Faith in the Neighborhood - Praying
100 pages
English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Faith in the Neighborhood - Praying , livre ebook

100 pages
English

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Description

Praying is the second in a series of books that offer Christians a new way of understanding what it means to live and worship among America's many faiths, and introduces them to the religions that make up the American neighborhood. Praying will explore public, family, and individual worship in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Baha'i, Zoroastrianism, American indigenous spiritualities, Chinese spiritualities (Confucianism, Taoism), Shinto, and Afro-Caribbean religions. Praying answers and discusses questions such as these:

  • How does your religion understand/measure the passage of time: daily, weekly, annually, over the course of a lifetime?
  • What is the vocabulary of ritual and practice in your religion? (e.g., worship, prayer, meditation, pilgrimage, feasting and fasting)
  • Is there a distinction between public and private/individual worship/practice in your religion?
  • What are this religion's most distinctive practices? What makes them so significant?
    Praying includes a quick guide to each religion, a glossary, and recommended reading.

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Informations

Publié par
Date de parution 01 novembre 2005
Nombre de lectures 0
EAN13 9781596271555
Langue English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

FAITH IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
UNDERSTANDING AMERICA S RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY
VOLUME TWO
Praying
Praying
The Rituals of Faith

LUCINDA MOSHER
For Barrie
Copyright 2006 by Lucinda Mosher.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
A catalog record of this book is available from Library of Congress
ISBN 978-1-59627-016-9
Seabury Books
445 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10016
www.churchpublishing.org
An imprint of Church Publishing Incorporated
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Preface

1. To Whom? For What?
There is But One God
Non-Theistic Religions
Reflections
2. Daily Devotions
What a Difference a Day Makes
Punctuating the Day
Devotional Imagery
Homage
Meditation
Day-long Prayer and Purification
Mantras
Supplication
Reflections
3. Coming Together
Obligatory Weekly Observances
Full-Moon Gatherings
Congregationalizing
Reflections
4. Holidays
New Year Celebrations
Holy Days
Reflections
5. Observance
Fulfilling Commandments
God-Consciousness
Holy Cooking
Improving the World
Turning Back
Making Merit
Journaling
Pilgrimage
Reflections
Endnotes
Resources
Quick Information Guide to Religions
Glossary
Acknowledgments
CYNTHIA SHATTUCK , my editor, thought up the idea of the Faith in the Neighborhood series, and decided that the second volume should be about rituals of faith. Without her brainstorm, her belief that I could execute it, and her subsequent firm guidance, there would have been no Book One-thus, certainly, no Book Two. And so, as with Book One, the first round of thanks is for her-and for everyone at Church Publishing who allowed this series to be.
The Trinity Grants Program at Trinity Church-St. Paul s Chapel (New York City), by virtue of its generous underwriting of the Neighbor-Faith Project (an educational initiative for Episcopal parishes which I conducted during 2003-2005, in collaboration with The Interfaith Center of New York), provided research support for Books One and Two of the Faith in the Neighborhood series. To both agencies and their officers, and to the Trinity Church Vestry, goes my deep appreciation-not just for the financial backing, but for enthusiasm and creative input as well.
The Rev. Daniel Appleyard, Dr. Claude Jacobs, and all who make the Worldviews Seminar happen each summer in Dearborn, Michigan, and allow me the privilege of being its instructor, have in no small way informed this series and this book. So, obviously, have the numerous people who participated in research conversations, and the leaders of the many religious institutions which have allowed (even encouraged) my many visits-and I dare not try to list them all for fear I would omit one or several of them! Research assistants for this volume include Millicent Browne, Alice Fisher, and Mark Furlow. To all of these people and to my patient team of conversation-transcribers go many thanks. Dr. Kusumita Priscilla Pedersen, Millicent Browne, and Deborah Davis read early drafts. This book is stronger for their many helpful suggestions.
I am grateful to the schools, colleges, universities, seminaries, and churches that have, during the past decade and a half, given me opportunities to teach about the world s religions, America s religious diversity, and a Christian theology of the neighbor. Each venue and each crop of students has helped me refine my ability to assess what it would be helpful for an empathetic visitor to know, and how to articulate this vast and complex material more clearly. I am grateful to the authors and producers of audio-visual aids whose works I have digested, whose ideas and ways of explaining things have so become a part of the way I teach. Where I have made good use of them, I do so with great respect and a deep sense of indebtedness. On the other hand, the responsibility for any factual or conceptual errors rests with me.
Finally, even more so than with Book One, there are no adequate words for the depth of gratitude due my partner in everything, who read drafts of this book more times than anyone, whose support for this project remains constant, very skilled, and unconditional: my husband, Barrie Mosher.
Lucinda Mosher Transfiguration 2005
Preface
Religion is hard to define, say religious studies specialists. There is no broadly agreed upon definition of the term, they ll tell us, but we recognize it when we see it. And what do we see? We see rituals and practices-outward expressions of a tradition s beliefs and doctrines. These are key elements by which, as Byron Earhart puts it, a group of people seeks to establish, maintain, and celebrate a meaningful world. 1
We drive past our neighbors places of worship, and we wonder: What do they do in that building? We have a chance to peer inside, and we wonder: Why do they bow before that statue? Why do they wave a stick of incense? When they go through those motions, what are they saying? What does it mean? We notice that a corner of our neighbors living room seems to be set aside for devotional acts, and we wonder: Do they do something special every day? Do they call it praying ? What rituals do our neighbors faith demand of them? Even when those neighbors are quite literally right next door, we may be curious but far too polite to come right out and ask!
When we do ask questions about whether and how our neighbors of other religions pray, we are actually asking as well about their cosmology: we are asking whether they believe in God, and if so, what they believe about God. We are asking whether they believe that the spiritual realm is simple or complex. If we find that they do not believe in God, we may wonder: At what, then, is their ritual directed, and why? In every case, we are asking how the exchange between the earthly, human realm and the realm of transcendence works. When we ask questions about our neighbors devotional lives, we are also asking about how their religion conceives of the passage of time, how ritual and practice punctuate the day, the week, or the month, and when to wish them Happy New Year. We are also asking about how they assign extraordinary meaning to ordinary elements such as fire and water.
In this second volume of the series Faith in the Neighborhood , we will get acquainted with the devotional habits of some of our neighbors: the core rituals and practices of some of the religions in the American neighborhood. As we learn about our neighbors rituals of faith, we will learn whether they call it worship or veneration, praying or practice, ceremony or service or observance. We will find out what is done at home, and what requires a congregation or a temple or a shrine. Thus we will move from the intimate and personal to the corporate and public. We will learn whether there is a requirement to go on pilgrimage-to leave the neighborhood purposefully in order to return with one s spiritual batteries recharged-and if so, where our neighbors go and what they do while they are away. As we learn about our neighbors devotional habits, we will find out how the most basic of elements are put to extraordinary use, how the five senses are engaged, what each religion-community calls its dedicated worship spaces and ritual leaders, and what we are likely to find inside.
As anyone who has ever tried to teach a course called Christianity 101 to a classroom of fifty college students can tell you, no matter what Christian custom you name, and no matter how you describe its meaning, someone will raise a hand to protest, But in my church, we don t do it that way ; or, But in my church, we don t call it that ; or, But in my church, that s not what it means. This is not surprising. Think of baptism and communion, Christianity s most basic rites. Each are performed and explained in more than one way. Likewise, as anyone involved in the Christian ecumenical movement will attest, and as many of us know from our daily interactions in our own neighborhoods, the intra-Christian conversation is complex, sometimes heated, and often confusing.
We need to keep this in mind as we hear about Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, or Muslim ways of doing things-and more. The descriptions and interpretations of rituals and customs in this short book are representative: everything described here has indeed been found in a living religion-community somewhere in the United States. However, the descriptions and interpretations given here are not comprehensive. Whichever religion we are describing, somewhere in America there is a family, a congregation, a community who does things or talks about things a little (or even a lot) differently from what the neighbors who speak in this book tell us here.
So, don t be surprised if your neighbor says, We don t do it that way at all! Rather, enjoy the opportunity to say, Well then, please tell me how you do pray (or practice or celebrate), and please help me understand why.

Method and Approach
Faith in the Neighborhood is for Christians who, having begun to notice the religious complexity of their neighborhoods, are ready to dig below the surface to understand their neighbors as they understand themselves. They are ready to become, as Martin Forward puts it, theologically and religiously multilingual. This is a Christian endeavor because, as Jesus teaches, love of neighbor goes hand in hand with loving God, and we know as well that w

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