Thoughts, dreams,
A Movie, And
Inter-Faith Discussions
Written By Dan McDonald
A scene from Oscar Nominated short “Ave Maria”
My work, most of the time is a
standard five day week, eight hours a day job. But for generally a few weeks in
a year, we go on twelve hour shifts with only about one day a week for resting.
I have begun a six-twelve hour day work week that will last around six weeks.
While I can’t say that like such a schedule, it is going better this year
mostly because by grace I believe, I have made some progress in pursuing my
2016 keyword to “organize.” I have met the long hours work schedule with a
prioritized plan of first, making sure I get enough sleep, and that I have
simple but daily morning and evening prayer times. There will be time for other
things later when this schedule is over. In the midst of this schedule this
week, I had what I felt like was an interesting experience one day.
I woke up thinking of one of this
year’s short movies nominated for a possible academy award. The movie was an
Israeli offering named “Ave Maria”. I saw the movie last weekend before my
twelve-hour work days began. It was shown with the four other movies
nominated for the short movies in the live action category. I loved all five
movies and wish more people could see how these short films prove that
shorter is not lesser when it comes to movies. I kept remembering one scene
from “Ave Maria” that seemed to me to highlight the difficulty of
religious people in differing faiths to reach a basic agreement to treat one
another with the respect.
In the movie “Ave Maria” an Orthodox
Jewish man takes a shortcut to try to get to his home before the sun sets
because the Sabbath is approaching. He takes an Arab road to cut off some time
but has an accident next to a Catholic convent, where Palestinian Catholic nuns
are living in a household where for the most part, they are under vows of
silence. The movie develops this meeting between Arab Catholic nuns and an
Orthodox Jewish family in a light hearted manner, touched with humor. The
meeting is hindered by how each faith culture has adopted practices making it
difficult for the two faith cultures to communicate with one another. The nuns
are under a vow of silence. The Orthodox Jewish man needs to call a tow truck.
The nuns lead him to a room with an old rotary dial telephone. The Orthodox
Jewish man explains it is improper for him to dial the telephone because it is
the Sabbath. The youngest nun, I believe a novice as her habit differed from
the older nuns, bristles at having to dial the phone for the Orthodox Jewish
man. Earlier she had to get up from her dinner to answer his ringing of the
doorbell. After she had dialed the number, the Orthodox Jewish man tries to explain he
cannot lift the receiver to his ear, because of the Sabbath. The young nun’s patience is kaput. She
demonstrably places the receiver on the table as if to say without words, “What’s
it going to be your telephone call or your Sabbath keeping rituals?
I have to admit when I was younger
in life I figured only people willing to compromise their faith were interested
in inter-faith dialogue. But as I grow older, and hopefully wiser, I have
realized that we live in an ever shrinking world. Much of the violence we read
about in the world is along the boundary lines between religious faith culture
boundaries. While in America, we chiefly look at Islam as the root of terror I
can recall a stunning morning on Meet the Press. Secretary of State Madeline Albright
was asked to respond to estimates that as many as 500,000 Iraqis had died due
to the enforcement of sanctions against Iraq. The Secretary of State was asked
if the enforcement of those sanctions were worth that cost. She quibbled
slightly with the numbers but then affirmed that even with the loss of life the
sanctions were doing a necessary work. Really? That quote was seen throughout
the Middle East and conveyed a sense to Arab people and Muslims throughout the
region that Americans viewed Muslims and Arabs as disposable. For the chief
diplomatic officer in the United States to say that 500,000 people dying was
worth the price of our sanctions surely encouraged resentment in those quarters
against the United States. Since that time it has been Republicans who have
been the hardliners in our battle with “terrorists.” It is difficult to be
encouraged in trying to build peaceful relationships between differing
faiths when a number of people on both sides of the cultural divide speak so
quickly in favor of drones, bombs, and terrorist reprisals. I have become
convinced that men and women on all sides of the faith issues need as much as
we can to seek to build bridges for peaceful resolutions of cultural
conflicts.
In the movie “Ave Maria” it seemed
to me that the film makers humorously captured how we use our faiths to avoid
dialogue. Each and every faith has an internal life meant to further our
faithfulness in seeking the will of God. But throughout history we have all
been guilty in our different faiths of pursuing our understood means of
receiving blessing in a way that all too easily downplay the normalcy of human
relations. There was certainly nothing wrong with stressing silence or keeping
the Sabbath, but both disciplines can be applied in a way that diminishes
natural human relationships.
One of the most popular New Testament
passages is where Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. It is an
interesting story in connection to inter-faith dialogues. Samaritans were not
Jewish, but Jesus noticed a Samaritan man who understood who his neighbor was more
than the religious establishment Jesus sought to address. St. Paul in the
second chapter of Romans describes Gentiles who show by their actions of
honoring and respecting men created in God’s image that they had God’s law inscribed on their hearts. St. Peter was told to go to Cornelius,
because God had heard his prayers. It is fairly clear to me that Jesus and the
Apostles had learned to look across the cultural faith divides to see human
faces that were to be loved and respected.
I had awakened from my sleep
thinking about the movie I had seen and as I drifted back towards sleep I
thought on these things. I thought of a young Muslim woman who had surprised me
by “liking” on Twitter a tweet I had composed. When I had composed it, I had
imagined it as a statement that would remind Christians of the implication of
our belief in the incarnation. The last thing I expected was my statement to
resonate with anyone outside of Christian circles. But a young Muslim woman was
the only person who showed that she liked the tweet. I had to let that sink in.
Our true human needs are universal. I know that every religion is different. I
tend to believe what C.S. Lewis said somewhere that among the myths man
believes about God there is the truth about God standing among the myths. But
the truth for whichever one of us that has it, is something not to beat over
another’s head, but to be shared with compassion to other human beings who are our
equals before God.
So as I was drifting off to sleep on
this day, I thought of the young woman whom I have at times exchanged some
simple direct messages. Especially after the San Bernardino incident I wanted
to make sure she was doing alright, because it was a tense time for Muslims in
their minority status wondering who might respond with violence for what most
American Muslims felt was a horrible act. At that time I direct messaged her to encourage her and to let her know I was thinking of her at that moment. So that morning as I thought on the difficulty of
inter-faith dialogues, I remembered her and asked God to bless her. Later that
day she mentioned on line how she was cleaning her desk as she was leaving her
job. I replied to her that I hoped it was for the better that she was leaving
her job. She told me that it was, that she was going to another job with better
salary and better benefits. I thought of my morning prayer. The new job
probably had been lined up before I prayed for her. But her blessing seemed to
confirm to me that we serve a God who wishes to bless people beyond our
understood boundaries of faith and culture. Yes there are differences in the
ways of worship, different concepts of God, and these differences are not to be
viewed lightly or swept aside as if unimportant. But whether one prays to
Mecca, to Jerusalem, or makes the sign of the cross, the one who prays rightly
or wrongly has a human face and human concerns. We must not in remembering
differences forget the human faces of those dwelling on the other side of our
perceived faith and culture boundaries.
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