Bridges Don't Fall from the Sky, Bombs Do
Rest in interreligious space
What’s good everyone,
It has been quite the week for Notes of Rest. On Wednesday night I had a beautiful return trip to Endicott College for Notes of Rest, hosted by the undergrad Center for Belonging and InterVarsity Christian fellowship. I had been there last year and there’s a beautiful relationship forming with this school. It always refreshes my soul to be around sincere young adults given our age is rife with the (demonic) spirit of cynicism.
And last night, I was at Boston University’s famed Marsh Chapel (where MKL’s mentor Howard Thurman was once dean) to offer Notes of Rest to the Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium. This session was one of the most nerve-wracking for me in the three-year history of Notes of Rest. This decades-old consortium comprises 9 Islamic, Jewish, and Christian theological schools in the Boston area. It is truly a sight to behold. (The group even has Evangelical, mainline Progressive, Orthodox, and Catholic schools represented! Dang.) But given the war in the last 6 months, the tensions within the group have been severely high. So high that they decided to have their anniversary gathering this year around rest, and invited me to be the keynote. God is good, but oh boy.
To begin the night, Rabbi Kate Meyer sang a prayer of shabbat shalom to welcome us into the space, and even used the phrase notes of rest to speak our time together. Immediately my nerves relaxed a little. Though this was a space of enduring difference, it was also clearly one of enduring hospitality too.
Then Rabbi Or Rose spoke about the hospitable interactions between Rev. Howard Thurman & Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi that transpired in that hallowed space years ago. Long story short, Rabbi Zalman wanted to pray in the chapel, but felt uncomfortable praying in the sanctuary given its Christian iconography. He instead found a place to pray outside of the chapel in the lobby. Thurman, as dean of the chapel, found a more hospitable place for the rabbi to pray, taking the cross off the altar in a smaller chapel, and turning the Bible to Psalm 139, which is a psalm about God’s presence in all creation. At the end of his prayer time, Zalman returned the cross to the altar and turned the Bible to Psalm 100, a psalm of thanksgiving. Rabbi Or, a protege of Rabbi Zalman, told us that the Rabbi and Rev.’s beautiful relationship had inspired him to commit to interreligious work.
However, on the heels of celebrating that inspiring encounter, he then turned to the tensions he felt in this work. The months since Oct 7th have been the hardest season for him in this pluralist conversation. Nevertheless, he vowed to keep at it, insisting that bridges don’t fall from the sky, bombs do. We all needed to commit to building those bridges.
Then it was my turn. I got up and did my thang, but always felt to be walking on eggshells. Even though BTI had encouraged me to be honest in my particularity as a Christian Protestant, and even though I used Sabbath as the focal note of rest for the night (a Jewish tradition that Christians are grafted into through Jesus), I always worried I was adding to the powder keg. And then, halfway through this unusually quiet Notes session, two Muslim women sitting right in front of me got up and left. Dang. Had I dropped bombs?
I had to keep going. There was nothing else to do. I was hopeful that my presentation of Jesus and of sabbath rest that God still offers would be inviting to all, but their departure made me feel bogus, that’s for sure. And then on top of that, during the middle section of Notes called Banks, where people are invited to share with the room their reflections from personal introspection, only one person shared. Normally there’s a long line of folk interested in speaking.
As I moved towards the close of service, I felt like I had flopped. Thankfully, God sees differently.
After the event ended and before dinner, various people from various stripes came up to me and thanked me, saying it was a gift to them and something that they needed. And turns out, before the event started, the Muslim women (not knowing how protocol worked in church) had asked the Consortium’s director for permission to leave early in order to attend their own prayer event.
Ha, the irony. I had turned these women’s prayer lives as a personal rejection of me. I had figured that I had dropped a bomb when in fact they had been trying to build a bridge as best they could.
Last night learned me something about rest. (That’s a line I picked up from living amongst Black Southern church folk. Teaching is one thing. Being learned something goes deeper.) Our best intentions to rest can be hijacked by our own insecurities. We need rest not only from work that yields good fruit, but also rest from our immaturities that distract and drain.
True rest in our pluralist society is such a fraught concept. We live amongst enduring difference and disagree profoundly on core matters. But man, how does faith, rest, and music open us to the possibility of deep embrace - of God, neighbor, and self? That’s what the Ruach HaKo’desh (Holy Spirit) was teaching me on last night.
I’m thankful following Jesus involves moving into spaces of healthy fear and trembling. If Notes were always familiar or easy, I’d question if I were making God in my own image. Because when God looks just like we do, it’s far easier to drop bombs.
abundantly,
Julian
What’s Next
Apr 13 Isaiah Collier at Dorian’s (Chicago)
Apr 25 Julian Davis Reid’s Circle of Trust at Dorian’s (Chicago)
Apr 27 Notes of Rest at Princeton Theological Seminary’s Center for Contemplative Leadership (virtual) EMAIL ME BACK ABOUT SCHOLARSHIP INFO
Apr 27 Isaiah Collier & the Chosen Few (Los Angeles, CA)
Apr 30 Notes of Rest for InterVarsity Staff (Chicago)
Other Happenings in the Contemplative World
The “Nap Bishop” Tricia Hersey (a fellow Candler grad) is teaching a 3-week class on her famed project The Nap Ministry through Candler’s online platform the Foundry starting Apr 17. I’m going to be in the number as a participant.
I’m one of the faculty teachers for the Academy of Spiritual Formation hybrid model, an 18-month spiritual formation journey held here in Mundelein, IL. My module will be on Spirituality and Creativity. I invite you to sign up today.