FAITH HOUSE Manhattan

In Their Own Words: A Talk With Samir (AUDIO)

There’s something about hearing it firsthand – without the barrier of ink and paper (or a computer screen) and a need to wonder about tone and meaning. And with the delicate first steps of Faith House Manhattan, and it’s commitment to listening deeply and speaking authentically, people associated with Faith House here in New York have a desire to build the dialogue in clear tones. In Their Own Words seeks to hear from voices on all sides of the issue; those looking on, those deeply involved, those unsure of where all this is taking us. Every voice is important and we invite you to join in by leaving a comment or contacting us directly at info@faithhousemanhattan.org.

Length of the interview: app. 20 minutes

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Interview conducted by Stacey Antoine Savariau, JD, CHHC, AADP, a Certified Holistic Health Counselor, creativity coach, workshop leader and an evolved attorney. After working for years as a litigator she retired from the courtroom to pursue her other passions. Stacey is devoted to coaching, teaching & facilitating workshops & women’s wisdom circles for creating vibrant health, awakening creativity, restoring passionate and balanced living & discovering the work we were born to do. She reaches a global audience through her site, www.OneWorldWellness.com. Stacey lives in a brownstone on a tree-lined street in Brooklyn, N.Y. Where else?

Reflections: The World We Want to Live In

~ by Rathi Raja

Rathi Raja is president of the Arsha Vedanta Center of Long Island and executive director of the Young Indian Culture Group. She has been featured extensively on PBS in their “Asian Indians in America” and in The New York Times. She is an active member of the Herricks Clergy Coalition, an interfaith group based in New Hyde Park, engaging in educating through programs in the community, schools and colleges. She has been a Hindu spiritual teacher for the past 17 years, sharing the teachings of the Vedic vision with youth and adults. She is an ethnographer and storyteller of Asian Indian heritage, and a founding trustee of Young Indian Culture Group, Inc. Rathi served as a panel member of the New York State Council on the Arts for 2003-2005, was named the Long Island Traditions’ Honoree of the Year, and received the Nassau County Community Service Award in 2000. (Recently we had the privilege of sitting down with this effervescent woman, and found her views most insightful and energizing as we continue to make plans for Faith House. Here is her contribution to our blog.)

Healing starts by knowing ourselves and then allowing the powers of desire and action to do their work. Inter-religious or inter-group dialogue without self-reflection takes us nowhere. That vital first step of knowing oneself facilitates every other progress. Without self-awareness, a dialogue is a nonstarter.

Our relationships should be far more than tolerant, but a true spirit of tolerance matters. Not one based on law, for that will be short lived, rather one rooted in compassion. Tolerance without compassion is barren.

Every religious tradition builds on the cornerstone of compassion, because this is a key aspect of what it means to be truly human. No matter what our religious tradition, we can find compassion there. It may be buried under layers of distrust, anxiety, hatred, anger and jealousy, but when we rediscover this compassion, tolerance will happen!

And out of these two—tolerance and compassion—will come trust in each other. Lack of trust is the most eroding thing in our lives today, at a personal level, in our families, community, and country. Without getting that trust back, we will never know how to speak of and live out peace.

Faith that comes from restored trust, when expressed through our personal lives or organized religion, can douse the flames of hatred and anger, and dismantle the rigid boundaries we sometimes erect for self-protection. In contrast, a faith that encourages its followers to draw rigid boundaries will lead to deepening distrust and fear, and a sense of hopelessness about ever being able to establish peaceful human relationships.

We spend so much of the world’s resources on biological diseases, but what about the spread of hatred? Unfortunately distrust and hatred spread as fast as biological diseases and are most destructive in terms of loss of human life. Like restoring human health, restoring human trust will bring with it unmeasurable good.

What is key in this process of rediscovery of what we can be? Forgiveness! We must forgive ourselves first, for our past fears and for our hatreds. And we must forgive others for the pain and sorrow they have caused us. We must forgive society for our collective ignorance and forgive history for its wide swath of painful, violent events. Justice without forgiveness is an empty vessel that will not quench our thirst or heal our social ills.

The only antidote for this epidemic is to realize there is a larger force, a bigger order to this universe, and to take the journey forward to re-learn to trust this grace for all and this order. That is how people change—true trust, one person at a time. And when these individuals find one another and become friends, the movement can multiply exponentially.

Just as our physical environment needs immediate attention if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences, our social and religious environments need immediate attention if we are to quell the spirit of violence, mistrust, and hatred engulfing so many areas of our world. The path away from the brink begins with the steps of self-exploration, compassion, forgiveness, and trust. These are the essential healing qualities we must share with every person we meet.

Thank you for Faith House dream. Your enthusiasm and openness is based on strength and a desire to reach beyond the tried, tested and failed sequence of steps. You are curious and will surely discover that people are waiting for that spark to know they have nothing to fear, only something to gain!

Count me in friends!

________________________________________________

Truth is one: sages call it by different names
It is the one Sun who reflects in all the ponds;
It is the one water which slakes the thirst of all;
It is the one air which sustains all life;
It is the one fire which shines in all houses;
Colors of the cows may be different, but the milk is white;
Systems of Faith may be different but God is One.
As the rain dropping from the sky finds its way towards the ocean,
So the prayers offered in all faiths reach the One God, who is supreme.

    —Rig Veda

Interview with an Arab Atheist

~ by Esra'a Bahrain (Mideast Youth)

I’m interviewing an Arab atheist from Kuwait: Sara Sultan.  I will first make it clear that I’m happily a Muslim, and am in no way promoting atheism by conducting these interviews. Young atheists in the Arab world are extremely frowned upon and thus hardly ever given a voice, and if we really want to represent all kinds of people then we should include the voices of those we disagree with as well.

Q: Firstly, why did you agree to do this interview? Aren’t you scared of voicing such controversial opinions?
A: I agreed to do this interview because I have the interest in sharing my thoughts and beliefs with you. Why should I be scared? I have a right to express my opinions and I have no fear from doing so. People try to bully us into believing things… into being part of a “larger mass.” They kick us into buying anything from political opinions to religious beliefs. I refuse to be a product of such attempts at misleading us. They can call me what they want, at the end of the day I’m just an independent woman with a firm opinion.

Q: When did you become an atheist?

Interview with Author Brian McLaren

~ by Samir Selmanovic

Brian and I first met in 1999 when we were both pastoring on the East Coast. Ever since, Brian’s courage to address issues that matter to common good and his generosity towards those who are different has been contagious. Brian helped me love my own religious tradition more deeply and more patiently while also feeding the holy discontent with religion as we know it. I asked him about his upcoming book Everything Must Change. (Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope, Thomas Nelson, 2007)

Samir: I’d like to read a few quotes from your new book and ask you to comment briefly on them. I’m especially interested in how these quotes relate to the vision for Faith House. This first quote comes right after you introduce the central questions the book tries to answer:

All these questions may sound too religious for your taste already. If you have no religious commitment and even if you have a strong anti-religious commitment, I certainly sympathize. Those of us who are deeply involved in the religious community see abundant reasons to be cynical about religion. Though we see many signs of hope, goodness, and resurrection, the truth is that we often keep faith in spite of religion, not because of it. But whatever your background, I think you’ll agree on the most pragmatic level: if [our global] problems are as big as they seem to be, we’ll need all the help we can muster to address them, including the help of the religious community. (pp. 12-13)

Brian: This does relate to the vision of Faith House, and to your own life story, Samir. I know that you come from a Muslim family, and that you spent many years as an atheist before coming to embrace the faith of Christian tradition. You know that many people are atheists because they have seen the downsides of religion. And many people are Muslims because they’ve seen the downsides of Christianity and atheism, and many people are Christians because they’ve seen the downsides of atheism and Islam. We’re all good at seeing the downsides of other people’s commitments and beliefs, and we could spend forever arguing about them. Meanwhile, we’re facing not only new problems but also new kinds of problems these days. So many of our problems are global now – from nuclear weapons that could destroy us all, to global climate change that could destroy us all, to global economic collapse that could bring all our nations to a standstill. So I don’t think we can afford to let our future be determined by religious battles that distract us from this. We have to recruit people from each religion to address the new global problems we face, and that requires – not pretending that all religions are the same, because they’re not – but rather it requires us to invite people from each religion into process of learning how to work together as neighbors for the common good. As Christians, I think the idea of reaching out to our neighbors should come very naturally to us; after all, Jesus had a lot to say about loving our neighbors, not to mention strangers and enemies.

Samir: That’s where you go next in your book. You talk about the Christian religion’s pivotal role in our world because it is the largest:

In addition, since the Christian religion is the biggest religion in the world (with about 2 billion adherents, or 33 percent of the world’s population), whatever constructive things Jesus might have to say about our top global problems could be important in determining our world’s future. This would be the case at the very least because solutions in sync with Jesus’ life and teachings might get more buy-in among his professed followers. Add to that the fact that Islam is the world’s second biggest religion (about 1.3 billion adherents, or 21 percent of the world’s population) and that Muslims revere Jesus as a great prophet, and you discover even more practical value in seeing Jesus’ teachings in relation to today’s global problems.

Brian: This is really one of the key themes of my life – this belief that the issue isn’t Christianity, but Jesus. Depending on your background and what you’re exposed to, the Christian religion can have more or less credibility and appeal. But Jesus has an almost universal appeal. So that’s where I want to work from – not a “Christianity-centered” viewpoint, but from a Christ-centered viewpoint. In the book, I try to take Jesus’ teachings and example and show what resources they can bring to people today in grappling with global crises – whatever the religion of the people is who are getting involved. I don’t want to make the Christian religion the issue, or Western Civilization the issue, or whatever … I want to help people see the resources that Jesus offers to everybody as we and future generations face unprecedented global crises.

Samir: That’s where you go in the final paragraph of this section:

Beyond the Christian and Islamic religions, which together account for more than half the world’s people, and which together share a high regard for Jesus, we could add that many Hindus (14 percent of the world’s population, Buddhists (6 percent), Jews (0.22 percent), and even nonreligious people (16 percent) admire Jesus – even though they may be less enthusiastic about the religion that bears his name.

Brian: This is one reason why I’m so enthusiastic about the work of Faith House, Samir. The old “ecumenical movement” did a lot of good and opened a lot of doors. And current inter-religious or interfaith dialogue brings much to the table that we need. But ultimately, people need to see Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists and others working it out in a neighborhood, on the ground, living as neighbors and friends and colleagues – not hiding their differences, but modeling a way of loving one another across those differences. I hope this book will be a resource for the work you and others committed to Faith House are doing. We’re all in this together.

Samir: When is the book coming out, and how can people get it?

Brian: It comes out October 2. Of course, people can order it online, but it’s especially helpful during the first week if they go into a bookstore and buy a copy. Barnes and Noble, in particular, is making a big commitment to the book, so it would be great if people could drop by and pick up a copy.

Samir: Thank you and keep on writing!

You can check out Brian's resourceful website and meet him in person during the Everything Must Change Tour 2008.