March 16, 1986 file (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)
 

 
The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.        Job 33:4

In an article by Parveen Chopra describing Zen Buddhism she states:

  ... Zen is a system of teaching, and nothing more, a key statement is made: Zen is a finger pointing to the moon. It is only a finger, not the moon. Only a map, not the territory. This approach if adopted by other religions, can cut at the root  of fundamentalism and eliminate acrimony between religions.

In this example, the finger is used as an image of religious teachings and the moon would be the goal of God, Creator, the Highest Power. Our religions are much the same as mentioned in the quote, fingers pointing towards a truth that we hope to discover or seek to understand. When caught up in a sole focus on religion however, when we focus only on the tenets and dogmas of a religion, we will never see God. Focusing on religion turns us inward towards ourselves rather than outward towards a path to God and our neighbor.

As mentioned in Part I of this series, religion can be a path towards the holy, a path towards God. My suggestion today is that we look at religion as a root that gives us wings to soar with the spirit. The roots ground us in tradition that can be meaningful. For example, in a liturgical church, liturgies (works of the people) are used as common ground for all believers in worship. Sacred texts are examples of liturgies. These writings are important in that they give us a starting point, a map if you will.

Like any map, you can look at the text, see a beginning point and a destination. However, once you are on the road, the trip is quite different from what is on the map or in the text. Along the way, different events occur that may not have been addressed on the map (pot holes, wrecks, parades) just as when we look at a liturgy or scripture in comparison to an actual event in life (birth of a child, death of a parent, loss of a job) it is not always clear how that text addresses the event. Having a text does give a reference point to discern meaning, but that meaning cannot be foretold by religion, only by guidance of the spirit living in you.

In Christianity and Judaism, the 10 Commandments are guidelines for what it means to belong to God and God's community. Jesus sums these commandments (also called "the law") up by saying, "Love God with all your heart, mind and soul, and your neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:27). The Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus's time had taken something simple (only 10 commandments) and then turned them into so many rules and regulations that people could not remember the commandments much less have the ability to follow all the laws added onto the original ten.

My friend's daughter was dating a Jewish guy and wished to impress him with her knowledge. She went into a bookstore in NYC that was filled with books. A clerk came up to her, "Can I help you?" She said, "I want to get a book on the law?" She told me the fellow looked at her curiously and then smiled while he pointed to all the shelves of books and said, "All of these books are the law." Humanity has a tendency to add rules upon rules to more rules. This is what had happened with the commandments even in Jesus's time, and what did Jesus do? Add more? No, he summed it up neatly in one sentence, "Love God, your neighbor and yourself." When you look at the original ten commandments, they can be easily broken down into those three categories.

Loving God, your neighbor and yourself, gives a good root and guideline for living, but this does not imprison a person but frees the individual to live differently. This love that is talked about is not a sappy feeling for a person, or an attempt at forcing yourself to feel something that you don't feel. Love is about living and walking a path of compassion. When we look at all the world's great religions, ultimately they have this common denominator - compassion for humanity and all of creation.

Fredrick Beuchner states it best saying:

"Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It's the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too."