I’m part of the Napa Valley Interfaith Council, and so grateful to have this group of clergy and spiritual leaders as colleagues and friends. Some of yesterday’s meeting included supporting the drag show at the Fairgrounds tomorrow night; the faith communities in Petaluma, who have come together to ring their bells once a month to call attention to gun violence; the creation of a website for welcoming and affirming faith communities in Napa; the Walk to End Alzheimer’s Napa Valley on September 9; and a future service of healing for all who have been hurt by churches and faith communities.
We begin with a check-in – time for each of us to share our joys and concerns – before we talk about opportunities and challenges that affect us and that we want to respond to. One thing we don’t do is pray together, and I wish we did… I wish we could… I wish we had a common language to offer our hopes and dreams and heartaches to One who hears and loves all. I came close, yesterday, to suggesting that we close our time with prayer but I hesitated, unsure of how to share my faith without stepping over another’s understanding and experience of the Divine.
I’m often grieved and offended by people of my own faith tradition who speak authoritatively and on behalf of God, in language so foreign to me and my experience and understanding of God, that I am completely excluded from the conversation. Jesus, to me, is love. He is welcome, home, mercy, understanding, the human face of a complex and multifaceted God; He is (Nadia Bolz-Weber’s words) “God with skin in the game”) and (Larry the Cable Guy’s words) “Get’er Done”. I can’t speak for Him – not really – but I can try to show who He is, and in part that’s respect and awe for how other people encounter the Holy.
On August 27, we’ll have the opportunity to listen to Ata and Adam Manasra, Muslim men from Palestine, and their experiences of life and faith in that place. I hope you’ll be here to welcome them.
In faith, Marylee