Ch. 9 The GOD-Centric Conversation (continued)
GOD-centric Inter-Religious Conversation
"There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions." (Hans Küng) Being GOD-centric means that God's lovingness, goodness, and fairness can be understood and are more important than any religious decree or book. Once our good and fair God of love is placed first, real dialogue can take place because all conversation would be filtered reasonably by whether or not it supports our good and fair God of love. Does the religious suggestion contradict God's lovingness, goodness, or fairness? Does the religious suggestion block the movement of love expressed in creation? If not, let's celebrate learning something new!
GOD-centric people need only agree on God's being loving, good, and fair and desiring that we live out those same qualities. We do not seek agreement on religious terminology, metaphysics, doctrine, prayers, rituals, or texts though we do require that each of these manifestations of faith support God's being loving, good, and fair. We seek to offer and receive spiritual wisdom from other traditions which may broaden or deepen our personal relationship with God and each other. Every religious tradition that I have explored has enriched my spiritual life with beautiful words, music, prayers, meditation methods, and spiritual disciplines that expanded and deepened my path to God. GOD-centric people from different religious traditions are ultimately on the same team because they love and pursue the same good and fair God of love. We are here to help each other in our transformative spiritual journeys.
Establishing Trust
As we gingerly and lovingly share our experiences and traditions with each other, it might be helpful to begin the process by sharing works of art, music, poetry, paintings that lift our hearts to God and facilitate our relationship with God rather than generate our thoughts about God. I am a big fan of the human brain, my mind to me a kingdom is, and I believe that God desires our use of reason in better understanding God; however, I think we all know that our brains tend to be argumentative and downright ornery. Let's be smart about being smart. Before we risk orneriness, let's establish a relationship of trust and a genuine heart connection with each other by beginning our conversation with the sharing of the less intellectual ways that we relate to God. First, let's share our artistic expressions and then perhaps our personal stories of interacting with God in our private lives. I have not heard of a personal encounter with God in which God spouted off religious doctrine. God reaches out to us personally with love and wonder so let us reach out to each other in that same spirit. Let's share our unique stories of encounter in prayer, mediation, mystical experience, service, nature, sacramental awareness ~ whenever we have broken through to the true reality, to the more vivid light, to Truth, Beauty, Joy, Goodness, Love, God.
Sharing Our Religion
Sharing our artistic and uniquely personal experiences with God will allow us to know in our bones that we all really do love the same good and fair God. Our defenses will relax and we will be able to move to a position of curiosity and possibility when approaching our differences. When we broach the topic of our own religious tradition, we should first share those aspects which most deliver us to the experience of God. The experience of our good and fair God of love is the thing. Theoretical discussions about God rarely bring us to an experience of God; at least, they never have for me. Let's focus on God's impact on our actual lives. Let's learn about each other's religious practices and the fruits they bear in each other's lives. If the religious practice brings joy, love, peace, and kindness to the practitioner, then it might be worth our exploring. We should then share those aspects of our own religious tradition which trouble us. Allowing others to see our cracks will invite them to share their cracks as well and as Leonard Cohen has so eloquently stated “there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.” First establishing a relationship of trust will allow us to open to one another in vulnerability and this openness is a precondition for transformation.
Employing Jefferson With a Twist
“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” (Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia) There is only one GOD-centric dogma: God is loving, good, and fair with the corollary that we should live out those qualities. How will we hold firm to our GOD-centric values while refraining whenever possible from criticizing religious differences? Whether or not our leg breaks will not be our standard; however, perhaps we should heed Jefferson's pragmatism. Right now, GOD-centric is a fledgling orientation so it might be wise to let intra-religious dialogue take on the challenge of determining whether or not religious doctrine contradicts God's lovingness, goodness, and fairness while inter-religious dialogue focuses on whether or not the religious difference affects our living out love, goodness, and fairness right here on earth.
If your neighbor from another tradition believes in God by a different name, or multiple manifestations of God, or a Creator God, or God as the Ground of Being, or a God as manifest in creation, or God as a Supreme Reality, ask yourself if it affects their living out God's lovingness, goodness, and fairness here on earth. One simple question. If your neighbor from another tradition believes in heaven or reincarnation or neither, ask yourself if it affects their living out God's lovingness, goodness, and fairness here on earth. One simple question. If their religious difference does not impede their living out God's love, goodness, and fairness, then let's say nothing more for now even if we think there might be non-loving theoretical implications. For now, let us give each other space to work out theoretical implications in our intra-religious dialogues while helping each other transform pragmatically in our inter-religious dialogues. “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God as long as they live out God's love, goodness, and fairness here on earth.” (GOD-centric)
Mediating Issues
Ah, but chances are that everything will not come up roses despite our best intentions. What will we do when we feel challenged or defensive? Share your feelings of discomfort and, if you are the person hearing this sharing, please respect the feelings without argument. All parties should step back and individually reconnect with our good and fair God of love. Let that love affect your quality of being. Once you have reached this place of loving strength, please reflect on your challenge.
If you were the person feeling challenged, please ask yourself if the challenge was a legitimate response to something you expressed that contradicted God's lovingness, goodness, or fairness. Please ask yourself if you were sharing God's love at the time of the challenge or if you were using “truth” as a weapon. Please ask yourself if you felt challenged because you were being invited to transform, change, grow into a bigger love of God. We rarely transform without growing pains. Ask yourself if you are brave enough to be legitimately challenged. Next, put yourself in the other person's shoes. Right or wrong, did that person believe that they were challenging you from a loving perspective? Did they intend to challenge you at all? If they were no longer in loving dialogue, what might have moved them away from love? Try to develop compassion for the other person's point of view and empathy for the other person. We all want to feel cared for, appreciated, honored, and respected. Imagine your giving that gift to the person with whom you are in dialogue.
If you were the person whom the other person perceived as challenging, please ask yourself if you were expressing love at the time of the perceived challenge or if you were using “truth” as a weapon. Please ask yourself if what you said honored our good and fair God of love. Please try to put yourself compassionately in the other person's shoes. Right or wrong, can you understand how they might have experienced you as being unloving? Can you think of a way you could have expressed yourself in a more loving manner? We all want to feel cared for, appreciated, honored, and respected. Imagine your giving that gift to the person with whom you are in dialogue.
When the dialogue resumes, each person should share their own reflection with love and honesty. I imagine that this process of re-encountering God's love, strengthening our quality of being, and re-engaging each other after honest self-reflection in the spirit of living out God's love would usually lead to an outcome in which each party is transformed into a more loving agent of God resulting in a fuller understanding of their unfolding realization of God. If a mutual place of loving understanding cannot be reached, resolve to love each other anyway. We can't go wrong with love! God is a mystery whose unfolding is an never-ending process, a process which is our ultimate concern but which we cannot hold wholly at any one moment in time. We should continue our GOD-centric conversation despite the difficulties of doing so because we love God enough to be challenged, be uncomfortable, be transformed. We are only undefeated because we have gone on trying. Are you ready to participate in the GOD-centric conversation?
