Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Prayer at Work

When I went back to work after a death in my family I received a sympathy card signed by many of my co-workers.

People who, to the best of my knowledge before this, may or may not pray at all said things like "you and your family are in our prayers." Even when people I know to be religiously active mentioned that I was in their prayers it was striking. That sort of thing isn't usually part of my relationship with co-workers.

Of course maybe they aren't all really praying. Maybe its like the greeting, "How are you?" Sometimes you can take the question literally, sometimes not. It seems sadly cynical and disrespectful to think that, yet possibly naive not to. But either way, the statments in the card are holistic and human expressions of relationship of a kind that aren't often made among co-workers.

Thank you to all for your thoughts, prayers and sympathies.

Friday, March 14, 2008

An Exciting Conversation

One of my kids goes to a weekly class. During the class I often find myself sitting in a waiting room with other parents. One of these parents, I knew from previous conversation, is Muslim. As much as I love to talk with people about religion and their experiences of it, of course I don't normally grab near strangers and begining inquiry. So that was about about as far as it went.

This week before the class it happened I had listened to a Speaking of Faith broadcast, "A New Voice for Islam" about Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America. So I dared to ask this parent if she knew the organization.

She asked about what the topic of the program had been. She soon told me that people are hesitant to talk about religion (and politics), but she thinks, why not, and said she's not easily offended. Those are usually my lines!! Noting that people in America are often not well informed about Islam or about things outside of America (which I have no doubt is true and applies to me more than I like to admit), she said she likes it when people ask about her religion. You can be sure I took that as an invitation I wasn't going to pass up!

She and I were joined by a Mormon parent and carried on a fascinating conversation for the remainder of the time of the class! Usually I'm trying to prod my child and the friend that rides with us to get ready to go. This time they were ready before we managed to conclude the conversation!

I'm sure it's a conversation that will continue. I'm excited and grateful.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Striving for Community

We're always striving for something. That's good. But sometimes we strive so much for that elusive thing that we don't realize the ways we already have it. We let it slip through our lives under appreciated, under engaged.

I got to thinking about this related to community. Why do I fail to appreciate the community I have? A-ha! Maybe because my relationships are so compartmentalized that they don't integrate to the point that they feel like community. Its as if work, church, my kids' school, various friends, relatives, etc. all exist in worlds of their own. The relationships I have in those contexts have boundaries of expectation and commitment that are largely limited to those contexts. Those boundaries can be a hurdle to cross even when it may be appropriate and desirable to do so.

But some of the boundaries are in my mind. I see co-workers, people from church, parents of my kids' friends, etc. when I could expand my thinking to see more holistically. I could be more mindful and appreciative of the relationships I have with these people. I could recognized that these are people with whom there may be potential to expand relationships and community if I (and they) are willing to open windows, doors, maybe eventually even take down walls of the boxes of our lives.

I'm not looking to invade any one's life. That's obnoxious. Nor am I looking for all my compartmentalized relationships to overlap. I think that would be too homogeneous, too stifling. But I would like a lot more integration than I have now.

Maybe a way forward is to continue to say this:
I have community. How did I experience it today?