An Impractical Ideal or the Best Way Forward?
Is religious faith—such as, believing in Jesus and wanting to live as He taught and showed—a practicable way of life, or an ethereal, glossy theory that we are not expected to take seriously?
I remember a Christian-Moslem dialogue meeting in Hyderabad years ago, at which a Moslem lady professor shared her view of Jesus’s teachings. “Sounds beautiful,” she said, “but totally impractical.” She added: “I have, for instance, no great regard for the Sermon on the Mount, which you Christians admire a lot. Show me a society based on that. How can we live by principles like, ‘Show the other cheek’? Mohammed, instead, was not only a religious leader, but also the head of a state. He gave us practical rules by which we can run society. Thus, people know that, if they steal, their hand can be cut off. So, they will not steal.”
Is loving everyone—seeing and trying to treat everyone—as one’s own brother or sister a realizable guide for living, or simply a nice-sounding exhortation that will not work in real life?
Are there people who see (or at least try to see) every human being as one’s own?
Do people who claim to represent Christianity—such as, church leaders, priests, religious superiors—have this type of a great heart and mind, with no bigotry or narrowness? Is the typical clergyman and religious and the typical church-going Christian someone unblemished by cultural and ethnic narrowness? Do we really see and treat others with genuine affection and care, irrespective of their ethnicity, gender, income, place of origin, religion or whatever?
Or, are we more part of the “we-they” game?
A simple way to check this would be: When I meet someone for the first time, is it my main interest to “place” him or her in some group identity—place, language, religion, income, …? Or do I really LISTEN to this person, try to RELATE to this individual, UNDERSTAND him or her? Do I feel closer and more interested if they belong to the “right group”? That may be my place or language group, or caste or tribe, or political party, or area of studies and work. How many close friends have I from groups and settings different from my own?
This issue of MAGNET attempts a look at what this means. Cover Story 1 presents people from different backgrounds who learnt to move from narrowness to largeness of heart. Cover story 2 has quick look at Pope Francis’s vision and practice. Cover Story 3 looks at the experience of a priest-professor among the destitute in a Kolkata slum and the questions it raises. Cover Story 4 shows some blemishes and the reasons for the rot.
As we grow older—not necessarily wiser or better—we may move from childhood certainties and cultural narrowness to adult thinking and a larger mind and heart, or we may focus on the negatives of a group or person, define ourselves in opposition, and fail to notice that we are wasting our life on petty concerns. No group is all good, nor all bad. No group is better or worse, wiser or more stupid. Whatever group I am born into, my main task remains that of becoming human.
This came to light in a discussion among junior members of a religious order, where there were seniors from different states, especially Tamilnadu and Kerala. When a particular priest’s name came up, the juniors spontaneously remarked, “He is neither a Tamil nor a Malayalee. He is a good human being.”
May that be true of you and me. If so, we can truly be a brother or sister to every other human being.
Pope Francis is certainly such a human being, with a large and compassionate heart, and a wise and ever-open mind. His teaching on “EVERYBODY IS MY BROTHER OR SISTER” (FRATELLI TUTTI) inspires, challenges, and shows the way. Many outside the Church, too, see his vision and style as the best way forward. It is much wiser to live together as a family than perish together as fools. Don’t you agree?
