At the age of 80, I feel like I’ve got another whole new life ahead of me. I love being 80. I actually realize now that my best times in life are when I am with people of other religious persuasions and how we come together. It is exciting to be in the work of ecumenism and interreligious dialogue right here in Hawaii.
Growing up, I remember that my Episcopalian grandparents would always meet my Catholic parents for Sunday breakfast after going to their respective churches. Today, I still like Sunday morning breakfast as it symbolizes to me how you bring people together and not how you separate them. When I gather for Sunday breakfast say, with a Jain who is only a phone call away, it is about friendship that has developed. To be with those of other beliefs, often entails education and information. Just as others might not understand us as Catholics, likewise we might not understand them. I feel committed to work on bridging these misinterpretations.
I also feel committed to work on prepositions and punctuations in dialogue. Those are my tools of spirituality. Prepositions are important because I want to be sure that we help each other to talk with each other. This does not mean at each other, about each other, or for each other; we need to talk with each other.
The punctuation model comes out of my training as a child with the Benedictine Sisters. We were taught how to work with commas as we divided our day into two sections of 12 hours each. One section of the 12 was then portioned out to take care of hygiene, nourishment and rest. The other 12 hours were divided among prayer, work (manual labor) and study. It didn’t mean that we do each activity for a straight four hours.
No, it meant that we were to do a little bit here and there, punctuated by a comma. The comma always brought us back to what we were working on. So, if I were praying, for example, and someone came to the door, I wouldn’t say, “I’m sorry I can’t speak with you now.” Rather, I would talk to the person at the door, and then return to the comma, continuing where I left off in prayer. It is rhythmic.
I really feel John 3:16 addresses the bottom line in ecumenism and in interreligious work. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.” Sometimes I tangle a tad with some groups that think that God so loved the world that he gave his son only to them specifically, and that they need to get everyone else aboard their own religious mode.
These people are marvelous. But sometimes they tend to talk at people, or for people. Addressing, “Oh, Joan, if only you could give your life to the Lord, Jesus Christ,” was one of my first forays into using the spirituality of prepositions and punctuation positively and to the establishing of numerous new friendships.
Sister Joan Chatfield is a Maryknoll Sister. She has been professed 63 years. As the executive director of the Institute for Religion and Social Change, she is involved in the promotion of interfaith activities. She resides in Manoa.
