September 24, 2006 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley
Barb: The world is crying out for understanding among religions and cultures.
Bill: One of the pressing imperatives of our times is bridging the chasm
between the West and the East.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Founder and Director of the American Society
for the Advancement of Muslims, in New York City,
will address this topic in his lecture here this Friday evening.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf believes Muslim Americans
have a unique role to play in helping Muslims understand the West
and in helping Americans understand Islam.
Barb: When Bill and I were growing up, people talked of religious diversity
among the various Christian denominations,
or between Catholics and Protestants, or Christians and Jews.
Look what we all have to put our arms around now.
Bill: Look at what’s been in the news.
In a speech on the need for religious dialogue,
the Pope referred to a 14th century Byzantine emperor’s words
“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new,
and there you will find things only evil and inhuman,
such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'"
The Pope used the terms "jihad" and "holy war."
He didn’t cite the long stretches of time in history
when Christians have used violence.
Some Islamic leaders were offended
the Pope was perpetuating misconceptions of Islam.
The Prophet Mohammed had restricted the use of force in religion.
Barb: The Pope’s speech comes at a time when the world has seen
the hooded figure tortured at Abu Ghraib,
heard stories of the desecration of the Holy Quran.
Since the speech, a group of Muslims burned the Pope in effigy;
a nun was killed; there were rioting Christians, rioting Muslims.
There is no one single Islamic response,
just as there is no one Christian response.
Spiky-haired, young Muslim feminist Irshad Manji,
author of What’s Wrong With Islam?, took the news spotlight
saying she’d read the Pope’s whole speech and no apology is
necessary.
She supports the Pope’s invitation to religious dialogue,
but does wish she could convert the Pope to feminism!
Bill: Then this week at the United Nations,
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticized President Bush,
who criticized Ahmadinejad as serving his own interests and not his citizens,
and Venezuelan President Chavez repeatedly called President Bush
the devil and said President Bush had come to the U.N.,
talking like he owned the world.
Nancy Pelosi called Chavez a “thug.”
Barb: In the San Francisco Chronicle’s two cents column
where people share their opinions, an Oakland citizen said,
“Every patriotic Venezuelan is ashamed of the parts
[of Chavez’ speech] that were false;
every patriotic American is ashamed of the parts that were true.”
The muck human beings are capable of has been on full display.
Whether religion or government,
muck and magnificence is the nature of human beings.
Bill: All humans, religious and non-religious, fall short of our ideals.
These religious and political leaders in the news are irresponsible
when they ignite stereotypes, kindle fear, and arouse violence in their
followers.
Barb: Television journalist and social commentator, Bill Moyers says,
“The world's aflame with intolerance, and millions of true believers
are passing buckets of kerosene to throw on it.”
Bill: The Middle East, the meeting place of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers,
is called the cradle of civilization,
the birth place of art and architecture, the humanities and sciences.
Barb: Now what we see of the Middle East is devastation, bombed out buildings, soldiers in camouflaged uniforms, women grieving, a grave yard of humanity.
Bill: The world is crying out for understanding.
Barb: The world is more complex, more varied and diverse than all the stereotypes.
Bill: But, it is easier to see in stereotypes.
On July 30th, a Santa Clara man stabbed a grandfather as a way
“to seek revenge for September 11th and attack a member of the
Taliban.”
The grandfather had a long beard and wore a turban.
He wasn’t a Taliban. He wasn’t even a Muslim.
He was a Sikh, a member of the 500-year old monotheistic religion
indigenous to India.
Barb: There is of course no one image of Muslims, of Middle Easterners,
of Americans, of Christians, of Jews, of you name it, of Unitarian
Universalists.
Bill: Arab American Aron Kader has blue eyes, curly black hair,
a face he calls “ambiguous ethnic.”
His dad is Palestinian American and his mom a redheaded Mormon.
He grew up in Utah, then D.C., Kader begins his L.A. comedy show,
“Any Palestinian Mormons out there?”
“Ahhhh, my people.”
Barb: Iranian native Anousheh Arisari grew up in Tehran
where she often slept out on the balcony of her family’s home.
Looking up at the night sky, she dreamed of the stars.
She wondered if there was a young woman on another planet
looking up and dreaming too.
When she saw the image of earth seen from space,
she dreamed of some day seeing that view of the beautiful blue green
earth herself.
She moved to America as a youth.
She and her husband maxed out their credit cards to start their own business.
They sold their software firm for 500 million dollars
and she bought a trip of a lifetime on a rocket ship-
a liberal Muslim Texas business woman venture capitalist
exploring the universe with Russian cosmonauts!
She blows apart stereotypes of an Iranian woman.
She wants, she says, to help people's minds open
to the possibility of Iranians not all being terrorists.
Bill: Interfaith dialogues may not get as much attention
as faiths in opposition with one another, but they are happening.
Over Labor Day weekend more than 250 Muslims, Christians, and Jews
gathered in the Sierras for a four-day meeting across cultural divides.
The group included fifty people from the Middle East,
and scores of American Arabs and Jews, ages 1 to 77.
The primary purpose of their gathering was to listen to one another.
If they can step beyond their fears of one another,
they can learn to open to each other’s perspectives.
Barb: At the start there was tension
when a Palestinian Christian and an Israeli Jew squared off,
debating volatile points of history of the Middle East.
Bill: The group’s leader recalled a story
from the Coast Miwoks Indians who once lived in the Sierras.
A boy tells his grandfather: “I feel that I have two wolves
fighting inside me.
One is angry and violent. The other is loving and compassionate. Who
will win?”
The grandfather responded: “The one you feed.”
A young Muslim Palestinian cried to the group: “You’ve all
heard about bin Laden
but you don’t know about us and all the good things about Islam.”
Barb: At the end of the camp, Muslims, Christians, and Jews
felt they had listened to all sides and built bridges.
The two young men, who started off in tension, hugged,
pledged to stay in touch via email, and said they had become brothers.
Though every religion has its fanatics and extremists
who will not enter the dialogue,
more and more people are willing and wanting to listen and to speak.
This is where we find hope; this is where we move forward.
Bill: We Unitarian Universalists are in a good position
to build the bridge from the West.
For at least the last one hundred and seventy-five years,
our religious forbears looked to the East
to open themselves to new sources of inspiration.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalists read the Bhagavadgita,
the Upanishads, the Quran and Buddhist and Confucian writings.
Since then our Unitarian Universalist perspective has enlarged
to embrace other insights including scientific ones.
Our challenge is always to stretch ourselves,
to listen to the perspective of others, to open to their truths.
By doing so, we move away from that deep human fear-based defensiveness
that calls us to defeat what is unlike us, and, instead to open to new
understandings.
Barb: We are not perfect at doing so.
We often get caught in our particular understandings.
We are devout theists or atheists, humanists or pagans,
defending our way of seeing existence with language comfortable to us.
To be a part of the interfaith dialogue we stretch to hear religious language
we don’t choose for ourselves.
Bill: At our best, we know that truth is constantly unfolding,
that mystery is greater than all human knowledge,
and that in building bridges,
we participate in the evolution of human consciousness.
This is one gift we Unitarian Universalists have to offer to interfaith
dialogue, to the healing of the human family, and to the growth of
truth.
Barb: At our best, we can recognize the importance of noticing
the instant judgments we make upon seeing one another.
We start right here.
When we share our stories, our significant moments, our thoughts,
we understand how one another come to feel and think the way we do.
We grow in respect.
Bill: This is what Chalice Circles, our small group ministry fosters.
We urge you to join a circle of eight to ten people
who will meet over the year to talk of things that matter.
Taking in the stories of others encourages understanding.
Because we can never fully know what is going on for another,
the grief another carries, the challenges,
never fully know what is going on in a relationship
or the ending of a relationship,
we give each other the benefit of the doubt.
Barb: Yesterday the two of us were walking
close up against the right side of the street.
A car directly behind us honked. We jumped and turned around.
Both of us at first thought someone was being particularly rude and annoying.
Then we both saw the honking was not at us.
I thought the horn was going off and the driver couldn’t control it.
The driver and I exchanged a playful and understanding look.
Bill: I thought the driver was honking to let someone in the house
know she had arrived and that she was giving us an “I’m
sorry” look.
Barb: We walked on and the horn blasted again,
startling a person riding a bicycle coming around the curve.
The biker called out, “Stop it, stupid!”
I tried to say, “It’s a mistake, not meant for you,
just one of those weird moments of life,” but the biker rushed on.
When I’m in the position of the biker,
I wish someone would just lean forward and say softly to my better self,
and remind me in a way I can hear, “Give the benefit of the
doubt,”
or “Be kind,” or “This is just one of those weird
moments.”
Bill: Though we can never fully know what is going on for another,
getting ourselves out of our comfort zones can broaden our understanding.
Sometimes this comes through the privileges of travel.
Barb: Some years ago, the two of us had the opportunity to travel in Turkey.
Bill: These are the Turkish Muslims we know.
Barb: We saw female university students who protested
the legislation that banned Islamic head-gear in Turkey’s
educational institutions
because the young women wanted to cover their heads.
We saw these women,
undistracted by the magazine stands hawking Western magazines,
whose covers displayed scantily clad women.
Bill: We shared breakfast with two Syrian men.
In the restaurant, MTV was on the screen.
One told us he was troubled by the violence of American films
and did not know what to say to his six year old son.
Barb: In a park a light-hearted playful little girl offered me
sunflower seeds,
teaching me how to shell them without making a mess.
As her family was leaving, she ran off, then rushed back and kissed me.
Bill: A young businessman did all he could to help us find a flight
and get home, including driving us across town,
when he learned Barbara’s brother had a heart attack.
On buses, in parks, at a police station,
the Muslims we knew were generous, offering us tea
in traditional tulip shaped glasses.
Barb: After an all night bus ride, we got off in a new city in pouring rain.
We were lost, tired, and stood under a ledge, sharing a last crust of bread
when again tea magically appeared.
Bill: Some mosques looked like museums, some like community centers,
men studying, women and children learning and playing; young and old gathered.
Barb: Four a.m., our first morning in Turkey,
the call to prayer sounded from each mosque’s minaret.
Across the sky, through the air, came the haunting sounds,
sometimes annoying, yet resounding deep inside
as an invitation, a reminder.
Bill: Drop what you are doing
and bring your self back to what is important and enduring,
five times a day, upon rising at dawn, at noon, mid-afternoon,
at sunset, at bedtime.
Barb: On a Friday afternoon, the call to prayer sounded.
People walked away from shops, left their goods unguarded on the streets,
came to the mosque, filling it, the grounds, the sidewalks, the streets,
all of the people kneeling down, all on the same level,
acknowledging something more important than business and busyness,
something wider, deeper, greater,
a presence, “most dear, close, and intimate,” [Hafiz from
the morning reading]]
call it what you will: the breathing of the world,
life, truth, beauty, love, the mystery,
the magnificent, the merciful, the infinite.
Bill: One of the pillars of the Islamic faith is pilgrimage;
our spiritual growth comes in going out of our comfort zones,
to new places, to new conversations.
May fear give way to trust; may we learn about another culture;
another way of looking at life; may we learn about ourselves,
encounter the unfamiliar and become familiar.
Barb: For the spirit that binds us to one another and to this place,
the spirit that “cloaks itself in a thousand ways”[Hafiz],
moves through time and space and is expressed by Islamic calls to prayer,
Christian gospel songs, Pagan moon-light chants, Jewish cantors,
Sufi dancers, quiet Buddhist meditations, Milo stories,
the morning and evening hymns of the Sikhs, scientific explorations,
humanist declarations, beautiful poetry, acts of justice, deep sharing,
songs of peace,
for all this, we give thanks.
Both: Some day, some day-
green cypresses, blue seas, sunlight beams, blue skies, starry universe,
Bill: Rome,
Barb: Iraq,
Bill: Iran,
Barb: Turkey,
Bill: Texas,
Barb: California,
Bill: East,
Barb: West,
Both: All One
Bill: wind,
Barb: air,
Bill: breath,
Barb: courage,
Bill: spirit,
Barb: power,
Bill: some day,
Barb: some day:
Bill: Shalom.
Barb; Salaam.
Bill: Pox.
Barb: Pace.
Both: Peace, Peace, Peace.
Bill: Yes,
Barb: oh, yes,
Both: amen.
♦READING
May the reading be today as a summons, a sending forth,
a reminder of who we are and what is possible.Shams Due-Dun Mohammad Hafiz was a 14th century Persian lyric poet.
A teacher of the Quran, he was bestowed with the title “Hafez,”
designated to one who has learned the Quran by heart.
He lived in the tradition of Sufism, the Islamic mystical movement
who sought union with all that is.Cloak yourself in a thousand ways; still shall I know you, my Beloved.
Veil yourself with every enchantment and yet I shall feel you,
Presence most dear, close and intimate.I shall salute you in the springing of cypresses and in the sheen of lakes,
the laughter of fountains.I shall surely see you in tumbling clouds,
in brightly embroidered meadows.Oh, Beloved Presence, more beautiful than all the stars together,
I trace your face in ivy that climbs, in clusters of grapes,
in morning flaming the mountains, in the clear arch of sky.You gladden the whole earth and make every heart great.
You are the breathing of the world.