IN THIS ISSUE

Spiritual Synthesis
by Bob Morris

Interweave, Inc.
P.O. Box 1516, Summit NJ
Phone 908-277-2120
Fax 908-277-2283.

Robert Corin Morris,
Executive Director
Suzanne Morris,
Center Director
Lisa Green,
Assistant Director

Spiritual Synthesis
by Bob Morris

The signs of it are everywhere. Religion has gone global, in more ways than one. Every ancient world spiritual pathway now rubs shoulders with every other, sparking conflict and inspiring new cooperation. One of the great challenges of the 21st century will be the management of this planetary religious encounter.

Some of the encounter takes the form of cross-fertilization. Take the issue of spiritual practice, for example.

The last thing I expected to discover when I went to do a conference with Methodist ministers in Nebraska was a whole group involved in Zen meditation. Still others enthused about Sufi dancing. And I myself was lecturing about Jewish rabbinical influence on Jesus’ teaching. In a remote conference center on the Great Plains in the American heartland, the influence of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism all flowed through a Methodist meeting. These are signs of what some people are calling “spiritual synthesis,” experiencing the holy through more than one tradition, even by those committed to their own particular faith. We’ll explore this at our Annual Spirituality Day, Spiritual Synthesis this coming June 18.

In a world where information flows freely, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. We live in an age when Baptists have Catholic spiritual directors, Buddhists like Thich Nhat Hanh and Hindus like Gandhi are influenced by Jesus, Popes pray in Jewish holy places, faithful Presbyterians also belong to the Sufi Order, and Episcopal cathedrals welcome the Dalai Lama.

The once-separate religions also now meet, not only through ideas and practices, but face to face. Over ten years ago, I was intrigued by the church people in Charlotte , North Carolina , burbling excitedly about their new “interfaith” Thanksgiving Service. What were they so excited about? Catholics and Jews joining the Protestants once a year? Nothing doing. That was taken for granted. They were excited that the Hindus and Muslims would be part of it. Both religions had growing populations in this southern U.S. city. There are more Muslims in America than Presbyterians and Episcopalians combined, just as Christianity is now the majority faith in Asian, once mainly Buddhist, South Korea .

To use the poetic metaphor of the ancient Hebrew prophet Isaiah, every valley has been “exalted” and every mountain and hill “made low.” People, cultures and religions, no longer confined behind their old borders, mix extensively on the great “plain” of our international world.

Conflict and Cooperation

The world economy brings Buddhists to Berkeley , California as it once brought Baptists to Benares in India . All this holds both bright promise and great peril for the future.

The peril is clear to everyone as religiously-influenced terrorism and continued religious prejudice grab the headlines. Muslim extremists hijack their religion for purposes of vengeance and insurrection, and a prominent conservative Christian evangelist labels Islam a “religion of hate.” Jewish and Muslim settlers clash over ownership of the Holy Land and right-wing American politicians fan the flames of culture war between right-wing Christian fundamentalists and other people of faith, whose faith is treated as a lesser truth, or worse. Religion, like politics, marriage, or family life, can bring out the worst, as well as the best, in human nature.

But even as this negative trend develops, interreligious cooperation has grown with astonishing speed over the past fifty years. International relief efforts, interfaith conferences, local congregational contacts, interfaith clergy associations—all this would have seemed impossible only a generation or two ago. Even the new, very conservative Pope Benedict XVI already has a long track record as Archbishop and Cardinal of cultivating respectful relations with other religions, especially Judaism.

Spiritual Synthesizers—Pioneers?

Even as he reaches out for better relations with Jews and Muslims, Pope Benedict will make certain the borders of Catholic doctrine and spiritual practice are clear, firm and secure, including traditional teaching about the primacy of his faith. As Cardinal, he has already warned against blurring the distinctions between religions. Spiritual synthesizers like me and our Spiritual Synthesis presenters—Zen practicing Catholics, Buddhist-meditating Jews, Muslim mystic-reading Christians—are marching to the sound of a very different drummer. What does this creative but still small minority of spiritually-engaged folk have to do with the great changes happening—and the peaceful future we need to create?

Bearing Witness to the Divine: Spiritual synthesizers bear witness to the fact that God is bigger than any of our separate traditions. In the same way that two eyes give us three-dimensional vision, instead of flat images, spiritual practices from more than one faith can help some people be open to the God beyond all concepts more fully.

Appreciating the Other: It’s one thing to respect another faith, looking from the outside in. It’s quite another to enter into the practice of another faith and experience some aspect of it, even in a small and limited way, from the inside. Praying Jewish prayers has immeasurably increased my understanding of Judaism, as well as stretching my own sense of Christianity. Buddhist meditation makes me appreciate the wisdom behind the Buddha’s teaching, as well as strengthening my own practice of Christian contemplative prayer, which is very similar.

Becoming Communicators and Ambassadors. People who speak Japanese and love Japanese culture are likely to make the best ambassadors to Japan —and the best communicators to people back home about the Japanese. The world needs people to guard borders, and people to cross them. Spiritual synthesizers can provide the valuable function of helping two traditions understand each other better, because both traditions meet in the heart of the synthesizer. And, in the midst of conflict, synthesizers may be able to bear witness to the humanity of the “other” in powerful ways.

And that common humanity, always divided into different cultures and religions, but common nonetheless, is our best hope for a fruitful future.

Wisdom’s Well On the Road

by Lisa Green

Our monthly feminine-language worship service traveled to Montclair this month for a special collaboration with two local churches: First Congregational Church and St. John’s Episcopal Church. As seminarian at St. John’s , I had been looking for opportunities to bring my interest in expansive language for God to the parish. I met First Cong’s seminarian, Ann Ralosky, in our Church at Worship class at Drew Theological School , and we decided to jointly present the service at her church as a course project.

Wisdom’s Well began meeting on the 1^st Wednesday of the month at the Unitarian Church in Summit in the fall of 2003, growing out of conversations among Margaret Babcock, Asha Bernard, Barbara Prince, and I. Although some things about this month’s service were a bit different from our usual gatherings—we had a pianist, for example, and a much bigger sanctuary—we held to our usual pattern for the most part. Seventeen people, men and women, were there.

What happens at Wisdom’s Well? We light candles, sit in a circle, sing, read, and pray. Some of the texts are new, but most of the images are very old: Wisdom “who danced when earth was new,” a Mother whose “wings are warm around us,” a woman searching for a lost coin, a Creator Spirit who “loves bodies, loves to dance.” One prayer celebrates a God who is “the midwife of our lives”; our closing blessing prays that Her “grace and peace abound.” We end with refreshments and fellowship time where we can reflect on the experience of referring to the Divine with feminine words and images. It can feel strange at first—but practice makes perfect. And as Enriching Our Worship, a supplement to the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer reminds us, such reclaiming of the richness of Biblical and traditional images helps us speak more truly about the mystery of God who “transcends all categories of knowing, including those of masculine and feminine.”

Wisdom’s Well On the Road by Lisa Green

Conflict and Cooperation

Further reading for Spiritual Synthesis

Wisdom’s Well On the Road

Wisdom’s Well
On the Road
by Lisa Green