Living the Interfaith Life

Hello, friends.

This past week was one of those weeks that seem to just happen to me, where I have a ton of religious experiences that come from all over the religious spectrum. But I love it! So I figured I would just give a quick update on all of the goings-on in my life right now.

My religiously diverse week started last Sunday, the first day of the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) New York Interfaith Leadership Institute (ILI). What that looooong series of titles really means is that I managed to secure a spot at an interfaith conference geared at college students that happened to be hosted at NYU (where I worked last summer).

Now, I've mentioned the IFYC in posts past, but they bear another shout-out. The IFYC is a national organization that uses a grassroots approach to spread awareness of interfaith relations on college campuses. ILI's, like the one I attended, seek to bring together college students and professors who are involved in interfaith work in order to receive training in proper ways to engage people in interfaith relations, and to share best practices from their schools. Since I have already graduated from college, the conference did not always apply to me--free time to "discuss new event ideas with our school delegation" did not really make sense in my case--but I did meet some really interesting people.

For example, I met four individuals who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka Mormons). How cool is that?! I imagine there are Mormons on Long Island, but I somehow have never met anyone who identifies as such. We had a good time asking mutual questions about faith, and I learned a whole bunch, including that Mormons generally abstain from drinking alcohol, abstain from drinking coffee or tea (because of the addictive nature of caffeine), and wear a special type of undergarment almost all of the time. So interesting! Other than those few things, along with the fact that they have interestingly large families (even though birth control is not actually forbidden) and that many of the young people go on missions for two years to purposely try to convert people to their religion, they seemed very similar to most people I know.

At the conference, one of my favorite activities was something termed "Speed Faithing." Basically, we could choose to attend three, very quick, information sessions on different religions, during which time there was a ten minute presentation on the religion followed by a ten minute question and answer session. I went to Jainism, Islam, and Hinduism. All very interesting! I did not know that Jains are vegetarian and try not to harm any living creatures, like spiders (okay, I knew nothing about Jainism before the session, let's be honest). Another thing I really liked about Jainism is a belief in the religion that they do not claim to have the ultimate truth, it's kind of an acknowledgment of humility, that they try to do the best they can, but that doesn't mean their religion is definitely the only right one. I appreciated that, especially in such an interfaith setting.

We also participated in some interesting learning activities in our smaller break-out groups, such as acting out scenarios of difficult interfaith discussions we might face. Our room of participants was actually very small, so we had a tight group of people that really bonded and learned from each other. Oh, and we had some fun, too...

Just for the record, the Catholic gentleman lying on the floor is a priest. Meanwhile, I was trying very hard not to look too awkward lying on the floor [cue big smile].

The conference lasted Sunday-Tuesday.

In the middle of all that, on Monday night, I attended a wonderful reunion of participants from the Jewish internship program I did last summer (CLIP). It was truly excellent to catch up with some people, see how people had changed (or not) in their faith practice, hear about trips abroad, and just have a nice time with people who know a lot about me from our very deep discussions last summer. After the very amusing happy hour, I wandered around Manhattan with one of my good Jewish friends from the group for a few hours late into the night, discussing/debating religion and Judaism. Even as I write that I realize that it sounds crazy, but that is actually what we usually end up doing, and we always have a great discussion. This one in particular involved analyzing my own religious practice, thinking about other faiths, and the ethics for Jewish people of entering a church.

Then today, our family attended mass at the local Catholic Church. This particular church visit was driven by my Jewish father and I (as my mother so ironically pointed out this morning), because my father knows the priest, Father Vetrano, in a non-religious context and I have met with this priest in the past to discuss interfaith relations. So we went to mass, and when the "greet your neighbor" part came around (a tradition in many Catholic parishes during which time attendees shakes hands and say 'hello' to the people sitting around them) the priest came up to my father and I and said, "Shalom my brother and sister." Then we had lunch with him afterward. All in all, a very interesting morning.

I should also mention the other thing that happened at church today. During the announcements, all of a sudden I heard them say my name--because I will be giving a lecture on interfaith relations at the church on August 27th! This has been in the works for a while. Father Vetrano asked me to speak about my interfaith experiences and my interfaith plans for the future as part of a lecture series they have at the church. I am very thankful to have the opportunity to share my experiences with a larger group of people. If anyone is around Southampton, New York on Tuesday, August 27th at 7 p.m., feel free to come by! Luckily, during the ILI this past week, we talked about how to better craft our personal stories in order to be more effective, so that was a good warm up. For anyone who knows about my story (and if you've read other posts in this blog, you probably have a pretty good idea), the lecture will be a time when I bring everything together, maybe relate a few crazy things that have happened to me, and just generally think about what it all means for me and for everyone else going forward.

I'm in a church bulletin! I'm in a church bulletin!

I hope some of you took my challenge from the last post seriously (to attend another faith's religious service), and if not, give it a shot this coming week. I know that soon many people will be getting back to school or work and real life, so now would be a good time to try out something new. You could always come to my lecture! If you've never been in a church, that could count for fulfilling the challenge. ;)

Now go out and love one another.

<3,

Allyson

Interfaith Marriage in America Today

Hello, friends.

Guess what?! One of my college roommates is getting married. *commences celebration* I was so excited to hear her news, and I am still so incredibly excited (we had an hour-long discussion about seating arrangements not so long ago...), and you will all just have to forgive my excitement, as she is one of my first friends to get engaged. I'm thrilled! And guess what the kicker is...Ready for it? She's entering into an interfaith marriage.

As I have mentioned before, interfaith marriage/family is something I was blessed to experience growing up. With a Catholic mother and a Jewish father, I had the best of both worlds: we celebrated Christmas and Chanukah, Easter and Passover, learned from one another's traditions, and all in all just made it work. But since entering the "interfaith" world more widely, talking about these issues more purposefully and with intentionality, I've learned that not all interfaith marriages work out so smoothly as my parents' has (they're celebrating their 25th anniversary this year!). But why? How? What? Not everyone smoothly transitions into a life involving sometimes conflicting faith beliefs and traditions? (That last one was sarcastic.)

So I was very excited to learn more about interfaith marriages when, a few weeks ago, a good friend of mine recommended I read a new book, 'Til Faith Do Us Part, by Naomi Schaefer Riley, a woman who herself entered into an interfaith marriage. It only just came out in 2013 and it takes an in-depth look at the rise in interfaith marriage in America, both statistically through a study the author did and through stories about specific families.

Let's just say, I finished the book in about a day (though I've kept it checked out of the library waaaay past its due date...oops!). Many people might have found the large number of statistics a bit dull, but I devoured most of them, and really want to try to remember as much as possible from this book for use in my studies in Rome and beyond.

I was a bit disheartened by the somewhat negative tone of the much of the book. Now, the (Jewish) author clearly knows that interfaith marriage can succeed--based on her marriage to a man raised as a Jehovah's Witness (who stopped practicing). But her words seem to put a lot of negative spin on the issues, from the very first issues arising about planning the wedding (one clergy member, two, or a justice of the peace?) to choosing the religion of children (one, both, or none?) and death practices. Even the title itself implies that divisiveness is the order of the day in interfaith relationships, rather than compromise and a desire to learn. I certainly do appreciate a lot of what she said: after reading her book, I see that interfaith can clearly pose challenges. Some such marriages end in divorce, or lead to both members moving away from religion, which may result from the marriage specifically or just arise from individual decisions.

But there are so many things to celebrate in an interfaith families, things that are difficult to experience in as real depth in a same-faith family. A living, breathing appreciation of diversity. A deep knowledge of another faith (remember, I was accepted to study at a Catholic University in Rome, for which an advanced knowledge of Catholic theology was required, something helped by knowing about my mother's faith for my whole life). The ability to understand that no one has to be "right" in matters of faith, that we can all be "right" in different ways (which brings to mind the title of a book You Don't Have to be Wrong for Me to be Right, by Brad Hirschfield, a book I have not read but love the title). Here are some of what I though were the most interesting bits:

• "About 20% of couples married before the 1960s were interfaith matches. Of couples married in the past decade, 45 percent were." p. 6
• "One woman I spoke to, who was brought up Catholic, recalls her thoughts on dating when she went off to college: ‘To limit yourself to only people of your own religion seemed bigoted…There is a whole world of people that I don’t know.’ To write them off as potential partners before she even met them ‘seemed rude.’ The language is revealing. It’s as if our society’s institutional rules about hiring an employee or admitting someone to college have morphed into rules for dating.” p. 13
• "We often tend to imagine interfaith weddings as having two officiants—that both the bride and groom’s traditions are represented equally, perhaps symmetrically. The New York Times wedding announcements do seem to mention a disproportionate number. But weddings with religious leaders from different faiths are rare: only 4 percent of interfaith (and, surprisingly, 2 percent of same-faith) couples employ them. Instead, interfaith couples are much more likely to have used a civil official (43 percent vs. 31 percent for same-faith couples).” p. 62
• “Americans are mostly reluctant to raise their children in more than one faith…According to my survey, about 80 percent of same-faith couples raised their kids in one faith and about 20 percent raised them in no faith. A plurality of interfaith couples, about 40 percent, agreed to raise their children in one faith. About a third are raising their kids with no faith; and another 20 percent are trying to raise them in both.” p. 99

So for those who choose to seek a partner in the same faith, is there a legitimate, non-discriminatory-seeming way to limit oneself to members of the same religion? Or should that even be a goal in today's multifaith world?

All of these discussions about interfaith marriages get me thinking about my own views on marriage. One of the biggest issues I see with interfaith marriage is the threat of loneliness when wanting to attend religious services. In our family, we sometimes all go together--to temple, to church. But over the past four years in Virginia, and this summer even at home as I start attending more often, if I want to go to services, I often end up going alone. And it's hard. It's tough to be the only person there under 65. It's sad to be alone when everyone else is sitting there with family. And while many people in congregations are usually welcoming, it's just not the same feeling to attend temple alone, maybe because growing up Jewish meant I had a strong community, where I knew a lot of people at temple, and a lot of people knew me. So would I be willing to do that for the rest of my life, if I were to marry someone who was not Jewish? To maybe spend many Friday nights alone in the synagogue, without my significant other?

I don't have that answer yet. But with all of these statistics and ideas swirling around, and as I leave the disappointing college dating scene behind and head out into the wider world, it will definitely be something I keep in the back of my mind.

Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson

P.S. Can I just point out, the author of this book spent a few pages detailing how much she dislikes the "kitschy" element of mixed-religion cards/paraphernalia (like a Christmas-Chanukah card). I LOVE THESE TYPES OF THINGS mainly because I LOVE Christmas. Send me a card with Santa spinning a dreidel and we may just be friends forever. Because it's less about a specific statement about religion, and more about celebrating that some families are diverse. They sell cute cards here, for anyone who feels a strong desire to bombard me with interfaith love while I'm in Rome...www.mixedblessing.com