A little while back I wrote a blog post called “Five Approaches to Interspirituality.” In this post, I compare interspiritual practice to having a relationship with more than one country (such as the USA and England). People can have different ways of relating to more than one country, and I pose five such “ways,” comparing spirituality to being a tourist, an immigrant, an ambassador, and so forth.
At the end of that post, I pose this question:
Certainly there are other ways to engage with a faith tradition different from your own. Do you have any ideas as to what that would look like?
This week, a reader took me up on that query, and sent me this reply (edited slightly for clarity):
In your blog post entitled “Five Approaches to Interspirituality” you pose at the end a question that’s been percolating in my mind for days.
My answer at this moment in time is – Pilgrim – being curious as I enter a different landscape noting
what I see – coloursscapes
what I hear – soundscapes
what I feel – texture+touch
taking from the ambassador model consciously retaining what I know, moving into, and embracing what is unknown until it becomes what it is to be.
So now we have a sixth model of interspirituality: the Pilgrim. While in some ways I think this is similar to my idea of “tourist” interspirituality (where someone occasionally dips into a faith tradition other than their own, for example a Christian who likes to read books by the Dalai Lama), I love this idea that visiting the “country” of another faith is a kind of sensory immersion. So it’s more than just a reading a book; it’s actually going there, but with a spirit of seeking spiritual renewal, new insights, and allows “the unknown” to become at least more known.
Pilgrimage is such an important spiritual practice, for so many of the world’s great faith traditions. Christians have been making pilgrimages to the Holy Land for centuries, and for many Catholics, a journey to Rome, Lourdes or Fatima can be a once-in-a-lifetime spiritual event. It’s not just a Christian practice, either: a pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the central spiritual practices of Islam. And for the U.S. baby boomer generation, traveling to India or Japan in search of eastern spirituality was practically a generational rite of passage.
Here in Atlanta there is a group called Interfaith Community Initiatives that runs a program called “World Pilgrims” which involves gathering people from different faith traditions and traveling to sacred sites of one or more such faiths, going as a group to reflect together not only on the diversity of faiths in our world, but also the beauty of our common humanity. Although I myself have never been on one of their pilgrimages, I know several people who have and they report having profoundly meaningful journeys.
So if you are the kind of person who enjoys reading about faiths other than your own, consider taking the next step. Go visit a mosque, or synagogue, or zendo (and if you’re not a Christian, check out a basilica or a cathedral). Try making a retreat at a retreat center that is operated by a faith tradition other than your own. Attend an iftar dinner or visit a gurdwara. Even if your primary reason for traveling is business or vacation, see if you can add in a day or two for pilgrimage purposes. I’ve never been to Japan (it’s on my bucket list), and I guarantee you that visiting shinto shrines will be on the agenda when I do. Many lands have hosted more than one religious tradition over the ages, so check out both current and historical sacred sites when you visit a country.
Be a pilgrim, and one that explores beyond the boundaries of religion: and when you do, follow the advice of the reader who said: “embrace what is unknown, until it becomes what is to be.”
