One of the difficulties I have with western religious traditions is their habit of taking events that occurred elsewhere in the world - and often many centuries ago - and making them applicable to all times and places. This is certainly true of Christ, who lived two thousand years ago in the far-off land of Palestine. There is, of course, value in this approach, which is similar to going on vacation in some exotic place and then returning home and fantasizing about it during the rest of the year. There is definitely something about this sort of "otherness" that effectively motivates us to continue our spiritual practice.
However, this approach needs, in my view, to be balanced with an opposite way of looking at things, one that seeks and discovers revelatory moments within ONE'S OWN home country. In his book, "God Is Red," Yankton Dakota scholar Vine Deloria puts it this way: “In the western tradition, . . . what has been the manifestation of deity in a particular local situation is mistaken for a truth applicable to all times and places, a truth so powerful that it must be impressed upon peoples who have no connection to the event or to the cultural complex in which it originally made sense. The question that the so-called world religions have not satisfactorily resolved is whether or not religious experience can be distilled from its original cultural context and become an abstract principle that is applicable to all peoples in different places and at different times.”
Significantly, “American Indians and other tribal peoples did not take this [western] path in interpreting revelations and religious experiences. The structure of their religious traditions is taken directly from the world around them, from their relationships with other forms of life. Context is therefore all-important for both practice and the understanding of reality. The places where revelations were experienced were remembered and set aside as locations where, through rituals and ceremonials, the people could once again communicate with the spirits . . . It was not what people believed to be true that was important but what they experienced as true. Hence revelation was seen as a continuous process of adjustment to the natural surroundings and not as a specific message valid for all times and places.”
Photo: Wild Plum flowers, with Mt. Audubon in the background; Rt. 119, near Boulder, CO April 31, 2013
However, this approach needs, in my view, to be balanced with an opposite way of looking at things, one that seeks and discovers revelatory moments within ONE'S OWN home country. In his book, "God Is Red," Yankton Dakota scholar Vine Deloria puts it this way: “In the western tradition, . . . what has been the manifestation of deity in a particular local situation is mistaken for a truth applicable to all times and places, a truth so powerful that it must be impressed upon peoples who have no connection to the event or to the cultural complex in which it originally made sense. The question that the so-called world religions have not satisfactorily resolved is whether or not religious experience can be distilled from its original cultural context and become an abstract principle that is applicable to all peoples in different places and at different times.”
Significantly, “American Indians and other tribal peoples did not take this [western] path in interpreting revelations and religious experiences. The structure of their religious traditions is taken directly from the world around them, from their relationships with other forms of life. Context is therefore all-important for both practice and the understanding of reality. The places where revelations were experienced were remembered and set aside as locations where, through rituals and ceremonials, the people could once again communicate with the spirits . . . It was not what people believed to be true that was important but what they experienced as true. Hence revelation was seen as a continuous process of adjustment to the natural surroundings and not as a specific message valid for all times and places.”
Photo: Wild Plum flowers, with Mt. Audubon in the background; Rt. 119, near Boulder, CO April 31, 2013
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