Flexible

“Blessed are the flexible for they will never be bent out of shape!”

"I learnt a priceless life lesson from an elderly Christian missionary who had spent forty years in Africa trying to counter the efforts of Muslim preachers who were converting locals to Islam.He told me that he mourned the years he wasted in scheming to undermine one religion for the sake of another. It was like serving the Kingdom of Caesar, he said, and he wished he had spent more time serving the Kingdom of God, becoming more like Jesus and less like Caesar. Now, in his later and wiser years, he deeply appreciated the Sufi story of the zealous monkey who made it his mission to go to neighborhood ponds and pluck fish out of water to save them from a watery grave! Instead of trying to pluck souls from one belief to another, let us model our proselytizing on the recent directive from Pope Francis that the Church should cease trying to convert Jews because they have their own valid and valuable covenant with God. If we can’t stop ourselves from evangelizing altogether, at least let us learn from past excesses and develop an “ethics of evangelism” that honors the divine presence in the hearts and minds of the people we wish to convert.

Stories

Like the DAESH extremists, we can be excessively attached to our scriptural stories. I learned about the absurdity of adamant attachment to religious stories at an interfaith conference some years ago when Muslim, Christian and Jewish participants were sharing stories from their traditions about Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Sarah, Hagar and Moses. A number of stories are basically the same in both the Bible and the Quran, although they may differ in the details. As we know, the devil is in the details, and the devil at this conference was having a good time fanning the flames of argument and ownership. Voices rose, egos were bruised, and observers fidgeted in embarrassment. Finally, a Native American professor burst out laughing and said, “You know, we Native Americans also have stories. The only difference between us and you is that you guys believe the stories!”

May we have the courage and grace to be flexible and laugh at our rigid attachment to our stories. As the Sufis like to say, “Blessed are the flexible, for they will never be bent out of shape.”

Heaven and Hell

Many of us are appalled by fanatical talk about living a life based on an apocalyptic vision of end times. Is this any way to live a life on earth? But many of us in more moderate versions of religion may be motivated by dread of Hell or greed for Heaven, and we should ask ourselves: Is this a genuine way to live? In a Sufi story by Imam Ghazzali (1058-1111), Jesus encounters three groups of people. The first group is physically crippled and mentally miserable. “What is your affliction?” Jesus asks. They reply, “We have become like this through our fear of Hell.” The second group is similarly crippled and says, “Intense desire for Paradise has made us like this.” The third group had endured much but radiates love and joy. “We love the Spirit of Truth,” they say. “We have glimpsed Reality, and this has made us oblivious of lesser goals.” May we be like the people in the third group, and reflect on the prayer of the eighth-century female Islamic sage Rabia: “O my Lord, if I worship You from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell; and if I worship You from hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your own sake, do not withhold from me Your Eternal Beauty.”

Conclusion

The best lesson to be drawn from religious exclusivity and fanaticism is what sages have taught for centuries: if my relationship with my religion or holy book comes in the way of my relationship with you, it is bound to come in the way of my relationship with God."