A sea of change

One of the unique elements of being in school in Berkeley is that I’m never quite sure how my day will shape up. While preparing lunch on Friday, I heard that there was a lecture at the Sophia Center in Oakland that a mutual friend was going to. Entitled “Our Place in the Universe, a cosmic reality,” the two-hour lecture was to be presented by Alexandra Kovats, a Catholic sister. So, with nothing else to do, I attended.

The concepts presented were familiar to me. The good sister explained, among other things, that interpretation of the Biblical instruction that we had “dominion over the world” had been misinterpreted. She said that the web of life needed to be respected, honored and protected if our planet would continue to be habitable. She said it was not necessary to demonize that other understanding, it was simply imperative to move beyond it.

And while the message was seemingly neutral and certainly not earth- or faith-shattering to me, she went on to explain the birth of the cosmos; bacteria forming some 3.4 billion years ago, and animals and plants emerging on the evolving earth before the first human. From my inexperienced ears, I thought it was in direct conflict with the creation story and I wondered what the rest of the Catholic audience was feeling with the information.

“A lot of people are eating it up,” visiting Catholic theologian Mary Margaret told me as I sleepily stumbled in the communal bathroom this morning. “People think it makes a lot of sense.”

Episcopalian priest-to-be Molly, the fellow dormer who told me about the lecture that afternoon, seemed agitated on the way home. “There is an Anglican workshop going on all this week and there is talk that some of the issues that are causing division in the Anglican church, which include homosexuality and the ordination of women, are threatening the wholeness of the “communion” or the Anglican organization. “In the name of democracy, factions are being encouraged to stay in the organization,” she said.

As part of the closing worship of the Earl Lectures, a yearly conference put on by the Pacific School of Religion, a non-denominational Christian seminary here at the Graduate Theological Union, entitled this year, “All the Rivers of Paradise: Christian Responsibility in an Interfaith World,” the celebrant said that it was no longer acceptable to hold the understanding that one religion held all meaning, while another religion was simply wrong.

While a part of me celebrates that main-stream religious thought is making its way toward a more tolerant or seemingly Unitarian-Universalist theology in order to encourage peace in our world, I understand that this new thought is shaking the foundations upon which people have built their faith.

The world, our faith traditions, and our perceptions of good and evil are being forged and tempered with a new understanding. It’s great news to many of us, and terribly frightening to a good many more.

I remind myself that a vitriolic response is limited and I offer compassion and support to those who are being challenged to change their views and long-held interpretations.