Like most of the people going to Common Ground, I went into the program not really knowing what to expect. Was the focus going to be on the environment? Would it be on interfaith dialogue? To be quite honest, I think even the organizers weren’t quite sure since this was the first year of the program. It took us about the first hour to figure it out. By the time I went to sleep on Monday night, I had already had some pretty intense discussions. Of course of the oil spill, but also I had the chance to speak with people about religions I really had never been exposed to before all while hiking around the retreat center by the lake. So all in all, it was a fairly amazing initial exposure to the program: tons of people who were interested in interfaith dialogue and the earth, and tons of water which I always find pretty incredible especially coming directly from New Mexico!
We spent much of the day on Tuesday learning about the religious environmental movement. As is apparent from the lack of cohesive response to scientists’ warnings about our treatment of the environment, science alone cannot effect change to the drastic extent necessary. Rather, it is essential to bring in other fields so that the message can be reframed in ways that are appealing to a larger group of people. One of the most important communities to reach out to is religious leadership. By reexamining religious scripture or lore with environmental protection in mind, large groups of people will realize the importance of protecting the earth and all of the people who are being harmed by the pollutants that we are injecting into the environment. We were given this earth and as stewards, it is our responsibility to be mindful of what we do to it.
We also had speakers from the Jewish and Muslim traditions come and speak to us about some movements within the communities as well as arguments from within the traditions that speak to the importance of protecting the environment. After all of these fascinating speakers and all of the fascinating discussion, I just didn’t see how it could get any better. On Wednesday night, however, we delved into the realm of text study, something that I’ve only ever done in a purely Jewish setting. We read texts from the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions that discussed man’s role as steward of the earth and discussed how they related to each other. To me, this really exemplified the dedication of the participants to learning and understanding each other’s cultures. Rather than stopping at developing friendships across faith lines, there was real discussion and questioning about what religions were about.
As might be expected, this program left me with a lot to think about. I came away shocked that I had stumbled upon a group of people who cared about religion and the environment simultaneously without one trumping the other. This almost makes me think that these two parts of my focus are not so contradictory after all! I also, of course, came away with a lot of ideas for how to improve interfaith dialogue on WashU’s campus which will hopefully play out well in the coming year. And I have no doubt that they will with all of the support and experience of the people I met at Common Ground.
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