Raising the Roof

As I was flipping through Time magazine yesterday, a short article on Claremont Graduate University caught my eye. Claremont has now extended its Religious Studies to include the full trio of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. This all under one roof… hmm, interesting. Apparently, by implementing this change it has increased enrollment by 10%, so it’s been alright for the school’s pocketbook. I suppose this change in policy shouldn’t surprise me. After all, we do live in a pluralistic society. We as Americans like convenience. If a student goes to Claremont unsure of whether they want to be a pastor (or priest), Rabbi or Imam, they can decide on their religion conveniently without having to switch schools.
I was curious to what a school’s purpose statement would look like while offering these three religions side-by-side (along with Mormonism). I figured the purpose statement wouldn’t mention Jesus Christ, because Islam wouldn’t see Him as God, and wouldn’t claim He was anything more than a prophet, and Judaism wouldn’t see Him as Lord or king. But if you leave these out of Christianity… well, you don’t really have Christianity anymore, do you?
So I got on Claremont’s Website and found some of the school’s purpose statement. It is as follows:
“The School of Religion wants its students to experience what it means to be both inside and outside a community of faith. We hope to train individuals – students, researchers, educators, and leaders – from a variety of religious traditions and secular perspectives to be able to participate in a civic life of unprecedented religious diversity. The distinctive vision of the school is to create and promote a study of religion that produces graduates who are ‘religious multilinguals.’ We hope this perspective promotes religious understanding and tolerance.”
I feel the statement “We hope to train individuals… to be able to participate in a civic life of unprecedented religious diversity” makes a pretty big claim. The school is aware there is religious diversity in Jerusalem, right? The end sentence I find interesting as well “We hope this perspective promotes religious understanding and tolerance.” It sounds like they have their fingers crossed on that one.

Multiculturalism and multilingualism have their place, but it’s difficult to keep the skeptic in me fully behaved on this one. Yes, people with diverse religions can battle out their differences verbally on the campus greens, and it might give them food for thought on their faith of choice, but it seems like you have to surgically remove the backbone of each of these religions to make it happen cordially. If religious diversity and tolerance are Claremont’s primary aims, I can see this attracting a certain demographic of people, but to upcoming graduate student candidates I would shout "Run away!". Tolerance and diversity have a nice ring to it in an academic purpose statement, but at the cost of throwing away an iron-sharpens-iron atmosphere. Is tolerance and diversity important enough to die for? It is worth thinking about. It might be this generation’s emerging religion.

Single Girl Mentality

It is a verse I remember highlighting in a hot stuffy dorm room at camp; ideal for one of those 5 minute devotionals, and a likely candidate to become cliché, if not treated with care. Proverbs 4:23 Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life. Now as I look at that spot in my Bible, the purple pen ink has faded, and the heart sticker placed in the margin isn’t looking so hot. It is peeling at the edge.
I believe the most common take on this verse for girls, if I may so generalize, is that we are supposed to barricade our hearts. This involves resurrecting a chain link fence, and digging a deep mote around the perimeter for a line of defense. And if our hearts get hurt, we tend to kick into high security mode, complete with barbed wire loop-dee-doos, watch towers, illuminating lights and slobbering hounds on steroids. Pity the man that dare take a shot at this! He is going to get scratched by the barbed wire, attacked by those mangy dogs, and most likely have to be Superman in order to succeed on his mission.
I think we have missed the point. I am not proposing that we are not to protect our hearts at all, leaving them unsheltered from the elements. They are not something we want stolen or trampled. On the other hand, we don’t want that organ to become a museum piece either; an artifact that only gets dusted off every few months. Who wants to be guarding a dry well? Our hearts need to be exercised, and more importantly than that, they need to be functioning.
Another verse I’ve been thinking about: John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. I believe this would hint that love by nature is vulnerable. There is a cost involved here.
In the next week I will have three friends kicking their heels and moving away. It’s not easy to see them go, but I am glad that I have had the opportunity to know them. It isn’t always easy to reach out your hand in friendship to people when you know they won’t be in the same vicinity (or country) for very long, but I think it is important to do so. It goes back to that barricading idea again. Who is really missing out when we don’t love people the way we should? Maybe the answer is more complex than we realize or can know, but we know that we ourselves miss out to a certain extent.
So here again, I write out some rambling for another post. Sorry if it is too preachy or too… something or another. It is just something I have been churning around in my head, and sometimes wonder if any other people feel the same way.

Comparitively Speaking

I believe that one of the main differences between my violin playing and the music of Heifitz, is that he could play a few more notes per second. Who’da thunk, but a few notes here and there make a difference. A different bowing technique, hours of practice, training… cleverness… all play a part in it too. Right?
I was scanning the artwork of Leonardo DaVinci last week. My attention was drawn to the fact that his sketches were pen and ink. Some of his pictures do not contain the fine traces of pencil markings and eraser smears that indicate guidelines for the pen. His sketches were set in stone once the ink hit parchment, and they are beautiful. The lines I put down on paper, including pencil markings, fall short in such a dramatic way of this artist’s masterpieces. The difference between DaVinci and myself is what? A few lines? A different production rate? A few tablespoons of genius?
The fine arts get difficult when we start comparing ourselves to others. Not only do we have our peers to compare ourselves to, but when you reach the position of world renown for your work, you then have the world’s historic musicians and artists judging you through their legacy. Is there an artist or musician who can escape the ruler?
This week I’m playing in a musical. The music is very difficult, and I am trying to rise to the occasion. Today I am working on a section to get it up to the tempo marking of 132. I have it up to 100, which means if I try to play it at rehearsal tonight as is, it is going to flop. It’s just 32 more beats per minute than I have already under my fingers, but it feels as attainable as the stars right now.
I’ve been looking through the notes of the music director from last rehearsal. Most of them say I need to play out and I need more confidence. I sigh as I read these. It feels like the story of my life. I wish confidence could be found in some dusty trunk up in my grandparent’s attic. If you don’t have it, it’s not easy to get.
Well, it’s time to get back to practicing. It is time to let the metronome chirp away, and time to stop thinking about comparison... 132, I’m not afraid of you!... I think.