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Perspectives in Faith
Column: Facing our fear and outrage: Finding ways forward together
This guest column was written by Lisa Miller Maidi and Jordan O. Shifriss, members of the Noah’s Ark Planning team in Bloomington.
While visiting Jerusalem in 1980, my wife and I (Jordan) found ourselves on the Mount of Olives as the sun was beginning its downward descent. The chanting that drew our attention came from a group of Orthodox Jews participating in a funeral ritual. As we watched quietly from a distance, the call to prayer came from a nearby mosque. As a smile of astonishment crossed my face at this serendipity, church bells rang across the valley. In our presence, the three Abrahamic religious traditions harmonized their voices in supplication.
In this moment of wholeness, I promised myself to do something to bring together people from these spiritual traditions to build bridges of understanding across the bloody chasms that had been created over centuries.
Since my teens I have believed that at the core we are all very much alike. If only we could peel back the layers of conditioning and learning, we could realize our common humanity in the light of the divine.
Dialogue is one way to achieve this goal. When we are in the presence of those different from us, with openness and curiosity, we have the opportunity to really understand them.
Noah’s Ark — A Spiritual Journey Towards Understanding is the result. Now nine years old, this Bloomington group is beginning a five-part dialogue series called Facing Our Fear and Outrage: Finding Ways Forward Together.
How do we stay present with our own fear and outrage, let alone that of others’? What are some of our stereotypes and assumptions that help promote such emotions? What kinds of practices and actions can help and inspire us in a process of transformation? What balance between individual rights and the common good can be cultivated to free us from the current dark place we are in? What steps must we take to create one human family? These are some of the questions we’d like to invite you to grapple with.
(Lisa asks:) How did we arrive at our topic? When our Noah’s Ark planning team regrouped online after the initial shock of the COVID-19 shutdown, fully three quarters of our ideas for dialogues across differences of faith, spirituality and life experience came down to hate … hate arising from religious stereotypes, political strife, social inequities and conflicts around sexuality, environmentalism, patriarchy, poverty.
Comprised of two self described Jewish Yogis, two United Methodists, a Christian Scientist, Muslim, Baha’i, Catholic, secular humanist and Quaker, our planning team is committed in our distinct ways to the belief that respectful, courageous dialogue can bring about a change of heart through mutual understanding.
Noah’s Ark’s most recent dialogue groups who met in 2018-19 dealt prophetically with racism. Now the need to create reconciliation and understanding, as we said originally, “one dialogue at a time,” is all the more pressing. The news since March has revealed not just latent hate rooted in fear and prejudice, but active anger and frustration that has erupted in outrage. Our hope is that spiritually diverse small groups can find ways to transform this negative energy into productive hope for the future.
The series will progress from transforming fear and rage to envisioning the future together. We invite you to join any number of the five dialogue events. Please add your voice to our first online session, 3-5 p.m. Sunday, July 26, titled “Transforming Fear and Outrage? Yes it is Possible.”
Find us on Facebook at Noah’s Ark Bloomington, email us at janet_k_armstrong@hotmail.com or call 312-613-2164.
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