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Rev. Dr. Rodney
Romney About six years ago, shortly after my retirement from the Seattle First Baptist Church and before Beverly and I moved back to Idaho, I was walking around Green Lake in Seattle, when I met a friend, Jamal Rahman, who was a minister from the Islam community. He was accompanied by a tall man I did not know, and as we approached Jamal greeted me and asked if I would mind escorting his friend around the lake while he ran some errands. Assuring us we needed to get acquainted, Jamal dashed off, leaving the two of us to introduce ourselves to each other. We exchanged first names and continued to walk. It was a bit awkward at first, because our only connection had just deserted us and left us together as total strangers. Gradually, as we walked, we revealed more than just our first names. I told him my full name and that I was a recently retired Baptist minister. He told me that he had formerly been a member of a Roman Catholic monastic community but had left that order to become a monk in an interreligious community called Sanyassa. When I asked what brought him to Seattle, he said he was on a tour for his most recent book, "The Mystic Heart." At that information, I would have dropped my teeth had they not been securely rooted to my gums. "You're Wayne Teasdale," I gasped, as though he might not have known it. "I'm reading your latest book right now, The Mystic Heart. I can't believe I'm having this walk with you." He smiled and said, "And you're Rod Romney, pastor of the First Baptist Church. I've just read your book, Wilderness Spirituality, and I can't believe you're a Baptist." In the middle of the path we stopped and embraced like old friends reunited, even though we had just met. On the rest of that walk, we chatted like longtime friends. When we returned to the spot where we had first met, Jamal, the one who had dumped us off on each other, was waiting with a big smile. "I knew you two needed to meet," he said. "You both have a great deal in common. For one thing, you have each outgrown your religious traditions for something more universal." Wayne Teasdale died a few years ago from cancer. It was in his book, "The Mystic Heart," that I first read about the age of interspirituality, a radically new approach to our life as a human family in a world that grows increasingly more divided. He outlined this age with the following seven qualities: 1. The emergence of ecological awareness and sensitivity to the natural, organic world, with an acknowledgment of the basic fragility of the earth. 2. A growing sense of the rights of other species. 3. A recognition of the interdependence of all domains of life and reality. 4. The ideal of abandoning a militant nationalism as a result of this tangible sense of our essential interdependence. 5. A deep, evolving experience of community between and among the religions through their individual members. 6. The growing receptivity to the inner treasures of the world's religions. 7. An openness to the cosmos, with the realization that the relationship between humans and the earth is part of the larger community of the universe. These shifts have slowly become part of the religious thought and culture of the third millennium. Perhaps the spirit of Wayne Teasdale is hovering about and that he is aware of the seeds that he has sown for the common good of the inhabitants of this planet, particularly during this violent and uncertain time in which we are now living. Thomas Berry, a popular writer of our time, referred to himself as a geologian, meaning a theologian for the earth. This is spirituality attaching itself to ecology. The Hindu and Buddhist, the Sufi, the Jewish, the Muslim, the Christian, and indigenous peoples-all are slowly but surely becoming united in a movement that links ecology and spiritual traditions together in a common enterprise that today is called interspirituality. An aphorism from the Hindu tradition says it well: "The paths are many, but the goal is the same." We are trying to save our earth and expand our sense of spiritual connections. My question regarding interspirituality is this: if ecology and religion can be yoked together, can politics and religion find some common ground? I agree with what Senator Ted Kennedy said recently, "Our current 'stay the course' strategy in Iraq is a failed strategy. The bloodletting shows no sign of letting up. Recent weeks have brought warnings that the situation may be even worse. Once we said that we were there for the liberation of Iraq, but it now appears that what might emerge is an all-out civil war?¦ Prime Minister Tony Blair in Britain has agreed that Iraq could fly apart at any moment. Yet President Bush responded to these warnings by saying: 'You know, I hear people say civil war this, civil war that, but the Iraqi people have decided against a civil war.'" Senator Kennedy concluded his remarks by saying, "So President Bush continues to whistle past the graveyard, and will continue to do so as long as Congress ratifies his failed strategy." I think what I am most saddened about is what must be happening to the souls of own young men and women who are fighting in Iraq, as they learn to kill, demean and torture other human beings. I wonder if we will ever be able to turn this current tragedy into a higher realization, where we can move beyond politics and be touched by something ultimate. Teasdale wrote this in his book, "In experiences of tragedy, in the death of a loved one, for example, we leave our local awareness for a while and are brought into a higher realization; ¦it takes us beyond ourselves, into a mystical experience, where we are touched by something ultimate." (page 70) I had that experience this past week. Before my older brother died about a year ago, he asked to be cremated and to have his ashes scattered in a canyon in the Little Lost River Valley, where we had grown up. We (his two brothers and one sister) agreed to do that. So this past week, about twenty members of our family met and camped out in Sawmill Canyon at the head of Little Lost River Valley. On Saturday we drove over the rough, nearly impassable mountain road leading up to Bell Mountain canyon. In that canyon my father, a native of Utah, had spent all of his adult life prospecting for gold. During that time, he met my mother, a daughter of a rancher in the Little Lost River valley, and when they were married, he took her up into that isolated canyon to live in the log cabin that he had built. In that canyon, my two older brothers and I were conceived, and there we learned to talk, to walk, and to explore a world that was in many ways our own private Garden of Eden. When my parents were divorced, our Garden of Eden ended, and we left that canyon, only going back on rare occasions to visit our father. He died in l952 at the age of 53, and was buried in Murray, Utah, after which there were no more trips to the canyon. I was totally unprepared for what happened to me when we went back to that canyon this past week to carry out the last wishes of my brother. As we stood in front of the cabin which my dad had built, which was now starting to fall down, I felt an emotion welling up inside of me that left me totally speechless. The family was gathered around, waiting for me to say the appropriate words, but instead of words, all I had were tears.
Tears for the
broken dreams of my father, who had lived all his life in a futile
search for gold in that wilderness canyon. When I was finally able to speak, I tried to share a bit of what it had been like to grow up in that wilderness, where all we had was each other. I tried to pay tribute to my brother who had asked to have his final remains brought to that place. But no words could express all that was in my heart at that moment. I had entered into a state of interspiritual awareness, and an old Hindu aphorism came back to me, "The paths are many, but the goal is the same." I was finally able to say a brief prayer of commitment and scatter the ashes of my brother around that old cabin that had been our first home. We all want to go home, to the place that resonates with our temperament, our understanding, and our capacity. We all want to be where we know we belong, the place where we are fully loved and where we can love fully. For a moment in that wilderness canyon in front of that old tumble-down cabin, I felt I had come home. Yet I knew the feeling was only temporary. I am on my way home, but I am not yet fully home. Wayne Teasdale said that spirituality is the whole inner movement of the heart to seek the divine. It is a commitment to the process of inner change, and a personal attachment to a spiritual way of life and the transformation it brings. Spirituality is a way to travel, not a place of arrival. And interspirituality is the common heritage of humankind's spiritual wisdom: the place where we share mystical resources across boundaries of different religious traditions. Teasdale said that we are now entering the interspiritual age, where more and more people are no longer isolated within their own homes or native traditions, but are exploring other traditions, finding what is useful in their own growth. Life, I think, always seeks to change us into more compassionate and concerned human beings. If the war in Iraq could do that, then perhaps it will have been worth it. I was interested to read recently that Billy Graham, the famous conservative evangelist, in his final years has now become more moderate and inclusive. He is no longer a literalist, believing that every jot and tittle in the Bible has come directly from God. He now believes that God loves everybody, regardless of what label they have. As he has come to his journey's end, he has found refuge in a new hope and humility. This marks the beginning of interspirituality for him, whether he calls it that or not. It is a journey I believe we will all take sooner or later, if we keep our minds and hearts open. Teasdale said there is a threefold summit and goal of the spiritual life, which is the found in all religious traditions: nonduality (from the Hindu tradition), enlightenment (from the Buddhist tradition), and love (from the Christian, Sufi, and Jewish traditions). Together these three qualities take us to the mystical summit, the cosmic shore, or whatever we wish to call it, where we all differences disappear, because we have become one. Any individual who arrives at this final integration, says Teasdale, is a mystic. He or she has found a deep, inner freedom to reach out to everyone and everything that is. Jesus said when we become one, we have reached the inner kingdom of God, the highest attainment in life. Each evening, when we are here in Idaho Falls, weather permitting, I sit out on our deck looking out across a golf course to the foothills of the Teton Mountains and the grand expanse of the sky that marks the close of another day. I have no requests, no desires, and no demands. I observe no particular form of worship. I simply sit in silent appreciation for the God who has given me life and who loves all creation, human and non-human alike. I am grateful for the journey that has brought me to this awareness of the interspirituality of all religions and the interrelationship of all life. My silent prayer is that the journey will widen and expand to include more and more people, for I believe it is the only way to peace and good will on this fragile earthship. As you may know, the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, exists in every religious culture. Confucius speaks of it. The Buddhists speak of it. The Bhagavad-Gita speaks of it, and Jewish and Christian teachings speak of it as central to life. What would happen if we would more fully and consciously honor that rule as the universal mandate? We would see a dramatic improvement and change in the world. Wars would end, and we would find our way home to each other and to the essential truth of universal being. Spirituality for me today, like prayer, is the breath of the inner life. As Teasdale said, "It is an essential resource to the transformation of consciousness on the planet, and it will clear a path for us to build a universal society where the transformation of consciousness will help us embrace all that is and assist us in building a universal age of peace for the good of all humanity and all creation." To that end, to the building of a new world of freedom, respect and love, I would dedicate the remainder of my life, and invite each of you, as you are moved, to do the same. We are all on a journey home, to the place of our belonging, the place of our freedom, and the place where we are fully known and completely loved. Let us journey in love and gratitude. |
The
Challenge of an Interspiritual Age