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« on: December 13, 2021, 03:58:37 PM »
So each year the local Kiwanis club has clergy speak in December. It used to be billed "the 3 Wise Men" (ha ha!), rotating each year 3 of the 5 clergy in our small community consisting of 5 Protestant churches. Two developments skuttled the "Wise Men" moniker: first, because some of the churches starting calling female clergy, second, the Jewish Kiwanis members wanted their rabbi to talk, so he's been coming in and participating for the last few years, at an event now billed as the Kiwanis Holiday Meeting. Okay, fine whatever. I'm happy to speak and represent my church, and pass the cold scrambled eggs, please.
Here are this year's instructions, I received via email, which is downright sociological, and speaks to the division of our time:
Each religious leader will be asked to reflect on the following prayer in a 5-minute talk.
When we encounter our “others,” we learn what we could not have known
if we had stayed isolated. We accomplish what is impossible without
collaboration. We grow in ways we could not grow by ourselves. When
we enter such an encounter, we can bless what we each lack, for it is that
which brings us together.
Two caveats: 1) Please keep your remarks to minutes as our members like our meetings to end by 9. 2) Please keep in mind that we are a diverse, multi-religious organization and we do our best, whether discussing verses in either the Old or New Testament, to offer universal concepts that can be received by those in the audience in a positive, heartwarming manner.
So we have a Kiwanis group that is struggling with some post-pandemic ethical questions. We've been holed-up for 18 months and the question surfaces that maybe, just maybe, we have something to learn from our neighbors.
True as that is, the entire questions is naïve and romantic. It is hard for me not to read this without thinking of political divides, where we can't agree on basic facts pertaining to the 2020 election, what happened Jan 6th, masks and vaccines.
I just want to spend my five minutes questioning the premise of the question. Are you really sure we want to learn from others who are different than we are? Be careful what you ask for. But then I'm just being as divisive as everyone else. So I will bow to civic religion and make everybody feel good for a few minutes....in a "heartwarming manner".....one way or the other.
Thanks for reading....