There is a bumper sticker which says God is too big to fit into one religion. Too often we try to label, pigeonhole, typecast and categorise God into our way of viewing the world. This limits his infinite magnitude, his multitudinous variation, this wondrous hovering over the face of the earth, the ultimate answer to our human smallness.
We have our way of seeing God, something we have grown into and accepted as something of a cultural norm. Other faiths see and revere God in ways that are culturally appropriate to their circumstances and history. None of us has ownership of God, although wars have been fought for this cause over the centuries. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth is this answer, Jesus is the infinite God who assumed our human smallness.
SENSE OF IDENTITY
A faith tradition engages those in its community with a sense of identity and belonging. Rituals help enmesh greater understanding and a maturation in this belonging. Sacred texts tell founding stories and principles and provide a framework for living a life that responds to the inner whisper of conscience and the promptings of the Spirit, however named.
The prejudices of the past are being undone through the offices of those who understand that God is for all, notwithstanding our different avenues of devotion and liturgical practice. Besides, God does not discriminate, especially on the basis of religion. No one is excluded from God's love.
Kahlil Gibran wrote in The Prophet: ‘I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons (and daughters) of one religion and it is the spirit.’
That spirit is what compels us to do good things, to find the beauty and truth sparkling in the world and in each other, to find the common ground of connection, to look beyond the temporal to the transcendent, or as Colossians 3:2 reminds us, to ‘set your mind on the things above, not the things that are on the earth’.
TRANSCENDENCE
Dr Roger Walsh writes that at its core the world’s great spiritual traditions offer a ‘technology of transcendence’. We are looking for those things of the spirit that provide a way of living that moves beyond the self to loving God and loving our neighbour. This life is a preparation for the next.
One of the best ways of creating respect, tolerance and understanding is for our young people to come to know how other religions operate compared to the home tradition. Invariably, there are similarities, and the differences are ideas to talk about with honesty and openness.
One of the blessings of this generation is an openness to dialogue with those of other faiths. Many schools, as part of the Religious Education curriculum, explore the world religions and look into the aspects that are common to most faith traditions: beliefs, sacred stories, spaces-places-times-artefacts, ritual, symbol, ethics and spiritual experience.
People of faith should never be afraid of the ‘other’. It was only in older age that I learned that Jesus and Mary are revered in the Qur’an. Mary (Maryam) is mentioned 34 times and is the only woman explicitly named. The Annunciation story is there too, with the angel Gabriel. Enjoying a Seder (the traditional Passover meal accompanied by blessings, prayers, stories and songs) gave me an insight into the rituals with which Jewish people celebrate Passover and their exodus from Egypt under Moses more than 3000 years ago.
LISTEN TO OTHERS
What we learn as we lean in and listen to the stories and experiences of those who follow other faith traditions can enrich our own Catholic/Christian faith and enlarge how we see the world around us. God makes himself known to all who seek God.
Ann Rennie is a Melbourne writer, teacher and former REC. She believes in the Good News and the power of words to change the world.