Look before crossing

Walking in Melbourne has become a bit of a metaphor for me with respect to what is going on here at the Parliament. As many may know, the Aussies drive on the left. This presents some immediate difficulties for pedestrians unaccustomed to this practice. On more than one occasion I have been talking and walking along not really thinking….only to find myself about to step into oncoming traffic. Hazardous indeed. What I have had to quickly learn to do is look in the opposite direction as to what I am accustomed.

This may be, perhaps, one of the greatest teachings for me of the Parliament – learn to look in the opposite or at least another direction. One thing that has been reinforced for me again and again over the past week is how small and patterned my world really is. This doesn’t belittle it or deny its goodness in any way. It just says that while I live with notions of my own openness, right thinking, importance, etc., there’s so much that I do not know, have not experienced and can’t even imagine.

Hearing from indigenous peoples from all over the world (I have found myself drawn to many of these workshops and presentations), having conversations with people from remote parts of the planet, listening to incredible music and performance and chanting with Hindu masters, I humbly realize yet again how much territory I am unfamiliar with - both inside of and outside of myself.

Everywhere I turn at the Parliament there is someone, some tradition, some practice that is “other.” Some of it is familiar – or at least I think it to be so – until I start to dig a little deeper and I begin to see how complex and multifaceted people, traditions and faiths really are - including my own. (I am also finding some new resources in my own well that I did not realize were there let alone finding them in other people's wells.)

And if the faiths we profess and practice are complex, so seem to be the challenges the human family faces. While we may think we are familiar with them, understand them and have a remedy for them, they are, perhaps, far more complex and multifaceted than we realize. Some of these challenges require fundamental restructuring on so many fronts...

And yet in these conversations I am finding quite a bit of hope. People of real good will, real intellect and real passion are thinking about tough issues and responding to them everywhere. They dig deep into their wells of faith – just as I do - to find resources and strength and vision. And what is being brought home for me is that I do not have to solve global problems alone (thank God). What I lack, someone else possesses. What is more, there are traditions (that have been around for a long, time) and leaders (who are very wise) inviting us into a new way of being together.

With that said, there are a few things not happening at the Parliament that are a bit troubling. One participant referred to it as a ‘hug fest,’ and there can be that sentiment here – that we all believe similar things at the core, that we can all get along and work together, etc. Few of the panels I have attended have addressed some of the deep tensions that exist between, among and within the faiths. Sexuality has barely been touched (out of 300+ presentations, only 2 dealt with sexuality issues). It also has been a challenge to meet and get to know people from different places – due to the schedule and few real opportunities to sit down with someone you do not know.

So the Parliament is not a perfect world – but neither is the world we live in. And, perhaps, perfection is not the goal. As Chief Oren Lyons said in one of his talks on the effects of colonization, “We’re stuck with each other, whether we like it or not.” The situations we find ourselves in as humans are stark, and I am getting so much more of a sense of this than ever before. I am realizing how limited our media coverage is in the U.S. of issues that are critical (not sure how I can say this more emphatically) to the (literal) future of this planet – let alone religion, and I am feeling an even greater urgency to return home and get back to work.

It’s not all serious here, though. There’s a great deal of laughter, levity and celebration. Last night was an amazing concert and performance with folks from around the world. Some stuff I had never seen before. And pretty much every workshop is like the start of a bad interfaith joke, “A Sikh, a Christian and a Shinto walk into a room…” It’s also amazing that you can be sitting next to the head of some international order of such-and-such and never even know it. I was sitting next to a guy in what looked like Tibetan lama garb in one workshop. Then in the next, he’s on the panel I am attending as the dharma leader of over a million faithful. It’s nuts. There are some interfaith big cheeses here, and I attended a panel yesterday where the speakers probably represented about 3 billion people from 5 – 6 faiths. Imagine the possibilities if they all go home as jazzed as I do…This house we call earth is gonna rock.

As Lynne mentioned in her post, there’s just too much to try to capture it all. I hope these posts are giving you, our eight faithful followers, a small sense of both the content and process of the Parliament and of what remains with us as we move through it. Hard to believe it’s quickly coming to and end and hard to believe it’s been going on so long.

I continue to remain buoyed by the thoughts of you all back home.