QUESTIONS, WE’VE GOT QUESTIONS …
As a human being, it is natural to be curious about the universe we find ourselves in and the life we live. Such curiosity is a primary source of science and religion and ritual and most of the poetry and music and theatre and art of every kind – not to mention late night conversations in university dorms and noisy bars or quiet discussions in afternoon tearooms or during walks in the park or as we tuck our children in at night. “Why are we here? How did it all start? Will it end and, if so, when and how? Are there better and healthier ways to live to enhance the experience of living for ourselves, for all of humanity, and even for the earth itself? What happens when we die? Why do bad things happen? Does it all unfold simply by its own internal and natural laws and dynamics or is there another dimension and presence that inhabits or transcends what we can measure and observe?” How can we not wonder about such things, especially when life can move us to laughter and tears, to awe and ecstasy, to bitterness and despair? How do we make sense of it all? How do we live in the midst of such questions and the experiences that prompt them? Curiosity raises such questions, yes; but, even more deeply I think, such questions arise from our yearning to be one with the One – even from our primal yearning for there to be One. Mixed with our curiosity and yearning, there may also be an undercurrent of dread haunting us about what answers there may or may not be to our questions.
Cultures become the ways various groups form communal responses to all these questions. In other eras in the evolution of civilization, most of these groups – families, clans, more or less homogeneous ethnic groups, and all of them fairly isolated by geography and by limited means of transportation and communication – developed distinct approaches which united the members of the group and gave them a sense of identity and belonging, as well as grounds for security and stability: “We have our answers, thank you, and, for the most part, we can now get on with living the day to day stuff without a great deal of distraction or angst.”
But even in much earlier eras, cultures (including the religions they formed) might occasionally meet and mix and clash. And especially now – with worldwide patterns of immigration, with ready transport to almost anywhere on Earth (and maybe soon to the Moon and Mars and who knows where?), and with technologies that bring the whole world to our fingertips in an instant – we live in much less homogeneous surroundings. So a relatively new question arises: how do we live and co-exist amidst such intermingling and diversity? Let me approach that question with two stories that may or may not allow any answer I might be reaching for to filter through.
Several decades ago, I spent a weekend on the Cape Croker Reserve in Ontario with a group of young indigenous men and women from across Canada as part of a summer theatre school. An elder in the community invited us to a Sunrise Ceremony one early morning on a beach washed by the waters of Georgian Bay. Looking at the circle surrounding the fire he had lit, the elder noted a few faces of a slightly paler hue and said that maybe some explanation of what was happening would be helpful. After speaking a bit about his culture and the specific ceremony we were participating in, he said something like this: “This is what the Creator taught us. Now, the Creator didn’t say it was the only way or the right way, just that it was to be our way.” I was moved – even delighted actually – by the marriage of groundedness and respect his wry remark and gentle smile communicated.
Several decades later, I attended a ceremony in the Longhouse on the K’omox First Nation that introduced a statement and protocol developed through community collaboration in response to multiculturalism in general and incidents of racism and intolerance in particular. Individuals and groups from many different orientations and ethnicities and cultures and spiritualities took part, each one according to their own traditions, with many wearing their characteristic regalia. The event concluded with a common prayer or communal blessing into which we were all invited to join – maybe the Lord’s Prayer or something else written especially for the occasion, I just can’t remember that detail at this point. What I do remember is that each group and each individual joined in the prayer in their own languages simultaneously, in some cases augmented by gestures and dances expressive of their cultures. How powerful that was! A re-creation of the Tower of Babel you might think? What I imagined was not the displeasure of the Creator but the Creator’s delight in it all, while loving every person and expression with equal appreciation for their desire to connect with each other and with the Mystery that calls us all Beloved.
Not everything in every culture, religion, and spirituality is worthy of celebration (I am very aware of deeply shameful chapters in the history of my own tradition, for example, and of some of its teachings that make me cringe) but what is worthy of celebration and respect is our common quest to connect with the Mystery that embraces each way and transcends them all.
Maybe the (translated) words from this poem by Rumi imply more emphasis on behaviour than consciousness but, somehow, they still catch what my intuition is trying to understand and express in this month’s postcard.
Peace to you Ted
