all come off the mountain the next day (I owe gratitude to Fr. Ron Atwood of Columbus, OH, for pointing this out to me).

For reasons we may never understand in this lifetime, it is not our job to "live" there.  Christianity is about Incarnation--putting flesh and bones onto what we experience as spiritual.  We intuitively know there is a gap between heaven and earth--Christians call it the "fall."  We get glimpses into heaven, and then it is up to us to go back into the messiness of the world, compelled by the flickering memory of that vision, and engage in the ongoing work of bridging heaven and earth, God willing.  We are instruments of Christ in this profound work of cosmic reconciliation.

While Merton's experience may have been unusually profound, a mystical vision is not altogether uncommon.  People get glimpses into the Kingdom all the time--perhaps on retreat, doing service work or in a worship service. 

My life was profoundly changed at age 18 the first time I participated in a week-long service immersion experience at Nazareth Farm, WV.  The prayer, community, simplicity, service and solidarity I experienced that week--all holistically integrated--forever left me changed.  It was like I recognized from some deep place that this was everything I had always wanted.  It felt oddly familiar, although I had never previously considered it and had no idea I was even looking for it.  Yet, it was all right there to taste, touch and see.  I have spent the rest of my life attempting to live into the truths I experienced that week. That initial experience propelled me on a trajectory that has not subsided in the 22 years since.  While there are times I feel distant from it, looking back I see its presence strong and true. 

Why the Raincoat?

The Kingdom is both "now" and also "not yet," as Jesus described throughout the Gospels.  Yes--we are all interconnected with all people right now, but yes--it is also our job to build relationships, resolve differences, overcome divisions and grow into the future.  In other words, we ought to live like the Kingdom is now--because it is--but we are usually behaving as if it is not yet.  We are like people huddled under make-shift shelters, outfitted with rain gear, goulashes and umbrellas, when in fact the sun is actually shining warm and dry, but we believe instead in the illusion that it is raining and cold. We all look just as ridiculous as that. That is how I interpret Merton's vision.

Burden

A mystical vision can be a burden. It can cause quite a tension as we are forced to sit with the contrast between this vision of the ideal and the imperfect reality of this world.  No matter how joyful, it can quickly become sobering as it settles into the yoke of responsibility.  This is how a mystical vision in 1958 eventually brought Merton to immerse himself in (among many other things) the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and an interfaith journey with Zen Buddhism (the latter I will explore briefly below). 

It is like being the only person to witness a crime or injustice.  Like it or not, fair or otherwise, it burdens you with a tremendous responsibility to tell other people.  Based on where they are in their own journey, they may not be able to understand or even hear you, but that does not absolve you of the responsibility to give witness to it in word and deed.  You cannot make them hear, but you ought to make yourself talk. Ultimately, you would not want to do otherwise, and the joy that accompanies it may more than compensate for the struggle, but it can be difficult waking from this slumber and crawling out of bed the first time. Transformation often involves the welcome relief of shedding a skin that no longer fits your new worldview, but it can come with growing pains in the process.

Merton has long stressed the relationship between contemplation and action--that is to say, the interplay between one's prayer and devotional life with the outward actions in lifestyle and involvement in society.  In the case of this post, his devotional life led him to a moment of profound insight, and that insight then drove his outward actions from that point on. He spent the rest of his life working for the unity on earth that he experiences in his spiritual revelation.

Transcendence

Seeing the interconnectedness of all people suggests that we should do a serious evaluation of all the boundaries between people--perceived or otherwise.  It calls us to engage those boundaries.  Are they healthy boundaries creating space to allow distinct traits to shine, or are they attempting to divide what God has not intended to be divided?  Are they real or illusionary? 

This includes both exterior and interior boundaries.  Not only do those boundaries have to be encountered, but more importantly, the people behind those boundaries need to be encountered--for our sake as well as theirs.  This includes finding our own self behind our interior walls--and then finding ourselves also within others, and so on and so forth. 

This path may call us to ultimately transcend all boundaries on the path to the Kingdom, even what seems like the limits of our own faith tradition.  In this light, the interfaith path starts looking like a requirement--not just something that scholars and mystics do out of curiosity but rather something we may all be called to engage in as part of our faith journey, not as something extracurricular.  This is as if to say that the only way to live out Christianity is to transcend Christianity.  This may sound sacrilegious at first, but the testimony of spiritual masters of the faith like Thomas Merton shows that the Christian life is not as linear as we might think.  The Way of Jesus is a path marked by paradox.

The certainty that can come from religious conviction runs the risk of actually distracting us from the romance and drama--and even the core reality--of faith itself:  "Faith means doubt, and any person of faith who has never had doubt is not a person of faith.," said Morgan Aktinson at the Festival of Faiths in May, paraphrasing Thomas Merton.  There is always the risk of making a false idol out of our convictions.  Convictions may come, but faith always comes first.

Perhaps in this way Merton was aware of a deeper rhythm in the Judeo-Christian experience that goes beyond the rules and regulations of Church membership:  Jesus said he was fulfilling Jewish Law when it looked like he was breaking it.  Jesus kept including people who--through individual bias or societal infrastructure--had previously been excluded.  Jesus said to look to the lost to find ourselves.  Jesus ultimately demonstrated Resurrection through death.  Perhaps likewise, Merton found a connection to the world when it looked like he was isolating himself within a monastery.  Merton kept finding Christianity by encountering its boundaries.  The contemplative path suggests that we may all find ourselves by leaving behind what we thought was ourselves--leaving our false self to find the true. If nothing else, this exploration gives us an outside perspective.

It might be easy to guess that someone like Thomas Merton, who was so invested in interfaith exploration, would have a kind of mixed identity.  Perhaps he divided his attention between a couple of traditions and ended up only at intermediate levels of each.  Perhaps he had a watered down version of the faith.

The evidence points to the contrary, however.  The great interfaith pioneers, such as Thomas Merton, are masters and teachers in their own traditions.  It is not in spite of that, but rather because of that foundation that allows them to recognize the good in other traditions and to find that good reflected back within themselves. Merton's interfaith exploration could be seen as the result of full immersion in his tradition, rather than some kind of detour.

Benedictine monk Br. David Steindl-Rast (pictured at left, appearing via video at the Festival of Faiths) described it this way:  "Going so deeply into our own tradition that we reach the point where all traditions originate."  He described a conversation he had with Thomas Merton where the latter said, "I could not understand our Christian faith the way I do if it wasn't in light of Buddhism." 

Putting these two quotes together:  A person cannot reach this level of insight without being a master of her or his own tradition--and a person cannot become a master of her or his own tradition without exploring beyond where its reaches seem to be.  This is not cheap grace or a simple COEXIST bumper sticker, nice as those may be.  This is a conclusion gained after many years of rigorous spiritual exploration down a given path along with the bravery of taking seriously what someone outside the tradition has to offer.

Thomas Merton ultimately did not leave Catholicism but through his engagement with Zen Buddhism became a stronger Catholic.  The boundary between the two traditions was not so much broken, erased or watered down, but rather boundary itself was overcome.  He did not attempt to remove that which was distinct about either Zen Buddhism or Catholicism.  Rather, it was through that very diversity--not in spite of it--that he found the connection that ended up being a key to a locked part of himself.

The goal of reconciliation is not to erode or erase all distinctiveness to create a homogenous end product.  Rather, it is about not letting a boundary be an obstruction to seeing that it is the very distinctiveness of the other which reflects a truth back to us about ourselves.  "This is not simply dignity in difference, there is divinity in difference," said Rev. Willie D. Francois, II, in my previous post.

From Transfiguration to Transformation to Transcendence

Thomas Merton's life demonstrates so well the interplay between contemplation and action.

Merton got a glimpse behind the veil and saw that the Kingdom is right here and now.  He could also see the boundaries--real or otherwise--that get in the way of us realizing the Kingdom.  These boundaries include, but are certainly not limited to, racism, militarism, religious intolerance, and all manner walls between our own self and others.  That vision compelled him to transform his life on the path to transcending those boundaries.

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“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
-- Thomas Merton, from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

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This post is part of a series on the Festival of Faiths in Louisville, KY.  Other posts include:

Part 1:  Interfaith is a Verb
Part 2:  The Journey Out is a Journey In
Part 3:  All Others

All Others

The last post above ends with Hindu nun Pravrajika Vrajaprana sharing how her life as a nun has unfolded with her now seeing moments of spiritual connection everywhere.  Worship is not just at church or temple or in the consecrated life of nun, but rather as something that happens in the details of work and daily life and, in particular, any time she comes in contact with the "other"--especially someone she does not know or like or understand.  It is that those moments that a spiritual distance appears which a person can work to cross.  It may not be a "real" distance but rather a perceived one.  Nevertheless, the ego seems to separate us from something that is eternal and connected. 

The opportunities for spiritual journey to cross these distances are ever present around us and multi-dimensional.  In this way, Hindu nun Pravrajika Vrajaprana leads us right into this post.

This is part 3 in a series on interfaith dialogue at the Festival of Faiths in Louisville, KY.

Part 1:  Interfaith is a Verb
Part 2:  The Journey Out is a Journey In
Part 4:  Merton's Vision: Transfiguration, Transformation and Transcendence



L-R: Rev. Robert S. Harvey, Rev. Daniel Corrie Shull, Rev. Willie D. Francois, III,
Rev. Neichelle Guidy Jones, Elizabeth Jones, JD.  Photo by Festival of Faiths, cropped.

Race, Gender, Class and All Other "Other-ing"

Interfaith relationships cause us to look at one of the most perennial challenges in human society: 

How do we relate to people we consider "other"?

The Festival hosted impassioned discussions by several millennial generation African-Americans who are leaders in Baptist and Pentecostal churches as well as in law.  Through their dialogue with each other and the audience, they highlighted the many layers of sensitivity and understanding required to identify, unpack and unravel a centuries-long legacy of sexism, racism, and classism. 

I encourage people to watch it on the Festival of Faith YouTube Channel.  It is the 4-part series entitled Discovering the Self in Sacred Journey with the Other:
     Part 1  --  Part 2  --  Part 3  --  Part 4

Understanding discrimination can be a multi-layered task.  Take racism, for example.   Many white Americans hold the view that America is largely a post-racist society.  After all, we have an African-American president and many African-Americans have risen to high levels of prominence in the culture.  There may be some minor clean up work to do, but largely we are over it, they say. 

On the other hand, many African-Americans have been saying quite loudly--and consistently for years--that racism is still at the top of the list of problems in America. 

Why are we seeing things so differently?  This by itself begs for more discussion.  It suggests that the American experience is dramatically different depending on the race of a person.  Do white people not see the existence or impact of racism, or are African-Americans still fighting shadows from the past of a problem that is no longer there?  People have opinions, but it is worth wondering whether they have every been in a true dialogue before arriving at those conclusions.

Racism may seem more visible in a rigid caste system of slaves and slave owners.  It trickier to delve deeper and find the mechanisms that are under the surface in our modern society.  The panelists at the Festival of Faiths argue that American society has gone from slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration without much of an interruption.  While individuals have always had a chance of breaking out of the system and building prosperity for themselves (which even happened in the days of slavery), the underlying system of a racist society--where one race has more power and privilege than the other--is still in play.  One group is kept down by a system of discrimination, unequal treatment, domestic terrorism, poverty--and maybe more importantly, the unwillingness of the larger culture to take their concerns seriously.  These may be more subtle, but the mechanisms and their impact on people can be just as strong.  It is systemic, so even African-Americans can often participate in their own oppression.

The Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of Ferguson, Baltimore and Charleston has been bringing these issues more into the forefront than they have been for many years.  Still, there is a profound gap in American culture between the perspectives of white and black.  I encourage people to watch the videos directly, as this is a discussion that takes time and attention to unfold.  In a sound bite-driven culture, extended attention is a premium but in this case it is well worth it.  Parts 1 and 2 in particular address racism and mass incarceration most directly.

Racism is one example, but similar mechanisms exist for sexism and classism, as well.  A large body of comparative sociological data can help us identify a problem by pointing out inconsistencies, contradictions and unequal treatment.  We can show how power changes hands--or in this case, does not change hands-- over time.  But how does this relate to the realms of spirituality and religion?

Discrimination:  A Spiritual Matter

"Who Is My Neighbor?" (Luke 10:29)

Some people see reconciliation in racism, sexism and classism as part of their charitable work for social justice.  This is certainly noble, as treating people well is part and parcel of the commandments of virtually all of the religions of the world.

However, even this work can become compartmentalized and even neutralized.  As Rev. Willie D. Francois III, points out, Christian theology, for example, often focuses on Jesus as a means to individual salvation rather and personal morality than as a challenge to the social order.

Many wonderful spiritual leaders jump right in and tell us what they are doing for social change but often neglect to tell us exactly how their faith experience has led them to the point of social action.  Intuitively or otherwise, people have long held that the faith journey manifests into how we treat others.  Sometimes, however, it can be seen as tacked on to the spiritual experience as something "extra"--as if devotional practices like reading Scripture or attending worship services were the primary elements of a faith experience with charitable actions as only secondary.

Overcoming societal divisions is actually much more central to the faith experience than that.

For some, charitable deeds are an expression of gratitude toward God who has blessed them so abundantly and freely that they, in turn, want to share those blessings with others.  The role of gratitude in "paying it forward" cannot be understated, but that is a post for another time.

At some point, every mature person of faith has to wrestle with "otherness" however it may manifest.  It could be a Christian trying to relate to a Muslim; it could be a white person coming to terms with the entanglements of privilege of race; it could be an evangelical Christian in Appalachia meeting a Roman Catholic for the first time and then trying to sift through what he has heard about Catholics with the personal experience of the person he has gotten to know. 



"You never stop doing this work." - Rev. Willie D. Francois, III
Photo by Festival of Faiths, cropped.

Finding and eradicating privilege and "otherness"--both in society as well as in ourselves--takes constant vigilance.  "You never stop doing this work of overcoming what has been drilled into us," says Francois, offering a sobering perspective. While successes are possible, there are always more layers and more boundaries to overcome. 

Every person has been both a victim and a benefactor of discrimination somewhere in their lives.  The African-American men in the videos above, for example, speak strongly and prophetically about the racism they have experienced.  In the next breath, they are also willing to turn inward to explore and consider the ways that as males they themselves have had a position of privilege compared with women. 

Back to an earlier example then, if someone were to say that racism were over in America, that is more likely a sign of their denial to delve deeper than an observation of a culture change.

It's All About The Ego (According To The Ego)

Humans want to create groups.  Some people are "in" while others are "out."  As young people grow and form their identify, both psychologists and spiritual masters tell us that this grouping is essential.  However, the spiritual life calls us to eventually transcend this, as these groups are also the breeding ground for discrimination and, in many cases, violence.  The Buddha stressed that these "attachments" are the root of human suffering.  Jesus tirelessly challenged this throughout the Gospels by urging people to seek what is eternal instead of the transiency of this world.  His vision of the Kingdom, who is "in" and who is "out", turned upside down the Jewish and Roman soaked society in which he lived.  Jesus was consistently including those whom society either discarded entirely or relegated to lesser status.

It is for exactly these reasons that discussions of race, gender and class are not at the periphery but rather at the heart of the spiritual journey:  Those who are marginalized need to cry out for justice so they can remove obstructions to living into their full dignity.  On the other side, those who are not marginalized need these voices to tell them where they need to grow in order to open up to the fullness of what is eternal.  Everybody loses when someone is excluded.  To exclude someone, we have to deny a spiritual connection that exists and thus diminish our own spiritual awareness as well as the growth and changes in our lifestyle that would come from that awareness.

When people speak prophetically pointing out injustices, they are doing us all a favor.  It is the roadmap to untangling the obstructions created by the ego.  When people preach about our entanglements with injustice, it can seem like a burden at first, but in the long run they are providing a blessing and an opportunity for growth.

The presence of people who are "out" is a signpost of how much spiritual maturation society still needs to undergo.  This is how Jesus could say that how we regard the "least of these" (Matthew 25) is key to finding ourselves within the Kingdom of God.  This is also how it can be said that the private spiritual journey is completely interwoven with our relationships with other people and the world--through our relationships, we learn to transcend the false boundaries of this world in order to find a glimpse of what is eternal.  Our individual, private spiritual journeys must always lead us into our relationship with others and the world, because it is in wrestling with the boundaries we find in relationships that we can ultimately grow in our relationship to God.



Rev. Robert S. Harvey
Photo by Festival of Faiths, cropped.

These pastors are sensitive to the role churches play in entrenching notions of "other."  Harvey points out in the videos that the way heaven and hell are typically taught communicates that there is both an "in" and an "out" group--not just here on earth but as an eternal reality.  In this way, religion becomes a tool to keep society as it is (with its injustices in place) rather than a means to help imagine the way society could be according to the vision of the Kingdom of God.

Harvey sees his role as pastor as promoting questions rather than providing answers:  "We do not have essential views on what the Christ says or does but rather we leave people with the freedom of space to read and to take Christ as they will take Christ."  In other words, he is trying to promote a climate where his congregation can engage the "otherness" they find when they encounter Scripture, God and other people.  "We should not be so attached to our understanding that we are afraid of deconstructing its meaning and context."  This is an attempt to transcend grouping and the "othering" that accompanies it.

This reconciliation is especially important in religion as all too often religion has been a complicit supporter of oppressive systems.  While religion can manifest a prophetic voice for social change, all too often it becomes embedded within the dominant culture and starts speaking its language and seeing the world through its eyes. Harvey describes this as a "spiritual Stockholm Syndrome."  He continues:  "Our people have become so attached to the oppressive language that was imposed upon them about Jesus that now we identify with oppression as normalized."  Francois sas it this way: "White supremacy can inhabit black bodies."

Ecumenical vs. Interfaith

At the beginning of this string of posts on interfaith dialogue and the Festival of Faiths, I said I would talk about how the issues raised relate to the unity between Christians, as that has been the central theme of this blog.

The most obvious reason for the topics in this post is that Christianity includes people of all races, genders and social classes.  Any divisions between these groups will also affect the unity of the Body of Christ.  Sometimes this results in formal divisions, as church denominations break apart over these issues.  There are "white" and "black" denominations.  There are "rich" and "poor" churches.  Even when it does not result in a formal split, however, these divisions diminish the ability of the Body to work as a whole and function.  As 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 instructs, if the foot and the hand do not want be together, that does not stop the Body from being the Body.  But it does, however, stop it from working properly as all the parts need each other to be whole together.  The mouth may be speaking without first having ears to listen.

The relevance does not stop there, however.  A critical reason race, gender and class are important for ecumenical dialogue between Christians is this:  If we are only willing to dialogue with people who fit a certain criteria, then dialogue will always be stunted.  It is true that ecumenical dialogue between Christians is different than interfaith dialogue between people of non-Christian faith traditions.  However, the willingness to dialogue with literally anybody, to sincerely hear whatever is said by absolutely anyone, is the cornerstone of any true dialogue.  If we are only willing to dialogue between people we consider "legitimate" Christians, then on some level we need people to fit into our predetermined box before we dialogue, then it is questionable whether true dialogue can happen. 

It is as if people need a pre-dialogue to determine if they should dialogue. 

It is like saying, "I am only willing to hear you if you say what I want or think you will say."  A person would be trying to take what someone says and try to make it fit into their own categories of understanding.  As a result, this kind of conversation is more of us talking to ourselves than truly listening to what the other is saying, doing and ultimately being. 

Psychologists say we all do this to some extent, as that is how the brain functions through grouping.  However, there is a difference between taking the other and trying to make them fit into my boxes and trying to take a step toward the other and reconfigure my boxes in the process. 

We all ultimately want to see ourselves reflected back in the other person.  This can be either profoundly enlightened or disappointing depending on the intent:  The important question is whether we want to see our false self created by the ego or our true self created by God for eternity? 

This openness to the mystery of the other ultimately opens us up to the mystery of God.  This why interfaith dialogue, better than anything else, prepares us for the mystery of the unknown which we find whenever we encounter "otherness."  It prepares us for dialogue with people who we suspect do not share commonalities with us.

In other words, it is hard, and may be impossible, to have ecumenical dialogue between Christians if the parties are not willing to have an interfaith openness in the process.  I am not denouncing the importance of Christian-to-Christian dialogue at all--it is vitally important.  I am only saying that the openness required for interfaith dialogue creates a necessary platform for that kind of dialogue to happen in the best possible way.

It is also important for this reason:  When two Christians meet, very often at least of them is not entirely sure whether they are a Christians or not.  One party may assume they are having an ecumenical encounter between Christians while the other may treat it like an interfaith encounter. 

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Join me in the next posts as I offer some concluding thoughts on interfaith dialogue at the Festival of Faiths, followed by a post on Catholic monk and "North Star" for the Festival, Thomas Merton!

The Journey Out is a Journey In

Interfaith mural at Case Western Reserve University: "The mural depicts the spiritual
meaning of water as an expression of peace between our faith communities."
http://www.clevelandmurals.org/cwru.shtml

Hearing the details of someone's spiritual journey is one of the most profound ways for people of different faith traditions to encounter each other.  A personal testimony has a way of getting behind all of our social and political affiliations to open a door for a purer connection in spirit.

In my previous post, I explored insights gained by attending Louisville's Festival of Faiths as part of my Religious Unity Tour.  I looked at how the very structure of the Festival is set up as an encounter between people of faith and how the vision of the interconnectedness of all people that Thomas Merton had in 1958 continues to set a course for ecumenical and interfaith dialogue today. 

This post will take it a step further to explore the personal testimonies of three impressive spiritual leaders and how those personal journeys unfold into our relationships with others.

"I Carry It With Me"

Catholic Church documents have the reputation of being dry.  Sometimes it is deserved, sometimes it is not.  It is not too often that people share how a document has enlivened and enriched a personal faith journey.

Roman Catholic Cardinal John Onaiyekan had a multicultural experience growing up in Nigeria.  Members of his family practiced different faith traditions, including Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism and African tribal religions.  He remembers good will and harmony between people, as "different religious affiliations did not affect our unity as a family, and we celebrated each other's festivals." 

Still, Catholic teaching taught there was an exclusivity to the Christian Catholic message.  It was not easy to reconcile what he grew up intuitively knowing with formal Catholic teaching.

Cardinal Onaiyekan remembers the Church Council at Vatican II in the early 1960s.  For he first time, the Catholic Church released a statement on interfaith understanding.  Nostra Aetate opened up doors of possibility for him.  It affirmed--and even celebrated--the hand of God in the practices of other religions.  Catholics were free to trust that all people searching for truth and meaning will find that same God reaching back to them.  The one, true God speaks to people in their own language and culture.  Catholics do not need to feel threatened if they find truth outside of the Catholic sphere, nor do they need to live in perpetual anxiety over those who have never met a Christian missionary or made a Christian confession.  This was all extremely freeing for the young future Cardinal:  "Vatican II reconciled the faith of my ancestors, who worshipped the true God in their own images and symbols." 

These teachings have been a giant leap forward when it comes to interfaith understanding.  The anxiety over the fate of unbaptized people has been eased in favor of trust for the all loving God from whom all good things come.  Catholics can rest easy knowing God will never leave His people.  In addition, the Catholic Church can say this without needing to diminish any of its unique claims.  In fact, it can be argued that this document only enhances the vision of the Church by showing more awesome, amazing dimensions of God.

The zeal to convert others over fear for their eternal fate propelled Christianity to become a worldwide religion. It may also have stunted its maturity by not respecting the freedom of all people nor trusting more fully in God.  Nostra Aetate has helped the Catholic Church express a more mature faith in God who is even bigger and greater than previously imagined.

While the numbers of people practicing traditional African religion has been diminishing lately, it has left its mark: "If someone asks what happened to traditional African religion, I say I carry it with me," remarked Cardinal John Onaiyekan. 

Letting Go Leads to Coming Back

Dr. William F. Vendley has spent his life championing peace within religions, between religions and through religion.  He has so far had a long and amazing career.  At the Festival, however, he talked of the poetry of his own life journey. 

He was raised a Roman Catholic, but as a young man found himself searching for something else.  Youthful rebellion and personal tragedy led him to leave the religion of his past behind.  Trying to cope with the emptiness he felt, his searches led him to Japan where he pursued Zen Buddhism intensively for years. 

He recounted a time when a Zen master recommended he read Catholic theologian Karl Rahner, in particular his writings on the experience of God.  "We Zen people find it very interesting," said the Zen teacher.  That was a key moment that set in motion a path back to Catholicism for Vendley.  The themes and symbols of his Catholic youth were suddenly coming to life for him while immersed in Zen Buddhism in this distant land of Japan.

"These Zen Buddhists midwifed for me the open space into which the Holy Spirit descends," Vendley shared.  "They taught me not only by contrast of the two traditions but also the way to open my heart, and open my soul ... to celebrate the gift of what is given." 

Vendley has since become a distinguished Catholic theologian and has worked extensively promoting interfaith cooperation and peace.  His own journey along with decades of experience facilitating other interfaith encounters has led him to make the following three statements:

When faith traditions work together, people have consistently reported afterwards . . .
. . . they do not want to go back to being isolated from each other.
. . . they have fallen more in love with their own tradition through the experience.
. . . they report increased regard for each other.

The fear of losing religious identify through dialogue with other religious traditions creates a lot of resistance to opening that door.  Many want to stay behind closed doors with members of their particular groups for this reason.  That fear seems to be unfounded when compared with the lived experience of Dr. William F. Vendley as well as the hundreds of interfaith encounters he has witnessed all over the world.

 

A Nun's Tale:  Beauty

The above two stories show how an interfaith understanding helped two men gain a stronger relationship with the faith tradition of their youth.  Like a tree that bends rather than breaks in a storm, that flexibility allowed them to remain rooted while also open to embrace differences in others and to personally explore.

However, that does not always happen.  Sometimes spiritual growth happens in spite of a tradition.  In that case, ecumenical and interfaith encounters can help make up for something that may be missing (or hard to find) in a tradition.

Hindu nun Pravrajika Vrajaprana grew up with one parent a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran and another a Baptist.  The impression she got of God was unsettling to her:  "Not only was God a man, but he was a scary dude.  You did not want cross this guy," she remembered.  "I did not like him.  How can you love someone you are so totally afraid of, no matter what you did?"

That impression of God was more repulsive than captivating.  It turns out that beauty was her draw.  In fact, her spiritual journey has been punctuated with key moments all marked by a profound experience of beauty, and this beauty has been the doorway to love and goodness for Vrajaprana.

The contemplative life appealed to her even as a child, and the best examples she could find in the near vicinity were Catholic nuns.  She used to "stalk" nuns, following them around, thinking that the rosaries they held and their lifestyle of prayerful silence were so beautiful and appealing.  She remembers sneaking out of her parents house as a child and going into Catholic churches and just sitting in front of statues of Mary, praying, "You are so beautiful!" 

Despite the Catholic nuns, something in her instinct led her eastward.  She used to take off the family drapes and wrap them around her like a sari.  Years later, the smile and radiant energy of a Hindu monk in a chance encounter gave her an experience of holiness she had never previously experienced.  She was stunned when she met him.  All she could say through a sudden burst of tears was, "You are so beautiful!"  That impression continued to speak to her for many years.  His "radiant holiness transformed me in a second," she recounted.

The angry God of her youth continued to stalk her in subconscious ways as she became an anti-war activist, promoting peace but cloaked in self-righteousness.  She finally left the violence of her childhood behind when a conversation with that same Hindu monk made her realize that she was never going to bring peace or change anyone by "shoving something down their throat with anger."

Her deep attraction to being a nun was put on hold for many years as she fell in love with a man and set out plans to become a literature professor and perhaps raise a family.  That itching to be a nun just would not let go of her, though.  It was her husband of several years (* see comment at bottom), perhaps the person with the most to lose by this decision, who encouraged her to follow her calling and give it a try.  She felt as if she were jumping over a giant crevice to make this change, but she owed it to herself to try.  She has been a nun ever since.

As her spiritual journey continues to unfold, today she has come to a deeper realization that becoming a nun requires a more thorough transformation than she had previously thought.  It was not just the external lifestyle trappings but rather the change of her heart and her relationship with the rest of the world that ultimately has come to define the spiritual walk for her.

A swami she respects greatly would carry on his head buckets of water to help clean and care for the poor on the streets of India.  Another swami once mocked him, jeering, "Are those your worship vessels?"  The first swami replied, "As a matter of fact, they are!"  This left a profound impression on Vrajaprana.  She described it this way: 

"To live a spiritual journey, it is not always about changing our lives and becoming a nun or living a certain way.  Whatever we are doing, that is our worship. That is what I failed to realize all these years, and that is my journey now... that wherever we are, whatever we are doing, you do not have to change your whole life, you do not have to jump over a crevice--that crevice presents itself every time you look at another being, every time you see "other", every time you see difference. Every time you see, 'that person is different from me, I do not want to be like them, and they should not try to be like me,' we're crossing over that crevice."

The life of Hindu nun Pravrajika Vrajaprana is one of crossing boundaries.  Led by a spiritual instinct she found encapsulated within and expressed by beauty, she crossed the faith traditions of her youth into Hinduism.  She later crossed a deep crevice from the secular world into her life as a nun.  She is currently crossing the boundaries of her mind by finding spiritual connection wherever she is and with whomever she encounters regardless of the external circumstances of her life.

This is a perfect place to segue into the next post, which will talks about how the spiritual journey tends to unfold into a different relationship with other people, with society and with the world.  Stay tuned!

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Part 1:  Interfaith is a Verb
Part 3:  All Others
Part 4:  Merton's Vision: Transfiguration, Transformation and Transcendence
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I highly recommend watching these talks in their entirety.  You can view videos on the Festival of Faiths YouTube Channel!
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* - At the request of the Vrajaprana, the original wording of "lover of many years" was clarified to "husband of several years."

Interfaith is a Verb

Stop #3 on the Religious Unity Tour!

Festival of Faiths

 

 

There is something that does not seem to belong in the middle of my "Religious Unity Tour" this spring.  In fact, I even had to change the name of the tour just to accommodate it.  Without this stop, the tour could have easily been called the "Christian Unity Tour."  After all, my days are spent working to build relationships between Christians, and even more specifically between Catholic and evangelical Christians.  Most of the stops on the tour are places where Christians are finding ways to be in dialogue with each other and work across denominational lines.  They are finding points of connection and collaboration in their common identity as Christians.  My goal is be a part of that and support it. 

Yet, smack dab in the middle of this tour in the Festival of Faiths in Louisville, KY.  It is an interfaith gathering.  This means it focuses on the relationship between ALL religions, not just the ecumenical relationships between different groups of Christians.  This may not seem like a big distinction.  In fact, some people use the words "ecumenical" and "interfaith" interchangeably.  For them, the lines are blurred as they see the issues and challenges between Christians as roughly the same as between different faiths.  However, it is for others a whole different game in a whole different ball field. 

I set out to discover what light interfaith dialogue can shed in the quest for Christian unity.

As we shall see below, interfaith exploration dredges some of the deepest questions of faith, and I believe it can bear much fruit on how Christians understand themselves and transcend their own differences.  Read on!

"Thomas Merton:  Our North Star"

On a very unassuming street corner in Louisville, KY, just cattycorner-and-a-step behind the Catholic cathedral, Trappist monk Thomas Merton had a life changing revelation.  He suddenly saw the interconnectedness of all people, clearly, as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes.  The echoes and implications of that revelation continued to reverberate through the remainder of his life and continue to echo today through his writings.  It makes sense that the Center for Interfaith Relations (which sponsors the Festival) would set up shop within a stone's throw of this location, and that the Cathedral of the Assumption would be the launching pad for the Festival of Faiths. 

Franciscan priest Fr. Richard Rohr once referred to the Festival of Faiths as the "sundance of the sacred."  I wonder if he had Merton's quote in the picture above in mind when he said that, because Merton did indeed see people "walking around shining like the sun."  Coincidence or not, The Festival of Faiths does a fantastic job recreating this vision.  It brings to light the connections between people that Merton saw in that vision 58 years ago.

With this year marking what would have been Merton's 100th birthday, the presence of Merton was strong and true as a guiding light.  Merton was an ecumenical and interfaith pioneer whose writings and life example continue to draw people to build relationships between faith traditions, even 47 years after his untimely death.  In this way, Thomas Merton has become the "North Star" of the Festival of Faiths, in the words of the 2015 Chair, Owsley Brown, III.

 

Encounter

Conferences come and go.  Most are teeming with educational and networking possibilities.  The Festival of Faiths is all that, too, but to stop there with the definition would be a great injustice.  It is set up as an encounter:  People of faith meet each other as people of faith in intentional ways.  It is a parade of faiths, in a sense.  It is interactive.  Sessions begin and end with some minutes of silence.  The structure makes it unlikely for a talk to degenerate into a dry, detached lecture.  Rather, sessions are intimate encounters as speakers invite the audience to take a peak into that special place of faith within themselves, and even to share the journey, for at least a few steps, with the speakers. 

The Festival was divided into five different segments which provide a model of how people from different cultures, groups or faith traditions can encounter each other in the hope of positive mutual understanding and growth:



Br. Paul Quenon demonstrating Lectio Divina.
Photo by Festival of Faiths.

 

Each day began with an opportunity to experience a Sacred Practice of another faith.  People demonstrated--and the audience was invited (but never pressured)--to participate.  Trappist monk (and former student of Merton) Br. Paul Quenon started off by doing Lectio Divina--a prayerful way of reading Scripture--for the audience to watch and participate.   Hindu and Buddhist meditation and the Jesus prayer were also featured.  Speakers offered a peek into what is normally their private prayer time.

In the segment entitled Sacred Journeys, renowned clergy, nonprofit leaders and spiritual teachers shared something they rarely talk about in their profession--their own private, spiritual journey.  They share the struggles and stories of how they came to believe what they believe and practice what they practice.

Afternoon sessions were entitled, Sacred World.  These sessions offered insight into how people of faith feel called to respond to the world around them.  What role does faith have in public life?  Better than most anyone else, Thomas Merton described the interplay between a prayerful life of interior contemplation with the necessary, outward actions for social change which emanate from that.



Musician and Merton scholar Dr Christopher Pramuk.
Photo by Festival of Faiths.

Evening sessions were called Art and the Sacred, and explored ways that music, poetry and other forms of art draw us into the spiritual life and help us to understand each other' journeys.  Dr. Christopher Pramuk from Xavier University shared:  "Music was a first doorway into prayer; the piano my first teacher."

Also on the schedule were the segments called Meditation & Motion. These explored the kinesthetic dimension of spirituality more fully through yoga, tai chi and other forms of body movement.

The interfaith journey, like anything in the spiritual world, is best understood as a verb.  It is not something to observe as much as it is something to do.  There would be something perennially missing if it were only talked about in a detached way.  It cannot be fully known until it is experienced.  This will forever frustrate those who want proof before believing and evidence before acting.  It may always seem lightweight to those convinced the scientific method is the only path to truth. This is not to downplay the important role of detached observation in academia, only to say that by itself, it is not enough. 

By the very structure of its programming, the Festival of Faiths shows how people from different traditions can encounter each other in a holistic way:  Sharing in spiritual practices like prayer and meditative movement, hearing each other's spiritual story, working together for social change and enjoying each other's art & music are touch points for encounter and are a wonderful model for ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. 

In the Christian world, these touch points resemble very strongly something called spiritual ecumenism.  This is a recognition that the path to unity involves not just the scholarship of academic theologians--who work painstakingly to settle the finer points of disagreement--but also the doors that open when people of faith share their gifts in prayer, charity and holiness. 

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The Festival of Faiths offers many lessons for seekers on the path to unity and wholeness, and I will explore insights from other speakers in the following posts:
Part 2:  The Journey Out is a Journey In
Part 3:  All Others
Part 4:  Merton's Vision: Transfiguration, Transformation and Transcendence