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"God Speaks in Many Tongues"
"God enters a private door into every individual," Emerson writes. Well, maybe. But it takes us all a while to understand that.

Once upon a time the world we knew was basically white, largely Christian. Now that same world is a multicolored amalgam of mosques and temples on one corner, of churches and synagogues on the other. Unfortunately this diversity is too often seen as divisive rather than a sign of the God who speaks in many tongues.

These great traditions all strive for the same holiness we do. They do it with variations in custom or practices, yes, but they all do it in hope of eternal peace, universal justice, inclusive community, human wholeness, and divine fulfillment.

In Hindu India, for instance, in the Upanishads we see that Hindus, like us, are conscious of the law of karma—that good begets good and bad, bad. Every thought, word and action has consequences, the Hindu knows. Only when a person’s karma is at the highest possible level, of what we might call sanctity, is the soul finally fully free. Salvation, the Hindu understands, as we do, comes from living out one’s duties, and of coming to oneness with Brahman, with God.

In Buddhism, too, Gautama Siddhartha, the Buddha, struggled to understand the meaning of life. In a new period of new intellectual foment, old answers simply did not satisfy anymore; new questions cried for new attention in his time. So, Siddhartha did what many had done before him: he set out to understand life.

First, he became a hermit. But he got no new insights into the nature of life in isolation. So then he became a disciple but the old teachings did not answer his new questions. Then, as an ascetic, he fasted almost to the point of death before he realized that he was spending more time thinking about asceticism than he was about living well. Finally, while meditating intensely, he suddenly became enlightened.

The cause of endless human suffering, the Buddha taught, is unrestrained desire. To control this captivity to the self he offered an eightfold path. When we accept a discipline of right views: of thinking correctly about life, of right desires and right speech, of right actions and right kinds of livelihood, of right effort and right mindfulness and right concentration , we do not want, he says, what we do not have and we do not desire what we should not want. Like us, then, the Buddha taught that the salvation of the self depends on refusing to become captive to the demands of the ego.

In Judaism, too, our sights are set beyond personal gratification. The very nature of God becomes the starting point here, the model for a life well lived. The God of the Jews did not torment people, or abuse them, or compete with other gods for praise or satisfaction. This one God was at once a father, a mother, a rock, mercy upon mercy upon mercy. For Israel, then, three elements dominated: Torah, the will of God; worship, the consciousness of God; and Tsdakah, deeds of loving kindness.

The five books of the Torah reminded the Jewish community: In the book of Genesis, that God created us; in Exodus, that God freed us; in Leviticus, that God guides us; in Numbers, that God increases us; and, in the book of Chronicles, that God is with us. Always, in everything. Judaism is not a “God-and-I” spirituality. It is a spirituality of right relationships with God, with people, with the world.

In Islam, too, when Muhammad Ibn Abdallah was born, Mecca was a teeming area of transient traders, a veritable cauldron of beliefs, gods, and kinship systems. But Mohammed was a reflective young man who went regularly into the desert to pray. Muhammad heard there the words of God that we have come to know as the Qur’an, the non-negotiables of the spiritual life. These holy teachings are so stark and simple they can hardly be ignored for want of either awareness or understanding.

Islam teaches that there is only one God, that human beings must submit to the will of God, that there will be a day of judgment, that there is a heaven and a hell, and that at every minute we are all either closer or farther away from each. And the life path it lays out is as simple and as clear as the teachings: the Muslim must confess at all times and in all circumstances that “there is only one God and Mohammad is his prophet.” After that, there is nothing more to say, there is nothing else to do but to live out that submission to God and to do it according to the prophet’s recital of the word of God and the model of his life.

Then, to stay on the way, the Muslim must: witness at all times to the omnipotence of God, pray five times a day, fast during the month of Ramadan, give a percentage of all income in alms and, if possible, make the pilgrimage to Mecca, to the center and the heart of Islam. Islam, too, is not only a set of beliefs, it is a way of life, a continual struggle to know the will of God and to live it.

The emphases in each of these traditions—the oneness of God, the need for a disciplined life, the commitment to holiness of life, and the development of the just community—are all concepts the Christian understands and values, too. For Jesus came preaching the God who was broader than any single tradition.

As the apostle Paul puts it, he made no distinctions between peoples, “Neither man nor woman, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free.” He consorted with tax collectors, the very agents of the Roman oppression of the Hebrew people. He dined with the rich to speak for the poor. He blessed foreigners, as well as Jews. He consorted with prostitutes, as well as high priests. And he had a motley band of disciples that included Levites, fishermen, tax collectors—even women. He even had a new way of imaging God as daddy, as personal, and perhaps even more important than that, he had a new way of dealing with people that transcended the laws and judged them on more than their observance to rituals.

Buddha had changed the East by preaching the eight noble truths. Jesus changed the West by preaching the eight beatitudes of poverty of spirit, of compassion and meekness, of humility and justice, of mercy, and purity of heart, and peacemaking. This spirituality of equality, love, and universal blessedness stands out to this day as a sign of belief in the God who wishes all of us “well and not woe,” both in this world and in the next.

Clearly religion, often the cause of worldwide division, is really the glue meant to bind us together on the way to God. “The seed of God is in us all...” Meister Eckhart writes. “Pear seeds grow into pear trees; nut seeds into nut trees and God-seed into God.” But for that to happen, we must all come to know, to respect, to acknowledge the other as God-seed, too. And that’s what diversity is all about.

Conversation with Joan Chittister

Lydia Talbot: Joan, a masterful job of distilling the basic tenets of the world’s religions. What was that revelatory process for you when you made inter-faith understanding a passionate priority in your life?

Joan Chittister: I suppose everything in this country, to a certain extent, keeps going back to 9/11. I’m not saying that’s where I started. It isn’t. I’ve been teaching world religions and study world religions out of a kind of “poet’s heart” for a long time, wanting to know what all of this was about. But at 9/11 it became so clear to me that without this understanding, without a serious intention on our part, this globe is in danger. This planet is in peril. And we are a people who historically have been insulated and isolated from the rest of the traditions of the world. We don’t know them. They are all foreign to us and now all of a sudden... In fact, I have friends, one of those families that got the Catholic Family of the Year Award. One daughter is married to a Hindu and one daughter is married to a Buddhist! Now these people never expected that, but if you wanted to know that their Christianity was real, I wish you could see them immerse themselves in this multi-cultural way to God. I suppose it does take some moment. I mean, after all, you’re not Catholic. When was the moment in your life when all of a sudden Catholics were no longer a threat to you? When did you go into a Catholic church? When was my first time in a Jewish synagogue? What did it do to you?

Daniel Pawlus: I could say the same thing. As a Catholic, one of the gifts of being able to be a part of this show is meeting people from different denominations and it has opened my eyes to the different faith practices, and the commonality we all have. And I think you make the point that we’ve lived in this world where we’ve been able to wall ourselves off from that, post Berlin Wall, for instance. And now there is this whole international connection that’s happening, that has to happen for us to move forward.

Chittister: I’m convinced.

Talbot: I’ve been praying in the same women’s prayer group for 40 years with women of all different faiths. So one of my best friends is an Irish Catholic right here in Chicago. But Joan, you’re passionate about interfaith understanding and you’re going to go to the Middle East. What is your agenda? How can you get government leaders to pay attention to this priority?

Chittister: Well, believe it or not, it is the ambassadors from Syria and Iran who asked us if we would go. Why? Because they said we want our people and our religious leaders to see American religious leaders and Americans who do not hate them and whom they do not have to fear. Now imagine, it’s the year 2006! When I was a youngster—believe it or not, after World War II—a Jewish family approached my mother and dad and asked if they would be willing to have me play with their little girl. Imagine! My mother and dad were absolutely shocked. Why? Because they felt so isolated. In other words, from the time I was about 10 or 11 years old when that happened, it marked me deeply. That little girl became a bridge. That family, watching that family do Shabbat, it was a bridge to my future. It was a bridge to a spirituality that was more than denominational, that was something to do with the God who created us all. Those are such important moments and we have to make them possible for other people. Why am I going to the Middle East? Because I want some little Syrian or Lebanese or Jewish kid to see these white women, these Americans, who love them, that they don’t have to fear, who say we can do this together, don’t worry about it, we’ll be alright.

Pawlus: We do have to model that, don’t we? Because this is a relatively new thing for governments, to bring people of faith into this process. And in the world today there is so much religious strife that’s still happening.

Chittister: And these governments just said, “We will see that you have all the religious leaders in the country to meet with. We’ll get them there. We’ll have nothing to do with it. We will take care of the venue, we will set up the meeting. We want you all to be able to sit down and talk together.”

Talbot: And it’s the role of women. This leads us to your second priority, Joan. You said in the time you have left, two things: interfaith understanding and women. Say more.

Chittister: Yes. Well, I’m convinced that they’re of a piece. That some how or other, I mean, you can stereotype women. The fact of the matter is that women and men, they’re two different pieces of humanity. I don’t know anybody who denies that. They do have two...they each have gifts that are sometimes stereotyped in the culture and therefore they are boundaried by them or defined by them. But the fact of the matter is that women are the nurturers. No woman turns down a baby who needs to be nursed. No color, no denomination, no country. Somehow or other, women have something to do with making the world’s connections on a very human level. I want them at the political table, as well. Why? Because I believe that if we put enough women—and I don’t mean a token woman—I mean if we put enough women in every single decision making arena that the globe has to offer, then those agendas, those agendas of human nourishment and nurturing will rise to the level of political importance.

Talbot: And peacemaking.

Chittister: And peacemaking.

Pawlus: We wish we had so much more time with you every time you’re here, but thank you for making time for us. We appreciate it.

Chittister: Thank you.

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