FAITH HOUSE Manhattan

River of Maybe

~ by Rabbi David Ingber

INTRODUCTION (by Samir Selmanovic)

Last Friday night I visited a wonderful Jewish congregation on the Upper West Side, Kehilat Romemu. In the spectrum of Judaism from classical to experimental, this congregation firmly holds on to both, reassuring and challenging at the same time. Rabbi David Ingber and I had met a week earlier in David’s apartment, where we passionately conversed about our dreams. No words can convey to you the warmth and depth of this community. I can only offer you a slice of my experience in hope that those of you who live in New York area will visit and see for yourself.

The service took place in a rented gym, Romemu’s new regular gathering place, with one wall of windows, many of them open, all the sounds of the street coming in. During the time of the service when we all turned towards Jerusalem (which happened to be turning our back to the windows), and when we were quietly vocalizing a Hebrew melody full of longing and hope, we were all interrupted by a woman’s voice singing on the street. 

The strong voice seemed to sing in Spanish, a melody that could be from South America or the Middle East. One could not tell. As her voiced entered the gym and overpowered ours, Rabbi David said, “let’s sing with her.”  So, we did. We all started improvising as one voice and wove our Hebrew melody into her song. Someone from the congregation shouted, “everyone, come to the window.”  We all turned around and came.  Soon, there were a hundred or so heads, all men wearing yarmulkes, looking out the windows.  Right in front of us was a Christian Easter procession, with eleven large black and white art pieces depicting the traditional stations of the cross and twelve young men dressed in white robes following a priest who was carrying a cross in the front.  They all stood in front of the building absorbed in their song. Apparently this part of Spanish Harlem was one of the stations.  The Jews started waving their hands above their heads, a motion of blessing, and many who saw us at the windows waved back.  We all got blessed!  What an awkward and sweet moment!

Then Rabbi David talked about Purim, and to illustrate his message he mentioned a video, “Stroke of Insight.”  His teaching about Purim was fitting and fascinating, so I asked him to send me his comments as well as the link for the video. Here they are:

ABOUT THE VIDEO “STROKE OF INSIGHT”:
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story of recovery and awareness -- of how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another (Recorded February 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 18:44.). To watch this powerful testimony to the spiritual aspect of our lives, click HERE.

COMMENTS BY RABBI DAVID INGBER:
It was an interesting Friday night, without a doubt. So many surprises, so much that spontaneously arose from the collective heart of all those present. Purim lends itself to non-normative or even anti-nomian practices, and what transpired Friday evening certainly qualifies as that. So many memorable moments from that prayer service, but without a doubt standing by the window, waving and blessing our fellow worshipers on the street, sticks out in my mind as special. Samir, may the day soon arrive where all that unites us as children of G-d outshines all divisions. 

Here is a brief rendition of my comments Friday evening:

The story of Purim takes place in a city called Shushan. Interestingly enough, we find two Shushans mentioned in the Bible. One is called "Shushan Habirah" or Capital Shushan and the other is called just "Shushan."  Apparently, according to many commentators, there was an inner city the capital—and an outer city, the area known as Shushan. Elsewhere in the Bible, in the book of Daniel, we find an interesting remark.  We are told that in order to enter the inner city of Shushan, Shushan Habirah, one had to cross a river. The river was called "Ulay". In Hebrew, "Ulay" means “perhaps” or “maybe.” The symbolic significance of this is profound. What emerges is the assertion that in order to enter the inner city of Shushan, the location of the King, where "liberation" and "transformation" can occur, one must cross over or enter into the great not-knowing, the mysterious realm of uncertainty where all things dissolve and all edges are rounded. This to some degree is hardwired into our very biology as you will see in the video. The video clip is a prayer, a plea for us to choose that part of our brain (right hemisphere) that blurs divisions, that allows for a melting of tensions that arise in the mind that divides. This is the mystery of the statement of the Rabbis that one is obligated on Purim to "imbibe until one cannot distinguish between ‘cursed is Haman’ and ‘blessed is Mordechai’". One day a year we allow ourselves to commit fully to the notion that all the lines we draw are functional, not ontological, instrumental means to essential ends.

Rabbi David Ingber studied Philosophy and Psychology at NYU, and has learned at a wide range of yeshivot in Jerusalem and New York, from the ultra-orthodox Yeshivat Chaim Berlin, through to modern orthodox institutions such as Beit Midrash leTorah and Yeshivat Chovovei Torah. Major influences include Rav Moshe Weinberger, David Goshen, and Rav DovBer Pinson. David received his smicha from Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.  He promotes a renewed Jewish emphasis on meditative practices and is working for the integration of sacred body practices into mainstream Judaism. For more about Rabbi David click HERE.  To read New York Times article about him click HERE.  For learning more about congregation Kehilat Romemu and for the schedule of their services click HERE.

The Community of More

~ Bill Ashlock is a seasoned business executive, writer, and want to be wood turner with a passion and calling to tend God’s trees.  Bill works out from Singapore, lives in California, and is often found in New York. His tools include innovation, excellence, and compassion with an unending view of community.

It was in India, the land of my birth, that I first found the desire to be in relationship with the Divine. I cannot recall a particular moment or event, when I came to accept the “truths” that influenced me in my early years. Looking back, one of these truths became particularly important to me: spirituality was not singular. My God-connection was more than my personal relationship with the Divine, for God always exists in community. My being is to be found in belonging to both God and humanity. 

I watched men publicly demonstrate their devotion to God. I saw some whip themselves as they walked to a temple, their lashed induced blood dripping with each stride. Others embraced extended periods of silence and withdrew from the world. Leaders of different religions, including the Christian religion of my upbringing, highlighted acts of dedication, fasting, and penitence, reminding their followers that they should do likewise. As I matured I found myself looking for something more.

My Neighbors—Down Under

~ by Roy Naden, an author and Professor Emeritus (Andrews University, MI) who lives, gardens, and writes in Seattle area

A few days before Christmas, I watched two emails drop into my Inbox in quick succession.  Each time, I imagined a good friend pressing the SEND icon seconds before.  Then with the press of a key on my PC, their letters were on my screen!  What pleasure it brought to read those messages and open the attached pictures of their families!

I sent messages right back.  It all happened faster than the time it once took to get up from my desk and walk down the hall to their offices in the same building where we worked together in Australia 40 years ago.  Both John and Russ seemed not so far away after all. 

Over the years the geography of my community has radically changed.  In fact I have more contact with friends far away than with most of the neighbors that live on the same street in Seattle! I used to think that “real relationships” happened with people you look in the eye and give a greeting hug.  But my world has been transformed.  Doomsayers dismiss the new technologies and chant a mantra about the good old days.  Well, in my eighth decade of life, I’ve known lots of those good ol’ times, and agree with my friend George Knight that some of those good old times were nothing short of terrible!  So instead of bemoaning the distance of far-away places where some very special friends live, I appreciate the new ways to keep in touch with electronic bridges that span land and sea.

In The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman summarizes it well:  we can now communicate “from anywhere to anywhere.”   Distance is not what it used to be.  The definition of “neighbor” is now more connected with intentionality than distance.  We no longer connect just informationally, we do it emotionally, spontaneously in the white heat of a moment as we share the excitement of a dream, the memories of an anniversary, the sadness of a time of loss.

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

Click here to LISTEN "A Talk With Samir" ...

Click here to DOWNLOAD "A Talk With Samir" …

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?

Four Stories of God

~ by Samir Selmanovic

For more than 20 years since my baptism (a ritual by which one signals publicly that one has become a follower), people have often given me the opportunity to “tell my story”—to “give a testimony,” as we Christians like to call it. Despite the fact that my life with God was not only passionate but also conflicted and complicated, the story itself was easy to tell. It was all one story. One life. One song. 

But it is not that easy anymore. Today, as early Hasidic Rav Kook did long ago, I find myself wondering which song I should sing. Should I look into my own soul and sing the song of the struggles and joys I encounter within? Or should I move beyond myself and sing the song of my people, my religion? Or maybe I should rise above my Christian story and sing a song of all songs of humanity? Or should I spread my heart still wider and sing a song with all creation?

Is the story of God a story of my own soul, a story of my religion, a story of humanity or a story of all that is? To accept all these stories as the stories of God is to imply that my religion then becomes only a part of the ultimate story of the world, not the ultimate story itself.

Orthodox rabbi David Hartman, concerned with the perennial conflict in Jerusalem, insists that different melodies of one God must be cherished: “Each group feels that its way is the only way: there is one God, therefore there has to be one truth. Christians build their story on the Jewish story and therefore feel they are inheritors of Judaism. Muslims built their story on the Bible, and therefore they feel that they are the perfect expression of monotheism. Now, we’ve got to get out of each other’s story. We can’t feel that in order for me to tell my story, your story has to end. . . . In other words, affirmation [of my story] does not require that I demonise those who are different from me. I don’t have to build conviction out of hate and fear.” If my identity depends on annihilation of other stories, I cannot really sing all four songs of God.

What if God measures our religion by the way it contributes to stories other than one’s own? What if our religions will be judged by the good they bring to their non-adherents? Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel says this succinctly: “When in the afterglow of religious insight I can see a way that is good for all humans as it is for me—I will know it is His way.”

In the same vein, The Quran reads, “Had God willed He would have made you into one religious community; but it was his will to test you in what He gave you. So compete with each other in doing good works” (Quran 5:48). Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University contends that “there’s no more crucial problem for our day than to be able to cross religious frontiers while preserving our own integrity. In fact, I think this the only exciting intellectual adventure of our times.”

So I find it hard to “give a testimony” today without offending people of my own religion whose identity depends on a divided and conflicted world. As a follower of Christ, I have grown to believe in a world that is larger than Christianity. Jesus called this larger world the kingdom of God. It is the symphony made of all stories, individual and communal, our magnanimous God is involved with in this world.

Only God is God. And Christianity is not. Nor Judaism. Nor Islam. Paradoxically, this realization about the greatness of God is a deeply Christian, Jewish and Muslim teaching.

When I pray the Lord’s Prayer, I begin with the first word, “Our . . .” (see Matthew 6:9) and I stop and ask myself, “Who do I include in this Our?” I remind myself that the story of God is bigger than my personal story, bigger than the story of my religion, bigger than the story of all humanity, and bigger than the story of all creation. In the kingdom of God, these four stories are all really my stories—all at the same time—woven together, giving meaning and life to each other.

(from Signs of the Times, Australia, September 2007, adapted by the author)

Friends Don't Let Friends Consume!

~Alvin Poblacion recently moved to New York City with his best friend, Rosemary Poblacion. He currently works in Manhattan as a physical therapist. Alvin is an avid cyclist, and a photography enthusiast. He thoroughly enjoys getting lost in the City with Rosemary.

I have been drifting away from religion. The question it asks and the answers it provides seem orchestrated. I am attracted to life instead.

Just recently, I had a refreshing chat with a client of mine, (lets call him Craig) as I was treating him for low back pain. As people lie sprawled out in precarious positions, often only partially clothed, thoughtful conversations come about.

As one might expect from “patient-therapist” small-talk, I started out by asking Craig some generic questions about how he planned to spend the upcoming holidays and if he had all his holiday shopping complete. Craig was happy to say that he would be in the company of good friends and family during Christmas. However, he was a bit conflicted about what he was actually going to do during the holidays, and how he felt about shopping for gifts this season.  He wished he had the time and skill to make gifts with his own hands this year. He felt most us in the US have enough junk than we know what to do with anyway. He said he could certainly live without another remote control cozy (I didn’t even know they had those). He went on to elaborate on his growing suspicion towards the “institution” shopping has become in America. We agreed that there must be better ways out there to express our love for our Kin than what BestBuy and DeBiers might suggest.

As we were wrapping up our PT session for the day, Craig was pulling his shirt back over his head. Just then he remembered to share one last thing with me. It was a website address. When I got home from work that day, I logged on and was pleasantly surprised to find a short but informative, video clip. For many people, most of the information here is nothing new. However, I feel it was put together in a way that is bite sized and digestible for people like me. That is, people just coming into the growing conversations about hyper-consumerism, climate change, equitable living, fair trade etc. While these issues may have some political implications, I feel they have a great deal to do with personal and corporate ethics and moral values. I feel that people of faith can and must have something to say and do about the global crisis we find all of God’s creation in. I have great hopes for Faith House and its commitment to use religion to help life and not the other way around.

I trust these will be twenty well spent minutes of your life. Enjoy and use in your work as clergy, educators, activists, or with your family members, friends, and enemies! We are in this together.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Extraction

What's in the House?

~ by Samir Selmanovic

When I came back from a trip couple of months ago, I found a sheet of paper, “a surprise for dad,” on my desk. My daughters Leta, who is 10, and Ena, 12, drew Faith House as an actual house, with rooms, an attic, a yard, and a basement. This is how they imagine the future. 

- for a larger image: click on the picture -

 
They latter asked me to give them the password for my computer. “What if you die?" they said.  "If something happens to you, we want to work on it."  I was startled. My wife Vesna and I have thought them to pursue a life of loving God and belonging to a real community, but I did not know they so quickly understood that these ideals are larger than any one of us.

If you want to read more about their relationship to Faith House, you can click at the following two posts:

Not a Believer Yet (April 3, 2007)

Her Prayer (July 10, 2007)

Faith House Writing Awarded

~ by Nathan Brown

An article written for the Faith House website has been awarded by a Christian publication in Australia. "A Letter to the Three Friends I Wish I Had" by Roy Naden was awarded the Hindson Award for "Best devotional article" in Record in 2007. The article was originally posted on the Faith House web site on March 6, 2007, and was reprinted in Record with permission of Dr Naden and Faith House.

The Record editors' comments with the award read as follows:

"As one of our editorial team commented after reading this article at the time of its publication, 'That article made me want to become a better person.' Now retired, Dr Naden reflected on his working years, both professionally and personally, and expressed regrets for some of the opportunities and friendships missed, before committing to using his remaining years to make the world a better place and support younger people who are now trying to live in a different way."

Dr Naden is originally from Australia, but in retirement lives in Seattle area, Washington. Record is the weekly news magazine of Adventist Church for the South Pacific region, based in Melbourne, Australia.

NOTE: To read "A Letter to the Three Friends I Wish I Had" click HERE.

Enough in Common

~ by Roy Naden, an author and Professor Emeritus (Andrews University, MI) who lives, gardens, and writes in Seattle area

It’s Thanksgiving Day 2007, a beautifully warm, sunny day here on the North West Coast where I write.  Today I had to call a cab for a friend and her two little children newly arrived from Africa.  They are coming to have their first traditional American meal with us.  I called Tony’s cell phone.  He’s been taking me to and from Seattle-Tacoma airport for over a decade.  He seems to work 365 days a year.

An unrecognizable voice answers.  “Is Tony there?” I ask.  An Indian-accented male voice says, “No.”  I repeat the number I thought I had dialed and ask, “Do I have the right number?”  “Yes,” he confirms, “but Tony isn’t here.  He’s dead!”   

I stammer out the first words that come from the tip of my tongue:  “But he took me to the airport a couple of months ago just before he left for India on a business trip!”—as if that comment had any relevance.  “What happened?” I continued.   “It happened on his trip.  Someone gave him the poison.  He died.”  The conversation also seemed to die at that moment.  I had no idea who this man was, or what to say to him, or what to comment about the circumstances of his death.  What do you say to a total stranger when someone you both know has died?

Pictures of Tony began floating through my memory.  He was such a dapper Indian.  Impeccably dressed, his cab immaculately kept, and like a crown he proudly wore the turban common to all men of the Sikh religion, holding their long hair.  The practice of allowing one's hair to grow naturally is a symbol of respect for the perfection of God's creation.  He seemed to have an endless supply of brightly colored cloth with which he wove his head gear, from brilliant yellow to rich purple, and very occasionally he picked me up wearing a black turban.  But the drabness didn’t suit him.  He was always so talkative and helpful.  We got to know each other’s families over the years.  He followed my various trips around the world by taking me to my departing flight and being the first one to welcome me back to Seattle.  And when he was about to leave on an annual business trip to India, he would tell me all he hoped to accomplish.

The man on the line gave me the contact information for Tony’s family. As I sat looking at the number I had just written down on a post-it pad, I didn’t know what to do.  I had never actually met Tony’s wife; didn’t even know her name.  But I thought I should call her and express my sympathy.  That seemed like an awkward conversation.  If she had been a Christian, it would have been easy.

I’m a slow thinker.  I said to myself, “Tony was a sincere believer and spoke of his faith often.  But his beliefs were vastly different from mine.  I was accustomed to comforting Christians. What could possibly sustain a conversation with his wife?”  I called the number anyway.  Tony’s wife answered.  I told her my name, that we had never met, but that I had learned quite a lot about her and her two children from Tony.  Before I could continue, she exclaimed, “You must be the man from Australia!  Tony spoke about you often.”  And from there the conversation flowed easily.  Without hesitation I told her of my sadness at Tony’s passing, and I told her I would pray that God would comfort her and sustain her in her loss.  We talked for a quite a while. 

Afterwards, as I thought about the call, the more I realized how much we held in common.  Two human beings.  We knew about each other simply because her husband and I had been friends.  We both new the deep sadness of a loss in our families.  And we both believed in God.  The differences may have been more numerous than the likenesses, but the basics that really mattered we held in common: relationships, feelings, and desire to understand the other.  It was enough to allow meaningful conversation.  It almost always is.

Binding In Jordan and Manhattan

~ by Lauralea Banks, a new Program Coordinator of Faith House Manhattan

After deciding my life in Washington, DC, was not fulfilling or taking me where I wanted to go, I decided to seize the moment and pursue my wildest dream. 

Three years ago, I moved to Jordan for nine months to study Arabic.  I had visited Jordan twice on archeology digs in a little village close to Amman. But moving there was something different. In part, I wanted to experience how deep Jordanian hospitality went.  My earlier visits had revealed the kindest, most giving people I had ever met.  But I wondered if the red-carpet treatment had been brought out just for a guest.  And if their hospitality was really as deep as it seemed, I wondered what driving force lay behind it?  Was it culture, religion, heritage?

After living in Jordan for a few months, I began to figure out how to navigate social interactions. I learned for example that people might offer things, but you only knew they were serious if you declined their offer three times and they still insisted.  Many times I found they meant what they said, but just as often they changed the subject after the first invitation.

Throughout my nine-month stay, one group of people inspired my passion for interfaith dialog and this prepared me to capture the vision of Faith House.

I felt fortunate to have friends in Jordan before I moved there.  They emailed advice prior to my arrival, and only later did I learn they had spent hours knocking on doors trying to find me an apartment.  Through their military connections, they obtained special passes so they could meet me at the gate of my plane.  At every turn, they were there to help me.  And yes, they found me an apartment, and then shared information about jobs in which I might be interested.  They took me shopping.  For my first week, they arranged for one of their cousins to meet me everyday after school to make sure I settled in OK.  It became a habit and for nine months I spent every afternoon surrounded by people eager to help who wanted only friendship in return. Over time I felt a degree of skepticism about such kindness and pressed a friend on the subject.  He responded that that they wouldn't be good Jordanians or Muslims if they didn't take good care of me.  Then he paused, looked at me and said it was partly my fault.  I had been so interested in them, and had been so non-judgmental of our differences that it had been hard for them not to reciprocate!

We spent hours talking about religion: each of us explaining why we belonged to our respective faiths.  It proved to be quite a challenge because there were irreconcilable differences between us that we could only begin to understand by seeing the world through each other's eyes.  A few months after I arrived, we had a long conversation about women in Islam.  They explained why women in the Middle East utilize a different “space” than women in America.  It took all nine months of my stay to begin to wrap my brain around the different ways Jordanians define female agency and empowerment.  I'm still trying to understand it.  But our friendship only deepened in these conversations and made me recognize the arrogance I brought with my worldview.  My friends began to feel the same way about their perspectives as well.

As we dismantled misunderstandings and arrogance, something else happened to our friendship: I spent more time in the village with my friends.  Invitations were always extended three times and after awhile, merely mentioning an event meant I was expected to show up.  And when some guys at school approached my friends and asked about me in a suggestive tone (implying the stereotypical assumption that all Americans are like Britney Spears) they were told I was a sister.  These young guys protested, but were firmly informed I was their sister and would be respected as such.  Their willingness to defend me as their own blood deeply affected me and proved to be a monumental step in our friendship.  They insisted I was not like other Americans, that the thoughtfulness I brought to my religion and spirituality made me more like them than if I had converted to Islam. It’s true they often expressed the wish that I would convert, but respected that I had a different path to walk.  As a result, our friendship created a strange new family of different religions but similar mandates for living.

When Samir approached me about Faith House Manhattan, it resonated with my experience in Jordan.  Imagine Muslims, Jews, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists, and other religions coming together, staying rooted in their faith but recognizing that their religious journey can be strengthened by learning about other religious traditions!  From my experience in Jordan I can say this process is powerful and binds people together in a unique way.  Imagine taking that powerful connection and using it to touch the lives of neighbors in your community.  I've already lived the dream of Faith House and the outcome is miraculous and beautiful.  For me it is the true and complete picture of God.

(read more about Lauralea soon on this website)

Colorless World No More

~ Lena Lasarzewski grew up in Sweden and have lived all over the United States for the last 15 years. She currently resides in Bedminster, NJ where she works as a Sales and Marketing Manager for a Swedish company called Pharmadule

My name is Lena and I’m an ex-believer in a black-and-white world.

Like most people, I continuously go through spiritual transitions.  All my life I was both “losing my religion,” (to quote a famous R.E.M song) and regaining it by discarding inadequate answers and learning to ask better questions.  My major transition has been away from a pre-determined worldview handed down to me, to a worldview that I have discovered, created, and now own.  Here is my journey.

The religious subculture into which I was born is the opposite of the culture in which I grew up. Sweden is a “non-believing country” with only 3 % of its 9 million people going to church or believing in God.  The subculture of my church was a very small part of this already small number of believers.

In Bible study from a toddler to an adult, I heard a clear and consistent message:  life is black and white, there is good and evil and nothing in between, and as long as you walk through life with this in mind and believe these truths, you will be fine.  Only later in life did I realize that this black-and-white way of thinking had not prepared me for life.  I realized that being a black-and-white person had turned me into a judgmental person.  I constantly had to make decisions about what is black and what is white and to fit the complexity of life into these two categories, which in turn made it impossible to enjoy life or consider people, religions, and cultures on their own terms.  It was always “us” against “them.”

As a child I accepted the thoughts and beliefs of my parents and the church where I grew up.  I was neither equipped nor encouraged to question the beliefs or practices that I grew up with.  Instead of being invited to not only understand the beliefs of my community but also to contribute by questioning, re-defining, changing and continually growing them, I was asked to merely defend them.  Instead of moving me forward, the beliefs often held me back in a state of constant worry.

After high school I transitioned into the American culture.  On arrival, I connected with the subculture of my denomination in the States and realized how different it was from the church where I grew up.  Our church subcultures are reflections of or reactions to the cultures in which we find ourselves.  Being away from home and responsible for my own life, I started questioning my background and the things I had been taught.  My religious up-bringing had so molded my life that I soon became confused and felt guilty for not thinking, believing and living as I had before.  Eventually, I became so exhausted I took a break not only from organized religion, but from personal spirituality as well.  I began challenging the “do”s and “don’t’s I learned as a child and tried to rid myself of the feelings of guilt for changing my worldview.  It became a healthy cleansing experience.

I have been tired and exhausted. The road has been difficult.  I’m at the end of my latest spiritual transition. I’m seeking the courage to start over with a clean slate, to explore the basics of my religion again asking, as though for the first time, “What is Christianity?”  I refuse to live in a colorless world anymore!  Instead of being a mere watcher of a black-and-white movie, I now embrace all life. I’m excited to be discovering and helping create a community that can offer some new answers for my generation.   

Yes, I’ve learned that you can “loose” your religion, but that might be one of the best ways to find it.  Whether or not it looks the same as before matters less than whether or not you and your community own it.  If you find yourself at peace after the transitions, and if you continue to see ever more color and depth in the world around you, you’ll know your journey is going well.   

The Most Festive Friendships

~ by Joanne Sturt who is a student of Anthropology – a malleable thinker emerging from a shy voice, asking big questions, seeking bigger answers only to continue being on a path of 100% learning. She currently resides in Riverside, CA.

Recently, it just hit me that I’ve been incredibly blessed to have lived in three vastly contrasting countries of the world.  I was born in India, spent time in Kuwait and the UAE, and now live the west coast of the United States. Those experiences are priceless!

Surrounded by different faiths, identities, and customs as a citizen of each country has taught me invaluable lessons about embracing community and expressing identity without feeling lost or alienated.  Whether visiting my Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Arab, Indian, Christian, or American friends, in the end we are just friends.  We share our dreams together, our beliefs, our family customs, and our food, and dances.

What impresses me about being part of the communities in which I have lived is the richness of discovering other people’s lives. I have become not just an honored guest in a faraway land, but a family member in a Muslim home during the holy month of Ramadan, a sister of a Sikh bride on her traditional wedding day doing Mehendi artwork on her hands, and as children of God we have offered prayers together to our Creator as we gathered before a feast of food.  This has been far more than simply exploring unfamiliar territory, I have found fun being in someone else’s space!  It is a blessing to immerse ourselves in the communities where we live.

Is this Utopia talk?  Not really.  Many of us have caught on to this idea.  Any of us can grasp this Utopia and learn to be ourselves, rooted in what we believe whole-heartedly, and still find genuine friendships with people quite different from ourselves, not just toleration of differences.  I have found my most authentic friendships are with the people with whom I can disagree and agree on ideas, we can argue, laugh, share, and still find ourselves inseparable.  Those are my best, my most festive friendships!

So I’m thrilled to learn about Faith House.  It will be the kind of place where this mixing and sharing happens all the time.  My guess is that God is having fun watching us mingle together this way.  Let the festivities begin!

Different Religion, Equal Yoke?

~ by Courtney Perry (Courtney's Blog), a freelance photojournalist living in Dallas, Texas (Courtney's Photography), and a part of Journey Community Church

Recently while in South Africa I had the pleasure of visiting with Roger Saner, maintainer of the EmergentAfrica website, die-hard Protea cricket fan and all-around great guy.  Before we had ever even met face-to-face, we decided by phone to take a short overnight road trip together. Thankfully, in retrospect, this was a good and safe idea.  The quick trip gave us some great drive-time talks, spanning from “So, who are you, again?” to my incessant questions about Johannesburg life to a discussion about the verse in 2 Corinthians that advises against being “unequally yoked”. 

I honestly hadn’t thought of that verse in ages, and my presently conscious mind had completely forgotten it.  Roger wondered aloud what that phrase should even mean to us, seeing as he knows a Christian/Atheist couple and other religiously diverse couples who seem infinitely closer and in tune with one another than many Christian/Christian pairings.  I mulled this over and emailed good friend Luke Miller, who knows a bit about everything theological under the sun.   He directed me to a website, and for a contextual study of the history of this piece of Apostle Paul’s letter, I recommend reading this: http://www.crivoice.org/yoked.html

But what could these verses possibly mean to me in the context of the present when the terms ‘believer’ and ‘unbeliever’ do not compute in my vocabulary?  I love to paraphrase Richard Rohr’s commentary that salvation might best be defined as an individual discovering the God that is already inside.   According to that outlook , my daily life is spent searching to better know the God inside me while at the same time looking for the God which I know to be present in all others.   There is no split; no secret knowledge I can hold over another’s head in a condescending manner.  The problem I have with attempting to assign simplistic modern meaning to the stark words of 2 Cor. 6:14 is that it seems to only exacerbate an us-them; good-evil dichotomy of thinking.  You’re with us or against us—that is all.  Square peg does not fit in round hole and never will. 

So I took this question to the streets. 

A Letter to the Three Friends I Wish I Had

Dear Sam, Hamed, and Jo:

How I wish I had met each of you and that we had become lifelong friends.  Sam, you could have explained the depth of your Jewish faith to me and helped me understand my God better.  Hamed, you could have taught me to understand the beauty and justice inherent in Islam.  Jo, you could have been my agnostic friend, teaching me to ask honest and difficult questions, showing me how doubt and faith are closely linked together.  But we never met.  We lived separate lives.

Now we’re in our ’70s, arthritis and shortness of breath are making their presence felt whenever we see a flight of stairs—and look for an elevator!  Mortality is hovering on the horizon of our lives with increasing intensity.  And I’m reflecting often about “what might have been,” and my grandchildren.

When we left university, we intended to change the world.  I believed that my calling to be a pastor would give me endless opportunities.  It did.  But growing my church absorbed all my energy and enthusiasm.  Looking back, I confess to being more concerned about the affirmation of my church leaders than fulfilling the dream!  I had hoped to leave my small corner of the world in a much better place than I found it.  However, as my church grew, the community around us got worse.  And I did nothing of significance to bridge the gaping chasms between our congregation and people of other Faiths, or no faith at all.  The three of you may have done the same, absorbed in your businesses, religions, and other important goals.

For me, rejoicing in past successes is now overshadowed by my sorrow over past neglect.  My belief in an imminent Second Coming of Christ blinded me to my responsibility to care for God’s creation. My belief in the “chosenness” of my church made me smug, and that closed any real dialogue with others of different convictions or philosophies. If only I had stopped and thought more about what really matters; if only you had stopped and done the same!  Instead of living three parallel lives, we could have learned more about the treasures each one of us has been carrying. I am convinced now that with your help, I would follow Christ better!  All of our lives would have been much richer.

It’s all “What might have been.” 

I’m growing old, and have some time on my hands, so I’m taking a belated new turn in what little is left of the road ahead.  I’m committing to be a better listener.  Not to argue, but to learn, not to seek to demolish another’s beliefs, but to discover their strengths and how they could enrich my life. I want to get beyond the tempting tidbits of conversation that will flow from the next two years of presidential politics, and instead to seek out those with spiritual lives different from mine and to learn from them—especially from Jews, Muslims, and agnostics.  We are fellow travelers on the same difficult road for our world of deteriorating climate, challenges of globalization, dishonesty in politics, and rigidity in religion.  I must hear the things that people from these different persuasions want to tell me.   I want to walk this new path seeking mutual understanding, not domination; building, not tearing down; and working for the good of the wonderful creation God gave us all.

Most importantly (the main reason that prompted this note) I want to model this sense of inclusiveness to my son and daughter in the hope that at least in our family, there’ll be a new interest in the uniqueness and convictions among our recent growing circle of friends outside our church.  The facts are, the four of us are leaving the world in a much bigger mess than we found it.  In the years I have left, I’m doing something about it, and I hope that you three, whoever you are and wherever you are, will hear me through this open letter on the Faith House website.

The journey to a better world seems daunting.  What can we really accomplish until we are no more?  Much, I’m beginning to think. We can leave a legacy in words, in resources, in prayer.  I would like to spend the rest of my days blowing the wind into the backs of those who can use such a legacy to further the dream. A quote from Mother Theresa has greatly encouraged me.  She said something like this:  few of us can do great deeds, but we can all do small deeds with great love.  If I had even one “old” friend from the other great Faiths, I would say to them, “Please accept the ‘changing’ me, so together we can yet make our small worlds better by listening, by acting for the sake of those who come after us, and for the good of the world we will soon leave behind.”

Roy

+ Roy Naden is an author and Professor Emeritus (Andrews University, MI) who lives, gardens, and writes in Seattle, WA +

Webmaster's Note:
Our journey to new world will be difficult or impossible without the help of our elders, people who raised us, taught us, loved us.
  Maybe this is a good time to share with some of them your views about the future? Maybe their wisdom can guide you?  Maybe their blessing can strengthen you?  Or maybe their fear and apathy can embolden you?
  Either way, we suggest you forward this letter to them and start a conversation.
And then keep us posted!

Seeking More Than a Conversation

~ by Justin S. Kim, an attorney who lives and works in Washington, D.C.

When I first read about the Faith House, I was impressed.  It is an ambitious plan supported by a strong list of endorsements. I loved the idea—but it was an idea for New York City.  I live near Washington, D.C.  And I’m not a minister or professor of religion, but an attorney who spends much of the day in front of a computer.  What does an interfaith community in another city have to do with me? 

Religion has been described as a faux pas of polite conversation.  Scratch the surface of a person's religion and faith, and squirming and shifting begins.  We have all seen religion and faith lead to difference and division.  Perhaps this is why we don't think of the workplace as a safe place for serious conversations about religion.   

Yet despite all this, every day, people engage in casual conversations about faith and religion--in schools and offices, over meals and coffee, and between persons of different faiths and nonfaith.  But after promising beginnings, these conversations often end prematurely.  They last over a lunch but then are put on hold when everyone returns to work.

My first conversation about religion at work was also the first sustained encounter with a person who did not share a Christian background.  A colleague and I shared an office for a year.  He was a secular Jew who spent much of his life in Brooklyn; I was born, raised, and schooled in a cocoon of suburban Adventism.  Occasionally, our mutual curiosity led to conversations about faith and religion.  As a secular Jew, he found Adventism to be an amusing puzzle--a Christian denomination with some decidedly Jewish traditions.  (As we would leave work on Friday afternoons, he would wish me "Shabbat shalom" with a big grin.  We laughed at the irony of the Christian who kept the Sabbath and the Jew who did not.)  My political leanings also confounded his idea of evangelical Christianity, which seemed largely derived from reading the New York Times.  Similarly, he was a paradox to me--a secular, agnostic Jew who nevertheless attended temple on holy days.

Over that year, we had engaging discussions about religious doctrine and practice, the nature of God as revealed in the story of Abraham’s sacrifice, and the role of religion in public life and global affairs.  But that was it--a series of interesting conversations.  At the end of that year, we both moved on to different jobs in different cities. 

When you read this, I hope you feel a twinge of loss--maybe a familiar loss that you too have felt.  I wonder how many conversations share the same fate and whether with each repetition, if another opportunity for sharing, understanding, and healing is lost.  Many of us no longer live in a place where entire countries, cities, and neighborhoods share one faith.  Sadly, the diversity of faith and nonfaith in our communities often leads to division and misunderstanding.  A byproduct of this dysfunction is the loneliness and isolation that we feel, even in the dense crowds of city life. 

The Faith House is not primarily a place for interfaith dialogue amongst the clergy.  It’s for all of us who long for our faith to be more intertwined with our daily lives--at work, at home, in our neighborhoods and communities.  When we can’t experience matters of faith and religion with those who regularly come into our lives, it limits our faith.  That is why I am heartened by the Faith House and the idea of a place devoted to supporting and encouraging shared experiences across faiths and religions.  It gives me hope for the conversations yet to come.