This is a busy time of year. Every day, it is important to breathe, to take breaks, to rest, and to recharge our batteries so that we can be fully present to the people and to the opportunities around us. What matters is not the pace of our lives but the quality of our lives. I wish to share with you my remarks delivered at the 25th annual interfaith Thanksgiving service sponsored by the Claremont Interfaith Council. I believe this perspective on religious diversity has relevance in our world, which is multireligious and which also includes people without religious affiliation.
To gather this year is to peacefully defy authorities that warn us against meeting in large groups during the holidays. Physical, emotional, and religious security are precarious everywhere on this small globe called earth. Security, peace – those are blessings whose reality takes shape through our consciousness and our labor. We are guided and assisted by unseen forces. Some of us understand the unseen forces as human solidarity and friendship. Some of us understand the unseen forces as Divine love, care, and inspiration. Some of us understand the unseen forces as both human and Divine. Whatever your theological or philosophical beliefs, you are welcome here.
The aim of the Claremont Interfaith Council is not to find and promote what might be called the “lowest common denominator” among religious traditions (not that the lowest common denominator is a bad thing). Positive regard for the “other” makes the world a better place, and every religious tradition with which I am familiar advocates for it. At the risk of mangling mathematics, I say that we promote the “highest uncommon numerator.” By this, I mean the Claremont Interfaith Council affirms the particularity of each religious tradition – the texture, flavor, color, unique history, and distinctive ways each tradition hopes to make the world a better place and to make its adherents into better people. “Every good cause needs all its prophets,” said one of my Unitarian ministry forebears, Celia Parker Woolley, who died in 1918 at age 70. Every good cause needs all of us.
To honor the “highest uncommon numerator” and not the “lowest common denominator” in our religious traditions, the Claremont Interfaith Council has adopted this policy statement regarding worship events:
“We gather as an interfaith community. Whatever our individual belief, it can be freely expressed here with no apologies. If we are invited to offer a prayer in this setting, it may be offered according to the traditions with which we identify. If we are invited to speak on a subject from the perspective of our tradition, we are free to do so without fear of offending those who come from another tradition. We come together as people of faith to learn from each other that we might better understand the multiplicity of faith traditions in our communities and in our world.”
Blessings for happy, healthy, and peaceful holidays,
I will never forget this scene on Dia de Los Muertos. Our children picked up those devastating, injurious rocks and solemnly carried them out of the sanctuary to be painted and repurposed for joy. Thank you, Amy Randall, for this moving and wonderful idea.