Today is Palm Sunday in the Christian faith (with the exception of the Orthodox Denominations which follow a different calendar), the beginning of Holy Week, and the unfolding of the Easter Celebration. As I wrote previously, this year the Islamic world is also in the Holy Month of Ramadan. In addition, Jewish Passover week begins April 5 this year, a sacred recognition of their deliverance from Egyptian slavery. (The celebration of Passover also brings Christians a reminder that the Christian "Last Supper" was actually Jesus and the Disciples' Passover meal, demonstrating the stream of the common roots of Abrahamic religions). When we look at the vast variety of religious calendars across the globe, including Buddhism, Hinduism, and many smaller devotional paths as part of our ancient observation of spring, this week brings a multiplicity of rituals, prayers, and celebrations. Devotion, ceremony, communal feasts, collective gratitude--all add to the richness of life and nourish the emotional and spiritual need of humanity. Yet sadly, religion can quickly cause division.
My point today as we enter this month and these Holy Days is to affirm a world of diversity--religious, cultural (which includes political), racial, gender/non-gender, physical, emotional, mental, and environmental diversity. As someone recently put it to me, "we all belong to a flock"; our flock lends stability and meaning to our lives. Yet, diversity is also our protection and strength. Diversity brings an expansion of understanding and the power of perspective that alters and shifts experiences, gives us options and feeds creativity. Creativity takes us beyond what we know. Diversity is the way of Nature that offers infinite potential. Sameness closes the door.
Watching young children on the playground who have yet to learn the labels of division, you can marvel at their joy in shared play, regardless of all the social markers and ideas that will eventually push on them to judge, to avoid, to defend and separate. Resolving the difficulties of our 21st century world, requires having all the pieces of the puzzle on the table--not removing pieces, including them. If we had the capacity to tap the collective spiritual fervor of all the religious celebrations of this one week in our hearts, without rigidity or fear, we could bring not just peace to ourselves, but to the whole of life. Our future world waits....(Susan Nettleton)