Joan Borysenko at the Parliament of the World's Religions

being here at the Parliament of the World's Religions where religions are trying to come together to address the issues of the world and the issues of the world seem to be getting more and more urgent these days and you know there's a tremendous demand that that they be addressed if we're all going to kind of move forward. So when you look at the the tradition the religious traditions what do you see as the most important things that they need to change if we're going to if we're all going to move forward this time in history? I think the most important thing that world religious traditions need to change is the thought that perhaps their way is the only way. The idea of the dignity, not only giving dignity and respect and tolerance to another tradition, but recognizing that every tradition is a valid path to the divine. That would be an enormous change and an enormous shift. And I think that shift is happening. Just this last year, I've been invited to, I don't know, about a half a dozen different events that were quote interreligious or interspiritual, depending on your language. And I'm finding that this is it's something that clearly is happening. There's a wave of interest that is really building in this. Do you think that's because things seem more dire in a certain way? I think more urgent because of 911. I don't think there's this kind of resurgent surge in interest. You know, that's always a question. Is it in response to the political situation of the world? Maybe in part, but I think part of it is just that there's more religious information that's available. often for example you hear his holiness talk and he'll say something like one of the hidden benefits of a terrible holocaust in Tibet was that people now are interested in Tibetan Buddhism which was it was not available it wasn't on a on people's radar now you can go into a bookstore and you can buy the heart of wisdom the distillation of philosophies that were never before available And just that I think has fascinated people. Certainly within the United States, you've got Paul Ray's research on the cultural creatives. Some now it was 44 million when he first studied it. Now it must be I don't know over 50 million way up there but certainly over a quarter of the population who are fascinated with the differences between different cultures and wanting to say what is it that we can absorb from these cultures that expands our appreciation of life. And so that's not in response to 911 it's response to the human heart looking to enlarge and expand and appreciate. And I do think that quite a bit of the interreligious movement is due to that. Looking at the next 20 years, do you feel that the religious traditions can meet the challenges then? You feel that you feel they can or or do you feel that they're going to have to move a lot faster to do that? We think about a religious tradition. I can't think about it as a monolith. I think for example of oh the Judaism I was raised in and it was dry as dust. I used to want to cry going into services because it was so deadly boring and dull. And then I think about the Jewish camp that I went to, which was so alive. It was like living in the heart of mysticism when I was a little girl. The prayers in the pin grove and the welcoming of the Sabbath queen and actual days of silence and an appreciation for the Sabbath that I got there. Then I think you know I live in Boulder and there's Reb Zman Zman Shakra Shalomi who is definitely one of the great wisdom figures of the world and I think about wow if that was the Judaism that I had grown up with in a way maybe I never would have explored so much of the world's other traditions. Is there something we didn't touch on? I think for a lot of people my age, the exploration of different traditions comes from the fact that their own has been as dry as dust or has been too limiting. So, a lot of my Catholic friends have not so much come back to Catholicism, but have, shall we say, healed the the early wounds that it might have caused by coming across the work of of Father Thomas Keading and realizing there's a tradition of contemplative prayer here that is so deep and so sweet and so juicy and it's not about dogma, but there in the second century were the desert fathers and the desert mothers there later on was Thomas Merton and there is a living lineage and and tradition and sure then people go back and they read the the Christian mystics and they realize look at St. Teresa of Avala, there was a juicy lady. One of my favorite prayers of hers. Um it's a poem. She says her life was changed one night when Jesus came to her in a vision and said, "Enjoy me. Enjoy me." She wrote another wonderful poem called Laughter Comes from Every Brick. And suddenly sometimes I recite these poems at a retreat or at a public program and people who who would say gee I'm a refugee from Catholic school will suddenly come alive and say you mean that's in my tradition. So it's not Catholicism but the way it's taught, how it's edited, what what people put an emphasis on. So I think we all have the responsibility to be students of our religion of origin to see where the juice is before we just write it off. For example, when I lead retreats, most of the population is Christian. So most people are either they're part of a Christian denomination, usually about 25% of them, and about 75% are what I call spiritual dropouts. They're spiritual but dropouts from religions. And if it's a Friday night and I will start with a Sabbath service and I will sing in Hebrew, there will not be a dry eye in the house. And people who are Christian suddenly find my God, these are my roots. They they came from this desert people. This was the language. It's like a kid who recites a nursery rhyme without actually understanding what the words mean and then somebody says this is what the words mean. It it's like in a way Helen Keller having that experience of like this is the sign that means water and the world opens up for people in terms of that because you're kind of giving this wide perspective of the way these traditions are mixing which is very also very beautiful and the way people are rediscovering their own traditions and and also the resuscitation of some of the mysticism of a lot of the the contemplative traditions. Yes. and and and I find that there's there's this kind of interesting tension because I want him that's that's all happening and that's and there's also the the fundamentalism that also is become is is you know is is is shouting for our attention as well and so there's this tension between the two and it seems like there's a certain kind of competing tension between this resuscitation and rediscovery and this this uh fundamentalism that this forum's also you know trying to address. Well, you know, as long as we live on planet Earth, the tension of the opposites will never truly resolve itself. But it's always interesting to see what is the immediate process when you have two opposites and then you find a point of transcendence which is large enough to hold both of them.