Ep 38 Interspirituality

Interspirituality is a new term for many of us, but broadly speaking, it’s the experience of finding the common ground between our faith traditions and appreciating the ways in which those traditions compliment each other. 

In this episode, we dive into four different ways of being Interspiritual, and we consider how we’ve seen these ways of being emerging in our own lives and in the world around us. Join us as we explore the beauty of sharing our inter-connectedness.

Additional Resources

Book: The New Monasticsm: An Interspiritual Manifesto for Contemplative Living by Rory McEnfee and Adam Bucko
Speaker: Mirabai Starr’s Talk: The Bees in the Garden
Book: Foundations in Spiritual Direction: Sharing the Sacred Across Traditions by Beverly Lanzetta

#PerennialWisdom
#DeconstrucingFaith
#ThirdWay
#PrayerPractices

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Transcript

 SUMMARY KEYWORDS

tradition, faith, deconstructing, interfaith, inter spiritual

Dominic Kaiser

Welcome to The Contemplative Life: Three pastors, friends, and spiritual companions help us explore spirituality through a contemplative lens.

I'm Christina Roberts.
I'm Chris Roberts.
I'm Kristina Kaiser.  We're glad you joined us. 

Kristina Kaiser

Hello, it is great to be with you. Today, we are taking some time to talk about a topic that's somewhat new to me. I feel like it has been in the background of my life but it has suddenly come up in new and exciting ways. It’s this notion of interspirituality. And I'm pulling some information today, in case you're interested, from a book called New Monasticism: An Interspiritual Manifesto for Contemplative Living by Adam Bucko and Rory McEntee.  

So just a little bit of background, the way that they talk about it, historically, is that it all started with these interfaith conversations which actually seem to go back to the late 1800s.  People were willing to get in a room, talk about their faith and even if your faith was different than mine, to sit there, be respectful and just be together, if you will. But then as time has gone on, there's sort of an evolving process to this thing called inter spirituality, where they talk about inter spirituality, as sharing our faith experiences, not just talking about them, but inviting people in to a faith experience that we have in our tradition.  Saying, I would love for you to come and join me. So it's experiential in a spiritual way, not just conversation. So maybe I'll just take a pause there. What is your experience with all of this?

Christina Roberts  02:01

Yeah, I think this is also, I would say, a newer topic for me, especially the terminology of interspiritual, as opposed to interfaith. I think sometimes, at least in some of our previous training, we studied  World Religions when I went to school, Bible College.   But it was more from a heavy, intellectual, comparative type of a thing where you're dissecting what's different about our faith. And almost like, "what's wrong with the other person and what's right with us" type of a frame. And so in more recent years, I think revisiting this idea of inter-spirituality, again, not from a heady place, or an argumentative place, but from Wow, there is so much that we have in common.  I would say probably about eight years ago, Chris was involved with a group of Muslim students at the University  having some interfaith dialogue and the starting point was, What are the similarities between the two faiths and religions, which was just so fascinating.  So, I'm glad that we're diving into this topic today,

Chris Roberts  03:01

I have had some experience with what I would consider to be interfaith, and a lot of that seems to center around sort of deconstructing their own faith tradition. And so it's like you bring up sort of the negative aspects of how you've been in a tradition for your whole life. And then, after discussing all that, you get around to how do you want to move forward, but I really like how this frame of interspiritual from the get go says, we're talking about these experiences, these positive experiences that we're having that are transformative. And so I really like coming from that angle.

Kristina Kaiser  03:36

Yes, you guys are bringing up another word that comes up a lot: perennial wisdom.  This notion of shared common core spirituality, things that are shared from tradition to tradition. And so I am with you, I feel like I have never enjoyed being like,  You over there,  this is what's wrong with you. And this kind of feeling, we've talked a lot about the “us versus them” in my faith circles, this seems to bring that alive in a new sort of a way that  we can bless one another and experience one another's faith traditions together. 

Christina Roberts  04:17

Chris, maybe just to add to that, I do appreciate deconstructing faith with people from other faith traditions. And so a neighbor of ours comes to mind.  He's originally from India and he currently is a doctor here in the United States. He is wrestling with some of his Hindu upbringing that he no longer ascribes to and some of the justice issues and things like that, because he came from a wealthier family, higher caste system, etc. Yet there's something in him that doesn't want to just shed all of his Hindu background because there's cultural aspects of that as well. And so talking to my Hindu neighbor about his experiences and what's the core of some of these Hindu beliefs, etc, that I can still ascribe to really helps me as well from my faith tradition. And so I like how you're saying, Chris, that we can come together with commonness. I think, Kristina, you're highlighting that. But also, as we're deconstructing, sometimes it's refreshing to hear someone deconstruct from a faith that's very different from mine because it may highlight some blind spots that I otherwise would have missed.

Kristina Kaiser  05:18

Mirabai Starr, she gives a talk that's become, I think, pretty famous now, The Bees in the Garden. She talks a lot about this.  I want to be like the bee, I want to go and find the nectar, right, but I know what is poisonous that I avoid. So there is an element that even in the interspiritual conversation of looking around and saying, This is good, and it brings fruit and love into the world. 

And so actually, this woman I know, she was saying not too long ago that her personal definition for the contemplative is extending love and receiving love.  That all sort of fits into this framework as well.  Early on, like pages 26  through probably 30, they go through four ways to be interspiritual. And this, I think, really lit me up because it meant that so many people can participate from wherever they're at. It's not exclusionary, which goes back to that, no, “us versus them”.  So maybe I'll give a couple and then we can chat about them and then I'll give a couple more. They progress in terms of how much you would probably need to know in order to do them. 

Anyways, one way that they talk about is choosing a wisdom tradition, or having grown up in a wisdom tradition like this is where you are strongest, you fly, you know the most.  You're there, you would say like, oh, in my case, maybe I hail from Christianity, I grew up in that and studied the Bible a lot. But I would view other faith traditions as legitimate as well. And so that's like one possible way. Another way would be to have strong roots in a tradition, but branching out, and they call it to drink deeply from the wisdom of other traditions. What experience might you have with that? Like? How do you interpret that?

Chris Roberts  06:47

I think, first of all, you have to be around other people from different faith traditions, to even begin to have these types of discussions. I think we like to run in our own circles, right? What is going to get me out of my own circle? Sometimes we're forced into it by having neighbors or these relationships that occur at work or whatever. But I think a lot of people don't go looking for these types of relationships. And I think, first of all, the first piece I would say is how would one go about looking for an experience or a person who could bring in a different perspective, from a different faith tradition? I think that's the first step. I mean, before you get there, I'm getting all this wisdom from Rumi or whatever great Islamic teacher or spiritual guru, you have to find individuals that you can that you would want to do life with, or share your experiences. So that's what comes up for me.

Christina Roberts  08:12

Yeah, I think that's valid Chris. And I would say maybe it's the neighbor, it's the co worker, maybe if you're extroverted. Maybe it is a book or a podcast. I'll be honest, I think sometimes with people in my circle, there can tend to be a pause or a hesitation like,  Is it okay to read this particular book or listen to this particular person? 

Or some questions that arise and I don't know if that again comes from a fear of Am I going to go down some road and become a heretic? And so I would say that in our church community and my companioning community, this is a very relevant conversation and helping people to try.  Just try this book, try this podcast, try this poem.  You're mentioning RumI. See what resonates. And if you feel like this is a little bit too much for me, or I'm a little bit too uncomfortable, then that's fine, that's not where we're at right now. But I think for me, I think being exposed to some of these different spiritualities can sometimes come through other means besides people.  But I think people are awesome because then you have kind of that relational aspect as well that you're highlighting. 

Kristina Kaiser  09:15

I appreciate what you're saying. Because of this, as soon as I started reading these things, I started realizing how much it resonated with me. I was instantly afraid, Who would accept me if I start having this conversation? Who's willing to talk about all of this with me? And so I started with my husband, and the first place that we were at was, what about that space where Jesus says, I am the way the truth and the life? I paused. And I was like, what Jesus also says, I am the bread of life. And what does that mean? So philosophy, we were immediately in philosophy. But even with this notion of how do I drink from, how do I take one thing and drink it deeply?   I don't have this book right in front of me, so I'm afraid I'll mess everything up. But there's another book, 

By Beverly Lanzetta, Foundations in Spiritual Direction: Sharing the Sacred Across Traditions.  And she has a page, it's beautifully illustrated, first of all, and she did that intentionally. And so she has this arc of different types of prayer practices, meditation practices from different traditions. And so one is zazen, which is Buddhism. And there's a vipassana meditation. And there was centering prayer from Christianity. And the one from the Jewish tradition I'm forgetting starts with an H. But then she goes through and kind of briefly talks through each of them. And as I read these descriptions, I realized, Oh, wait a second, this Zen is exactly what they talked about when they talk about focusing on your breathing. The loving kindness meditation is called something else in the book as well. And I don't have it right in front of me. So I'm going to, I won't even try. But I'm starting to realize some of these things have been introduced into my life. And nobody really specifically told me its roots. Even loving kindness, meditations. Turns out there's another way to say it, metta, or, and this is that I've now heard like three different things that loving kindness meditations could be called. But in the Western world, somehow, it came to us packaged as a certain thing, so that we would take advantage of it, really. And that allows me to realize that, Oh, I am doing this, I am drinking deeply from another faith tradition in some particular way.

Christina Roberts  11:32

And Kristina, I would add to that, I think sometimes when we're hearing a phrase from a different faith tradition, we recognize like you're saying it is actually in my faith tradition, but it's tucked away in the Psalms or Lamentations or something that I've missed. And I think for me, personally, when I'm having conversations or exposed to different ideas, it's like, Oh, my gosh, that is totally in my Christian faith. And how come I haven't seen that before? Like, again, the highlighter has been on these verses, but not on these verses. And it expands my own faith tradition. So rather than taking me away from Christianity, or some of my roots, it actually, in my experience, has strengthened that and made that stronger and deeper.

Kristina Kaiser  12:09

Yeah, I think that that is another thing that gets highlighted in this conversation. So I'm glad that you brought it up. So maybe I'll cover these other two ways that one can be interspiritual. So a third way, is you see yourself as legitimately belonging to multiple religions and fully embedding yourself in multiple religions. I don't know. So I was sharing with Christina at one point, the best I could imagine, like, I've had friends that are both Jewish, and then Christian, right? They grew up in a Jewish household, and they very much celebrate the Jewish holidays. And they came into being like Christian pastors actually, right. And so they celebrate all that is available in Christianity. But now I'm getting to meet Christians that are Buddhist. So that is one way. 

And then the fourth way is this idea that there is no one faith tradition that you ascribe to but rather you hold a belief that each of the faith traditions hold a larger piece of the puzzle, or a smaller piece of a larger puzzle. So each of these has a little piece, and they all contribute to one greater thing. And they're very careful when they write about this to say, this is not picking and choosing just like oh, I like this. And I like this. They feel like people should have spiritual directors, people that they are held accountable to, they hold it with a lot of I guess what I might call fear and trembling, like, reverence, awe. So those are the final two, the drinking from multiple traditions, and then kind of having this conglomerate experience of what we were talking about before the nectar from each of the faith traditions.

Christina Roberts  13:46

Yeah, I think to your point, Kristina, I know lots of people that have grown up in a multi religious home. And so if you have a Hindu mom and a Jewish Dad, I'm thinking of a family that I know in that situation, and their nanny was actually Christian. And so these two little kids from birth were being exposed to three very different religions. And you know,  at Christmas time, they would do this or for Hanukkah, etc. And so I think when one is growing up in that environment, it I think there's a natural organic way in which we're seeing that in family structures. It's not, I'm Catholic, I marry Catholic, our children are baptized Catholic, you marry Catholic, and you repeat. I don't think that's the landscape we're living in. So I think it makes sense that even from birth, people would grow up with multiple religious experiences in their household. 

Chris Roberts  14:33

I agree. I think that's the landscape that we're in nowadays. I think it was easier whenever you lived in a community, a smaller community that sort of repeated itself over and over again for generations.  With everything being so global and people traveling and moving to different places, I think we're being exposed to a lot of different experiences. And so I think something that comes to my mind and I was actually shocked (this was a number of years ago) but I heard a Sister say, I come from a Catholic tradition, but I drink deeply of all their traditions. I'm not even sure what I think of all the different traditions and like, you're not sure about what you think about your upbringing, or you're not sure what you think about your Christian faith. That's exactly what she meant. I think she's gotten to a place in her life where, first of all, she's the most loving person that I think I've ever come into contact with. And she just receives people so openly from that perspective, like, How can I be that open to other individuals? It’s inspiring, you know, somebody that says, I'm not sure about my own faith, I'm not sure about other faiths, but I drink deeply of all of them. And I want to continue to move forward, drinking deeply of other relationships. And I think that's inspiring to me, like how I can have an openness to other people and radiate such love, and acceptance for them. So that's what comes to mind as we're talking about the nectar of all these different faith traditions,

Christina Roberts  16:04

I'm thinking about when two people get married, you have your own family, upbringing, but you're receiving in another family's tradition and personality and experiences. And I think the hope is that it enriches you and helps to inform your family etc. And so, again, I think there's a lot of wisdom to that openness, with also the understanding that we all have different comfort levels with that. And I appreciate that you're kind of naming, Kristina, this isn't the cafeteria spirituality where we're just picking and choosing this sounds good. This sounds good. This is hard, I want to get rid of that. There's parts of my faith tradition that are difficult, but I'm committed to my faith tradition. And I'm willing to work through some of those hard spots. And some of them I don't have answers to, and I have to sit with the question. And when I go to other places, it's not so that I can then walk away or cut and paste and choose.  But I'm still sitting with some of those mysteries of my faith that I don't understand. And that's okay. And so yeah, I appreciate that. It's not some pluralistic pick and choose cafeteria thing that we're talking about. But if I'm hearing you are actually going even deeper, and being even a little bit more rooted, if which kind of seems the opposite. But I think that's what I'm hearing you say,

Kristina Kaiser  17:19

From everything that I'm seeing there is a sense of deep respect, right? For the spiritual self, that is the deepest core of who one is, and I think a few things have been named that are really helpful, too. They do talk about this notion that some people are born into it.  I had a mom that was this way and a dad that was this way, and in a nanny, adding a third, that's fabulous. And then others seem to describe kind of like this nun that you knew.  I just can't help, right, I experienced the Divine in all these places, and I can't deny that I'm experiencing that something lights up and resonates. And when I am in any space, I just sort of like that conversation about the thin spaces. I find the Divine there. And I can't help but acknowledge that which I find so exciting again, because I think for years, I did live in a fear based. If you don't get it right, somehow you're in trouble. And to live into this freedom of the Divine is everywhere,  it seems to bring out even more as best I can tell that this connectedness to other people only grows stronger in this type of practice. And not even just to other people, there seems to be a real sense of connection to all living things. It seems to broaden and broaden as you deepen in it. You guys, thank you for having this conversation. I have just been overflowing with these ideas lately. So I'm glad that we could process them here. And hopefully we'll be able to keep talking about it as time goes on.

Kristina Kaiser  19:01

Well, this is the point in our podcast where we take a moment to talk about what we are into. What have you guys been into lately?

Chris Roberts  19:09

Well, I have been into embracing fall. So we have been going on walks and we're seeing a little bit of color in the trees in the bushes. And I'm surrounded by people that are like, Ah, I don't I don't want summer to end. I'm not ready for the colder temperatures. I find that I am looking forward to cooler weather. I'm looking forward to some of the color that's going to start popping in our trees. And I'm just having gratitude for fall that's coming.

Christina Roberts  19:44

 I will continue on that fall theme. I am also into the fall energy and I feel like there's something in society. Maybe it's because school is starting and people want to do fall deep cleaning because they're getting out their sweaters and swapping out their swimsuits and things like that. So I've just been kind of loving the fall energy and I think I'm most looking forward to getting wood chopped.  We're not quite ready for the fireplace, probably not hopefully for another month or so, but kind of eager to begin some of those traditions. So I am also into fall energy.

Kristina Kaiser  20:13

I love it.  Fall is my favorite season and to go along with the fall season,  I am into windows.  When we moved into our new home, we discovered that our windows needed to be replaced. And one of the not so fancy features of our old windows was that there were blinds inside the window pane. So it was always very difficult to see. They were really close together and there was always this kind of like scooting up and down to see out the windows. So we've now got some new windows in and we're just loving looking outside and seeing for real what is out there. And we have marveled like these leaves are going to turn colors and it's going to snow and we're going to be able to look at it. It's gonna be so beautiful to continue the fall theme with a really great lens, so to speak, is what I'm into. 

Well thank you everyone for being with us. If you are looking for more resources, we invite you to check out the contemplativelife.net. If you have a moment, we would love for you to rate us on iTunes and so other people can find us. Thanks so much. We'll see you soon.