“Where do we come from?
Who are we?
Where are we going?
Mystery. Mystery.
Life is a riddle and a mystery.”
Unitarian Universalists, of course, are not the only ones who ask those questions and ponder life’s mysteries; they are questions asked by people of every faith seeking to understand our place in the universe. Responses are rooted in our many faith traditions, as diverse as the people who seek them.
Our communities – including ours in Thurston County – are no longer homogeneous, if they ever were. Nowhere is that diversity more clearly seen than in the spectrum of our faith traditions. I feel privileged to be part of Interfaith Works, an association of congregations, nonprofit organizations and individuals that for many years has brought together diverse traditions to learn about and from each other.
I have found our interfaith community offers unique opportunities to experience aspects of other faiths: I look forward each year to Temple Beth Hatfiloh’s Blintzapalooza, where I enjoy Jewish blintzes and take a dozen home. Puyallup Tribe drummers at April’s interfaith Earth Day reminded me of Native American spirituality rooted in the Earth. Recently I attended a friend’s jubilee, the celebration of her 50 years as a Roman Catholic nun. With many others, I honored her life of service to her Christian faith.
Last week’s interfaith Sept. 11 commemoration by Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and other faith leaders and the community conversation that followed were an opportunity for our community to both mourn those lost that day and to find hope from the commitment of so many to creating a peaceful world.
Yet diversity can bring interreligious misunderstanding and conflict. We need only to pick up the newspaper to see some of those problems: One faith’s sacred text is burned publicly by another faith’s zealots; graffiti is sprayed on a temple or church; display of religious symbols in public spaces inflames some; others mistrust those whose clothing marks them as “the other.”
What can we do, individually or in our faith communities, to expand our understanding and acceptance of others?
First, we can open our hearts and minds to the richness of others’ traditions and beliefs. We can ask neighbors or co-workers about their observance of Ramadan, or Rosh Hashanah, or the Feast of St. Francis, then share our own traditions. I have found that being open to learning about others’ religions, reading the texts they hold sacred, or witnessing how they pray enriches my understanding and practice of my own faith.
Secondly, we can participate in opportunities to know our neighbors in their temples, mosques, and churches – visiting them on their days of worship or joining their community events both festive, like Blintzapalooza, or somber, like the Sept. 11 anniversary commemoration.
Finally, even as we learn to appreciate our differences we can live the teaching that is shared by all major religious traditions – to respect and love our neighbors. The words of Francis David, the sixteenth century Unitarian, remain true today: “We need not think alike to love alike.”
We may not find sure answers to the questions of where we come from, who we are, and where we are going. In fact, the questions may be unanswerable. But we can be sure others are pondering them as well. In this amazingly diverse world, sharing the questions may be our most important task.
The Rev. Carol McKinley serves as coordinator of Washington State Unitarian Universalist Voices for Justice, a statewide legislative advocacy organization, and is an affiliated community minister of Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation.
Perspective is coordinated by Interfaith Works in cooperation with The Olympian. The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by Interfaith Works or The Olympian.
