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Sometimes wisdom comes from the most unusual places. I love the old Bing Crosby song, “Accentuate The Positive” by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen. It begins: “You've got to accentuate the positive, Eliminate the negative, Latch on to the affirmative, Don't mess with Mister In-Between.”
Several years ago, I had a meeting with a family friend of mine who was getting married. She and her fiancée requested to speak to me about their upcoming marriage. When we sat down, she asked me: “As you know, I am Catholic. My fiancée is Baptist. Can we get your permission to marry?”
Frankly, I was stunned. I gently responded, “Actually, I can’t give you permission. That choice is up to both of you.” She said: “But we are of different faiths. Can we get married? Will our faiths separate us?” I smiled and said: “There is that wonderful question about the glass partially filled with water. Some people see it half full and others see it as half empty. With your own lives and your intended marriage, you can either concentrate on what unites you or what divides you. If you concentrate on what divides you, your marriage will not endure. If, instead, you concentrate on what you have in common, you’ll do just fine.”
With a sigh of relief, she spoke briefly with her fiancée. They decided they’d like me to celebrate their marriage day with them. I gladly agreed. This year they have been married for sixteen years and have two wonderful sons. They still remember the words I shared with them about “accentuating the positive”.
This example is just one small example of how people of different faiths can learn to accept each other and learn to appreciate each other’s faith without coming to blows over differences. This same attitude is needed among people who are members of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions. They need to learn to “accentuate the positive.”
Without trying to over-simplify, I think that our religions have much in common. Without going into the intricacies of each religion, some general agreements about our faith tenets are:
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Of central importance to me is that we also have similar values. We all emphasize the importance of love, forgiveness and repentance, family, faith, prayer. We also agree that honesty, generosity, and social justice should be an important part of daily living. All three religions appreciate the value of the Golden Rule: “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.”
Two specific instances in the 1300’s in Jerusalem remind us of the necessary for and benefit from an attitude of religious tolerance for each other’s beliefs. The first was when the Plague broke out in the city of Damascus. This potential tragedy brought together Jews, Christians and Muslims, young and old. They were seen marching together in procession, holding their own sacred scriptures, and reciting prayers for deliverance from this terrible disease. The second instance happened just six years later, when Jerusalem was experiencing a serious famine and all the city’s wells had dried up except for the spring of Silewân (more familiarly referred to as the pool of Shiloah that is fed by the tunnel from the Virgin’s Fountain). All the inhabitants of that Holy City – Muslims, Christians and Jews – assembled together in the open and prayed fervently for rain. Within three days, their prayers were answered. Sometimes tragedies have a blessed quality of bringing people together. In our recent past, I remember the events surrounding 9/11 that did that for us as a country.
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| Wake in La Salette Welcome Center for Swami Sarvagatanando |
Another such “blessed event” happened May 16, 2009, when we at the La Salette National Shrine opened our Welcome Center to the Vedanta Society of Providence and Boston to celebrate a memorial service for one of their most revered Hindu monks, the Revered Swami Savagatanandaji. He had died on May 3rd and was the senior-most monk from India working in the West. It was a beautiful service in tribute to him for his great holiness and his dynamism as an inspiring speaker. We were honored to offer our facilities at our Catholic Shrine so that the hundreds of people devoted to him could properly express their praise and gratitude for the beautiful witness of his life.
In the Attleboro area, an interfaith group meets monthly and is another example of many different religious traditions that come together to better understand and appreciate one another. This group includes representatives from the Islamic, Buddhist and Jewish religions as well as people from such churches as the Community Covenant Church, the Episcopal Church, the Unitarian Church and the Methodist Church to name but a few.
When it comes down to daily living, we often fear most a religious group about which we know little. Perhaps, in this fast-moving, internet-connected world, we are being invited to learn more about each other’s faith in order to appreciate our similarities and hopefully learn to “accentuate the positive.”