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