Religious Scholar

President Obama's words to the Muslim world this week ring true.

"My job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives," President Obama told Al Arabiya, an Arabic-language news channel based out of Dubai. "My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy." (The Blog, WhiteHouse.gov)

What the President has spoken of Western/Muslim relations is every bit as relevant to other religious tensions that throughout history have divided families, nations, even our world. The great obstacle to understanding, to peace and even our very survival, is intolerance, the act of closing our ears and eyes to the Other, repeating the familiar mantra of our own (often narrow) cultural understanding. When we view those with other beliefs as the enemy, we have in fact declared war on them. And this in spite of the fact that all major religious and spiritual paths offer the promise of peace and good will to all.

We are not your enemy, and you are not ours. Let us all learn to listen, to suspend judgment, and to explore together the core of common values that we all share. Let us not be isolated or passive, but embrace our essential unity with enthusiasm and energy, finding points where we can meet and respecting the differences we can never understand.  Few things can make such a monumental difference in our world as cultivating an attitude of mutual respect and charting a course of active, whole-hearted tolerance.

Sometimes the natural world speaks of spiritual silence more eloquently than any book. I took this photo at a park in Central New Jersey during a storm on January 28, 2009.

June 1, 2010, will be the 700th anniversary of the first execution of the Inquisition in Paris. Burnt at the stake was Marguerite Porete, the author of a book of spiritual insight,"The Mirror of Simple Souls." A Beguine (a member of a lay community of women dedicated to spiritual practice and service), Porete was not a heretic, as charged, but rather an enlightened teacher and practicing mystic in the Western spiritual tradition.

     At the same time, Meister Eckhart, one of the greatest Western mystics, was serving as Dominican chair of theology at the University of Paris. McGinn states that Eckhart was familiar with Porete's work, and was a known sympathizer with Beguine spirituality. He would have his own trial later in the 14^th century. Koch and Grundmann, other scholars, assert that Eckhart got some of his ideas from Porete's work. That is open to discussion, but it remains clear that if Eckhart were in fact in Paris on the day of Porete's execution, his thoughts would have been troubled and his heart heavy.

     I wrote the following inadequate, but sincere poem after reflecting what that day might have been like for Meister Eckhart, whose own work was already in danger of Inquisitional censure:

Swailing

Meister Eckhart to Marguerite Porete

Paris: June 1, 1310

By now, the kindling's lit,

Invisible fire on this dull late spring day.

Clerics, peasants, guildsmen:

From my tower,

Safe and secure by virtue of

Rank and scholarship,

I see them pass, lips

Brimming gossip, fear, dismay,

A Schadenfreud delight, a

Guilty joy. Skipping children

Spinning hoops, dogs and

Chickens, monks and scolding

Dames. It is Market Day,

And Truth leaves bitter

Ashes where she lay.

Dear Daughter of God,

Like you, my hands are stayed.

But know the spark of understanding lives

Among the simple souls for whom you prayed.

We are the image, mirror of one holy Breath.

And so declare this truth, though baiting death.

Forgive me that I did not speak

On your behalf.

My own defense weighs

Heavy on my heart at some

Not distant, inevitable date.

God reveals, we preach,

And die for what we teach.

I only know that in today's dark, sun-blackening

Sight, a livelier spark than fire is catching

Flight. Hear this: A pyre is but a swailing path to

Light.

Linda Brown Holt

A fine line, isn't it? One of my favorite TV programs about religion is the wry hospital drama, House. Dr. House, an avowed atheist, raises questions that all religious and spiritual (I make a distinction) people need to ask. When I pray, am I just talking to my Imaginary Friend? When something good happens, why is it that God gets all the credit? And so forth.

     Truly, where does religion end and insanity begin? I'm sure there must be plenty of psychological literature on this topic (Psychologists: where can we find this?). Whenever someone kills others or self in the name of God, we shout, “That's not religion: it's crazy!” On a less dramatic note, is it sane to run your 21^st century life by social rules developed 2,000 or more years ago? Is this what it takes to make you feel like a real person?

     I'm not a mental health professional, but I think I can come up with some signs of mental illness according to the Western canon and their possible equivalents in religion:

     You can come up with more, I'm sure. To agnostics and atheists, there is no distinction: many of the characteristics of religion are nothing more than sanctified mental aberrations. To religious people, perhaps what we are quick to call insanity is really misinterpreted paranormal activity. After all, casting out devils works pretty much as well as psychotherapy and can be faster and cheaper.

     This leads one to inquire whether there is in fact a universal science of mental health. Is what we call mental wholeness simply a Western attitude, a Western technique to undermine and control other cultures? When families support suicide bombers, do Middle Eastern psychologists stage an intervention and drag the household into rehab?

     I don't have the answers to these questions, and they are so complex, I doubt anyone has a valid, pat reply. But those of us who identify ourselves more with the religious/spiritual side of the chart would do well to pay attention to the salvos launched by scientific materialists. The fictitious Dr. House is actually a person of some spirituality; it's his attacks on religious practices and attitudes that raise our hackles and help us think through what is, and what and why we believe.

Although this blog advocates for all things spiritual and for tolerance among traditions, I have to admit I often have a problem with organized religions. At their best, religions provide a framework in which men and women can explore spirituality in a safe, supportive environment. At their worst, religions are machines for intolerance, breaking down the individual spirit, often to the benefit of religious leaders.

     Religions can provide time-tested pathways to spiritual development and a strong moral compass in a world gone mad. And yet, potentially, there is no more rapacious machine for intolerance and bigotry than the religious organization.

     I love much about the religious contexts that support my own spiritual development (Christianity, classical Yoga) as well as the non-religious philosophy of Daoism, which nourishes my entire life. At the same time, though I elude it as masterfully as I may, religious control weighs over me like a heavy blanket, like that lead bib the dental assistant puts over your chest before she X-rays your teeth. What if that bib were never lifted, only pushed down, harder, onto your heart?

     Looking at the two pathways I love most, my openness to their respective religious agencies is always held in check. In my case, this is largely because of institutionalized intolerance. The Episcopal Church has declared racism a sin. What about sexism? Though I consider myself a Protestant, my own appreciation of Christianity is steeped in the history, scholarship, and traditions of the Roman church. And yet whenever I watch a grand religious ceremony telecast from a hub of Western faith, all I see is men with a few religious women covered from head to toe like objects of shame. I cannot get beyond this impression.

     Watching “The Story of India” on PBS with the eager anticipation of someone who has practiced yoga for nearly 50 years, the impression was much the same. One would not dare to be a woman saddhu (though there are some, I hear). Whether roaming in the wilderness alone or participating fully in public festivals, men rule the religious roost. The occasional female saint or guru does not significantly counter the culture of separation, the implication of male superiority.

     Religion is not politics, is not government. Church leaders rub their chins and sigh, “No, the Church is not a democracy.” And, "Women are not inferior: just different. They have their role." One sees this throughout the world In most of the great religious traditions. And yet the spiritual content of men's and women's lives is equal. Where is that equality in religious institutions?

     To my mind, equality trumps tradition every time.

     There are, of course, other forms of intolerance involving sexuality and attitudes toward other faiths. Can we move beyond these attitudes, or is it part of the control that organized religion exerts on men and women to keep them in line? It is difficult to say. Some religious groups have taken a pro-active stance and become inclusive. Others cannot bear the strain of dissent; they crack, like a broken Communion wafer, and can't be reassembled. Some religious faithful view tolerance as a hammer breaking down their faith, when it is the organization that, through its lack of resiliency, smothers where it means to uplift. In the oldest and most powerful religious organizations, women cannot touch the altar, break the bread, whirl in the most sacred dance.

     This is why women go to the desert, light bunches of sage brush in the moonlight, and dream of wolves. And often, only in their imaginations.