"Other"

Maybe it’s because I finally got motivated and finished my dissertation for the DMin at Drew a couple weeks ago. I’m not sure if that’s why exactly, but I’m all done! And I’ve been thinking about who is “other” a lot lately. The dissertation is all about doing Beloved Community. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Beloved Community, where there are no “others”—just sisters and brothers.
 
Like in Galatians, Paul says: for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.  As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (NRSV)
 
No others, just sisters and brothers—even people from other traditions. One of the things that I like so much about studying different traditions like Taoism or Buddhism and so on is that it can give you fresh eyes on your own tradition. It gives us ways to see Jesus, ways to see God, ways to see the Holy Spirit, ways to see Christianity in new light.
 
Examining different traditions can force us to break out of our embedded definitions of what is “right” religion, “right” belief, or “right” practice. It makes us think—deeply—about what we truly believe and how we approach our own spirituality. It gets very personal very quickly when you really sit and think, and meditate, and pray on it!
 
It may even cause you to start tearing things apart and putting them back together.
 
Please read that last sentence again because that is healthy “journeying” in this little walk we’re on. It’s something I stress to young people in confirmation classes, especially. It’s a part of claiming your own spirituality, for yourself. Not what your parents taught you, or your church growing up, or your Sunday School teacher, or your pastor—even me! Those are the ingredients certainly, but not the whole recipe.
 
This is about collating all of those theological influences that have impacted you and putting them into a blender and pouring out your own thing.
 
What’s interesting to me is not the differences in the traditions. What is most interesting to me is the similarities. The things we share. How we approach God, the higher power, and our definition of what that is.
 
Okay, that’s plenty enough to make your brain hurt so I’ll stop here. But I’m just the kind of geek that LOVES this exercise. You may notice that I was able to avoid the word in talking about traditions different from my own. It takes deliberate work to do that!
 
But if you can get your head around it, at least for me—as I think, and meditate, and pray about this—I keep landing in a place where there are no “others”.
Only sisters and brothers.
What do you think?
 
Grace & Peace,
Scott