Confronting September 11: Identity and Religion

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We begin to learn our culture - the values of our society - as soon as we are born. This process is a central element of socialization and involves far more than just formal education. Culture shapes a wide range of values including what we consider right and wrong. Religious beliefs and identities of many people are often as much an integral part of their cultural awareness as are their racial and ethnic heritages. Culture also influences the ways we choose to work and play and is a crucial component of how we think about ourselves and others.

This reading focuses on how religion shapes the cultural identities of people around the world. In many societies, religious tradition provides a structure for people's values and understanding of their environment.

According to Professor Marc Gopin, "Religion is a narrative way to make meaning of life and create a feeling of community. People define their religious identities by stories, ritual, and practice; many of these emphasize moral actions like charity and social justice."

Scholar of Christianity and author Elaine Pagels believes that religion plays an important role in the lives of both religious and non-religious people. She explains:

We might . . . ask, why should we still have an institution that started more than 2,000 years ago? Who needs this improbable story? But religion offers stories that structure people's experience in a way that allows them to hope instead of despair.

I think that religions are the dreams of a culture. They are censored dreams in a way because they are not the dreams of individuals. They are narratives and stories and images that become a context of interpretation. Religions are important even to non-religious people at times of crisis, at times of decision and change, death, marriage, adolescence, and other major transitions. We saw a huge increase in church attendance after September 11th. People go back to this ritual as a way of bridging between the present and the unknown future in these situations.1

The following are personal stories from diverse traditions that offer insights into how religion can influence the way people make meaning of the world around them and how those perceptions can influence individual and group behavior.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Master and former chairman of the Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation, writes about his religion and non-violence. Hanh believes that Buddhist practice can help people of any religious or even a non-religious background achieve personal peace as one step toward making peace in the world. Thich Nhat Hanh's work has earned him the respect of followers of many faiths including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was a Baptist minister, and Thomas Merton, a Catholic theologian and teacher. During the Vietnam War, Dr. King nominated Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize. Hanh's books use poetry and story to describe his understanding of Buddhism and how that understanding shapes his view of the world. Here is a selection from Thich Nhat Hanh's writing:

I had one student named Thich Thanh Van, who entered the monastery at the age of six, and at the age of seventeen, began to study with me. Later he was the first director of the School of Youth for Social Service, where he directed thousands of young people working during the war in Vietnam, rebuilding villages that were destroyed, and resettling tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the war zones. He was killed in an accident. I was in Copenhagen when I heard of the death of my student. He was a very gentle monk, very brave.

When he was a novice, six or seven years old, he saw people come to the temple and bring cakes and bananas to offer the Buddha. He wanted to know how the Buddha eats bananas, so he waited until everyone went home and the shrine was closed, and then he peered through the door, waiting for the Buddha to reach out his hand, take a banana, peel it, and eat it. He waited and waited, but nothing happened. The Buddha did not seem to eat bananas, unless he realized that someone was spying on him.

Thich Thanh Van told me several stories about when he was a young boy. When he discovered that the statue of the Buddha is not the Buddha, he began to ask where the Buddhas are, because it did not seem to him that Buddhas were living among humans. He concluded that Buddhas must not be very nice, because when people became Buddhas, they would leave us and go to a faraway country. I told him that Buddhas are we. They are made of flesh and bones, not copper or silver or gold. The Buddha statue is just a symbol of the Buddha, in the same way the American flag is a symbol of America. The American flag is not the American people.

The root word Buddha means to wake up, to know, to understand; and he or she who wakes up and understands is called a Buddha. It is as simple as that. The capacity to wake up, to understand, and to love is called Buddha nature. When Buddhists say, "I take refuge in the Buddha," they are expressing trust in their own capacity of understanding, of becoming awake. The Chinese and the Vietnamese say, "I go back and rely on the Buddha in me." Adding "in me" makes it clear that you yourself are the Buddha. 2

Mother Teresa, a Catholic nun, described what she saw as an obligation that came from her understanding of Christian tradition. When asked why she, a woman born in Macedonia to an Albanian family, had dedicated her life to helping to feed the hungry and working with those who were sick with leprosy, AIDS, and tuberculosis in India and around the world, Mother Teresa answered that it was her belief in God. Individuals and leaders of many faiths throughout the world recognized the value of her actions. She received innumerable honors including awards from the Indian government, the Catholic Church, and the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. At a 1994 national prayer breakfast in Washington, D.C., Mother Teresa gave an address that she called, "Whatever You Did Unto One of the Least, You Did Unto Me." During the address she summed up her perspective:

It is not enough for us to say, "I love God," but I also have to love my neighbor. St. John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and you don't love your neighbor. How can you love God whom you don't see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live? And so it is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people and, in fact, to do good to them. Otherwise, there is no true love in me and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.3

In his autobiography, the American civil rights activist Malcolm X describes his personal and spiritual journey from a schoolboy, to criminal, to his years as a minister for the Nation of Islam, to his break from the organization, and his conversion to Orthodox Islam. After his split with the Nation of Islam and its founder, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X decides to make the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, the site, according to the Koran, where "God's revelation was first disclosed." The hajj is the fifth of five pillars that "regulate the private life of Muslims in their dealings with God." This excerpt, from a letter Malcolm X wrote to his assistants at Muslim Mosque, Inc., offers some insights into the way the call to pilgrimage altered Malcolm X's outlook on his own struggle against racism in the United States:

Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this Ancient Holy Land, the home of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors.

I have been blessed to visit the Holy City of Mecca. I have made my seven circuits around the Ka'ba [a stone house in the middle of the Great Mosque], led by a young Mutawaf named Muhammad. I drank water from the well of Zem Zem. I ran seven times back and forth between the hills of Mt. Al-Safa and Al-Marwah. I have prayed in the ancient city of Mina, and I have prayed on Mt. Arafat.

There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white.

America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erased from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people would have been considered "white," but the "white" attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color.

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to re-arrange much of my thought patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions.4

Jiddu Krishnamurti, a religious thinker and philosopher, was born in southern India in 1895 as a Hindu. Throughout his life his writings and public appearances influenced people from diverse traditions. Among his admirers were such distinguished literary figures as George Bernard Shaw, Henry Miller, Aldous Huxley, and Kahlil Gibran. In this excerpt, originally taken from the book "Krishnamurtií's Journal," he describes his feelings upon entering an ancient Hindu Temple:

In the ancient temple it was cool and pleasant; the bare feet were aware of the solid slabs of rocks, their shapes and their unevenness. Many thousands of people must have walked on them for a thousand years. It was dark there after the glare of the morning sun and in the corridors there seemed to be few people that morning and in the narrow passage it was still darker. This passage led to a wide corridor which led to the inner shrine. There was a strong smell of flowers and of incense of many centuries. And a hundred Brahmans, freshly bathed, in newly washed white loincloths, were chanting. Sanskrit is a powerful language, resonant with depth. The ancient walls were vibrating, almost shaking to the sound of a hundred voices. The dignity of the sound was incredible and the sacredness of the moment was beyond words. It was not the words that awakened this immensity but the depth of the sound of many thousand years held within these walls and in the immeasurable space beyond them. It was not the meaning of these words, nor the clarity of their pronunciation, nor the dark beauty of the temple, but the quality of sound that broke walls and the limitations of the human mind. The song of a bird, the distant flute, the breeze among the leaves, all these break down the walls that human beings have created for themselves.5

A contemporary writer and authority on the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, writes, "Religion is the storehouse of human wisdom, retaining for the ages the genius of those spiritual giants who walk among us now and again. The purpose of this stored wisdom is not to supply us with the Truth, but to help us learn how to gain access to the Truth for ourselves and understand the implications of Truth for our daily lives." In his book Minyan, Rabbi Shapiro explains his understanding of the Jewish concept of justice and how Jews are commanded to act it out in their daily lives. He writes:

Tzedakah, from the Hebrew word "tzedek," justice, is the most important commandment to which Jews are obligated: "Tzedakah is equal to all the other commandments combined." In the Torah it is justice, and justice alone, that receives the double imperative: "Justice, justice you shall pursue."

Indeed, the Torah holds even God to the strictures of justice. When Abraham confronts God over the destruction of Sodom, he challenges God with the ideal of justice: "Shall not the Judge of all the world act justly?" Centuries later, when the prophets seek to lift Jewish civilization to a new level, it is justice they hold as the ideal religious obligation: "Let justice well up as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream." This ancient concern for justice is infused into the daily life of the individual through the practice of tzedakah, generosity. Often wrongly translated as "charity," tzedakah is anything but. Charity comes from the Latin caritas, meaning "from the heart." Charity is a voluntary act motivated by your feeling another's pain and finding in yourself the desire to help. Tzedakah, the feminine form of tzedek, does not invoke feelings at all. Tzedakah is a matter of justice and therefore a legislatable obligation. You are obligated to be generous whether or not you feel like it. One who does not give tzedakah to the needy is not simply uncharitable of heart, but in violation of the law.

Years ago while living in Jerusalem, I spent an afternoon sitting with a group of beggars on a street corner. Over the course of our conversation several beggars got up to leave. I was amazed to see each of them give something to the others from his tin beggars cup. When I asked about this they told me simply that tzedakah was everyone's obligation, even a beggar's.6

CONNECTIONS

What role does religion play in the way you see yourself? What role do you believe it plays in the way others see you? Are there times when it feels more important than others? Are there times it feels less important?

Which aspects of your personal identity do you consider to have the largest impact on the way you live your life - that is, how you make important decisions in your life?

Malcolm X's beliefs led him to a pilgrimage which in turn forced him "to rearrange much of my thought patterns." In each of these stories the writers refer to how their beliefs influenced their actions or how their actions influenced their beliefs. Trace this dynamic in each of the stories. How are they similar? How are they different?

What do these stories suggest about the way religion can influence the way people think about their place in the world? What insights does each separate story offer? How do they add to your understanding about the role of religion in people's lives? What questions do they leave with you?

When and how do we learn about religion? How do we learn about other people's religious traditions?

Are there religious rituals that you practice that influence how you see the world?

Thich Nhat Hanh explained to his student,

What lesson is he trying to impart through this story? How did he hope it would affect the way his student lived his life? If flags are not people and statues are not the Buddha, why are they important?

In the letter to his assistants, Malcolm X writes, "On this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to re-arrange much of my thought patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions." What has he seen? How does his religious identity help him rethink his American identity? Have you ever had an experience that helped you rethink some of the conclusions that you had previously reached? What was it about that experience that opened up your thinking?

Rami Shapiro defined religion as a "storehouse of human wisdom, retaining for the ages the genius of those spiritual giants who walk among us now and again." What is your definition of religion? You might want to create a working definition, one which you might revise as you encounter different perspectives in this and other readings.

Interview others about the role of religion in their lives. What principles and values do they emphasize?

What principals are shared in these stories? Which values are held in common?

Krishnamurti describes the power of a sacred space as a space set aside for religious devotion. It's there that he hears the sound of Hindu monks singing in prayer. Reflecting on his experience he wrote, "It was not the meaning of these words, nor the clarity of their pronunciation, nor the dark beauty of the temple, but the quality of sound that broke walls and the limitations of the human mind. The song of a bird, the distant flute, the breeze among the leaves, all these break down the walls that human beings have created for themselves." Which walls is he talking about? What kinds of experiences have you had that helped you break down those walls?

Elizabeth Ehrlich, author of Miriam's Kitchen, writes that, "Religion is a story that tells us how to live." Her book recounts her thinking, as an American Jewish woman, about the call of her own religious tradition, Judaism:

Why do you think people are drawn to religion? What does it offer that isn't fulfilled in other aspects of one's life?

After defining religion, Rami Shapiro warned, "Unfortunately, the formalities and politics of religion often obscure its real gifts." What does he mean? Do you agree with his statement? If you agree, what would you try to do to correct the problem?

Individuals writing about religious practices that are specific to their own tradition wrote each of these stories. At the same time, these same people have influenced the way individuals faithful to different religious traditions practice their own faith and live their lives. How is that possible?

1 "The Good Book," by Elizabeth Coleman. Ford Foundation Report, winter 2002, p. 21
2 Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh, Parallax Press. 1987. pp. 1214
3 "Whatever You Did Unto the Least, You Did Unto Me" by Mother Teresa, http://www.ewtn.com/New_library/breakfast.htm [4]
4 The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley. Random House, 1989, p. 346.
5 God in All Worlds: An Anthology of Contemporary Spiritual Writing, Edited by Lucina Vardley. Pantheon Books, 1995, p. 653.
6 Minyan: Ten Principles for Living a Life of Integrity by Rami Shapiro. Bell Tower Press, 1997. Pp. 115-116.
7 Miriam's Kitchen by Elizabeth Ehrlich. Viking Press, 1997, p. 3.

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