A Personal Challenge of Pluralism

[Music]

[Music]

in the name of god

the most merciful the most beneficent

i’d like to take a second and reflect

with you all about what i just said

and don’t worry i don’t intend on using

this platform for

religious preaching or theological

debate

i’m more interested in reflecting with

you all about

how you perceive that opening in

vacation

how i perceived giving that opening

invocation

perhaps some of you may be a bit

confused what’s he bringing up god for

at this public forum maybe some feel

alienated

divine speech and divine talk is no

place at a ted talk

others may feel like you relate a little

bit maybe even are rooting for me

yeah he’s willing to talk about god so

publicly at this ted talk

others may be on to me and realize that

this is a

usual ted talk gimmick to grab your

attention

and to open my invocation for the

evening

something tells me there’s truth to all

of these

but the real intention was to invoke

reactions

reactions that i’m sure were quite

diverse

probably very strong for some but

personal

for many in my role as the interfaith

fellow this year

at middlebury college i thought that the

majority of my work would be involved in

event programming for the different

religious and spiritual groups on campus

you know the kinds of things where we

have an interfaith dinner

maybe a volunteer service trip

the kinds of things that would make

great pictures for the campus magazine

or

the chaplain’s office brochure or what

have you

but truth be told i wasn’t so interested

in the event programming side of things

i was more interested in a more

authentic interfaith experience

an experience that acknowledges the

tensions

that lie at the heart of our commonly

held ideals

of pluralism cooperation

and even coexistence and don’t worry i’m

not talking about those tensions that we

can all easily

pull examples from from the history of

people

of religious or non-religious

backgrounds as they

sorted their differences to put it very

lightly

i’m talking about a more fundamental

experience

an experience that lies at the heart of

how we view each other more

fundamentally and it’s probably useful

at this point to tell you that i think

the term

interfaith is actually deeply unhelpful

and i’ve tried to distance myself from

the term despite my title as the

interfaith fellow

and i think it’s for a few reasons i’ll

share a few

for one i think the term interfaith

makes certain assumptions

about the kind of inter-human work

that’s

like worth doing for example it could be

quite

exclusionary to people who don’t

experience their world from

a faith background for example buddhists

might

have a more practice based way of living

certainly atheists or agnostics don’t

have that faith

like traditional faith way of viewing

their lives or how they engage with

the world around them but it can also be

quite alienating to people who do come

from

a traditional faith background who view

the world from multiple lenses

and not just the lens of their religion

or spirituality

so the kind of work that i was more

interested in doing in my time as the

interfaith fellow is

to look at how we experience the world

from our different perspectives

the different lenses with which we

engage in the world

maybe even call inter-lens work the

different lenses that we think

act and feel as we navigate our

experiences

for some that might be through a purely

or fairly religious framework

they navigate the world through a

religious perspective

for others it might be through a totally

non-religious

non-theistic non-theological even

non-practice based way of living

for most of us it’s a mixture of things

perhaps our religious upbringings may

inform

our values or our beliefs

for some maybe those that religious

upbringing

those values and beliefs are exactly are

exactly what we want to define ourselves

in opposition to

but the reality is we all have lenses

with which we engage in the world

personally speaking the lens with which

i engage in the world is from a fairly

religious one

i view the world under or in the pursuit

of a

you know the the moral and the divine

beauty

and if it’s not how i usually navigate

things it’s how i want to navigate

things

it’s a belief that we are all under the

divine gaze and that’s actually how i

think the world works

that not just me like you know when i’m

giving the speech there’s a spiritual

religious dimension to it

that includes you all and the wider

world and the universe as well

but perhaps there are others who are

viewing this speech from a totally

different perspective

from the perspective of it’s just a cool

ted talk and there’s no

you know strings attached theologically

or spiritually

perhaps there are some who are viewing

this talk from the lens of a

different divine gaze maybe we’ll call

it brahmin or as i might call it allah

regardless we are viewing things from

different lenses

and i think that’s kind of strange if

you think about it just a little bit

maybe even funny can you imagine that

perhaps the person

you know two rows of or two rows i’m

trying to gather it

two rows or two seats away from you is

let’s say they’re a pre-med and they’re

pursuing a medical career and their best

reason for pursuing a medical career is

in pursuit of

glorifying their lord and savior jesus

christ

whereas maybe two rows up or down from

them is another pre-med

who views pursuing a career in medicine

as purely a means to help their fellow

human

let’s say they’re a secular humanist of

sort no divine strings attached

once again we have different lenses with

which

we engage in the world

now i think that’s quite compelling and

you know there might be some main

some more mainstream ways of viewing the

world

perhaps you know my version of a divine

gaze might not be the common mainstream

way that most people

think about their experiences

you know and and i i want to emphasize a

lot of my work was not focused on things

like

who’s the right perspective or the wrong

perspective which one makes more sense

less sense

which one is more or less reasonable

the kind of work that i focused on was

trying to engage with questions like

what are the kinds of lenses that exist

out there

how welcomed are those different

perspectives and lenses

how do they interact with each other on

a day to day

if they do it all and if there are any

similarities or differences

perhaps some of those differences could

be quite severe and cause

tensions how do we navigate those

instances where there are tensions

between different lenses or perspectives

in the world

i’ll address some of those questions

perhaps from more of like a more

personal example

and that is the example that i think

millions of muslims

across the globe experience but also

certainly non-muslims

who can relate to perhaps a connection

with a divine transcendent power

or being and that is the instance of

prayer

what does it mean for you all to think

about how i engage in prayer

as some of you may know muslims are

religiously prescribed or required to

pray five daily prayers

and what that means is five times a day

we engage in ritual washing or

abolution if you want the technical term

we’ll do in arabic

and five times a day we engage in ritual

prostration

ritual bowing we recite quranic

supplications and

verses and we communicate our needs

and our experiences to who we believe is

god

personally speaking prayer is an act of

divine connection as well as a means of

connecting myself

to a metaphysical and spiritual

sustenance for my soul

and even grounding myself in a

transcendent purpose

but using that inter-lens methodology we

want to ask ourselves

how do you all experience my act of

prayer

how do you understand it how do you make

sense of it

to make this more tangible perhaps you

can imagine yourself walking by

and you see a fellow peer or colleague

or friend in their dorm room as they’re

praying their evening prayers

or perhaps you walk by somebody in their

colleague at work and you see them in

their workspace with their face on the

ground in prostration

how do you make sense of that what would

your reaction be

what has your reaction been

is it the usual you do you bro kind of

attitude

or is it is there a kind of like a way

we can lean into it perhaps

leading into that inter lens snapshot

i want to use interfaith but intra lens

snapshot

where you might not have the same sets

of beliefs or values or perspectives or

attitudes about prayer or

the metaphysics of it or what have you

if omar believes that prayer grounds him

in a deeper reality

how do you view yourself in relation to

that world

how does omar view you in relation to

that world is there a deeper reality

that you both share

do my beliefs cohere or rub against

omar’s view of things

if you try to think about these

questions a lot you’ll run into some

sticky points

i’m sure i do do it all the time i think

about these things and

i’m quite conf like concerned and

confused how can people from different

backgrounds

make sense of their views of things but

there is a bright side and that is you

learn a lot about yourself when you

engage in that practice

for one when you think about the power

of the fact that somebody might believe

something totally different

you’re confronted with questions about

what you believe how you make sense of

the world

perhaps you might think about how you

try to answer some of those questions

that your peers or colleagues

claim they have the answers to

perhaps you might even ask questions

about why you might have your certain

philosophical or theological or

spiritual

religious leanings that might be similar

or to

or different from your friends or peers

or your community or your colleagues

you ask yourself what stakes you have

for taking certain beliefs or values

ultimately you have to ask yourself

what effect does it have in the world

does my certain perspective or lens

affect how i navigate my my interactions

my job choices my career

my you know inter interpersonal

relationships

and i can say through my you know few

years of interreligious inter-spiritual

interpersonal exploration

i’ve seen the value personally and with

others

of leaning into those potential

instances of consternation

and pause and even confusion sometimes

vehement disagreement

something gets bad but

it’s also a place where you learn a lot

about yourself and a lot about others

for one you can at the very least say

that you know where somebody’s coming

from you might end up sharing their

beliefs or values

or disagreeing with them vehemently but

it’s in

it’s in instances like that where you

can say that you have at least engaged

honestly authentically intentionally

in a pursuit of pluralism cooperation

and coexistence

it’s when you know how to situate your

life in the lives

in the lives of others and your life and

situate yourself in the lives of others

in the lives of others in yours

that’s really challenging because it

takes us out of our

many silos or compartments of thought

but it’s certainly valuable and it’s

also really vulnerable

it’s quite put yourself in that

situation it’s a very vulnerable act

because when you allow yourself to wear

the lenses of others

you are saying hey it’s okay for me to

expand my thoughts

to grow a little bit but it’s also

really brave

because it means that you’re invested

it means you’re invested in building

bridges with the others

building bridges with your peers your

friends your colleagues your family

who you may or may not see eye to eye

with so when we reflect about

the differences of our perspectives or

lenses religiously spiritually

philosophically or what have you

the ones that hit at the core of our

existence i invite us all to

potentially simmer in

those contentious moments in those

disagreements

about what the world is those big

questions of meaning and value and truth

and to perhaps wear the lenses

of your friends or colleagues

maybe just maybe you’ll like what you

see

thank you very much