January 5
My next event was something that came up at the last minute, or at least only a few weeks before it took place. I met the rabbi (he doesn’t like going by a title) Alon Goshen-Gottstein at the event at the Greg in October. After a brief exchange he realized that Abbot Jeremias had tried to put him in touch with me early last year but somehow we had never connected, and Alon wondered if I might be able to come to a gathering at Oxford that he had wanted Jeremias to attend. Alon heads up the Elijah Interfaith Institute (https://elijah-interfaith.org/) a very serious organization that does scholarly work as well as organizes events, such as the one I was invited to participate in, the Meeting of the Elijah Board of World Religious Leaders, which was held December 1-4, just outside of Oxford. I really had little idea what I was getting into until a few days before the event when I started receiving email updates and some requests for my participation.
The theme of the meeting this time was “The Human Person: Religious Ideals and Contemporary Challenges” and we were sent a bundle of papers from their last conference to catch us up to speed, on what it means to be human from the perspective of Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism. If I had seriously pursued an academic path in theology further, it would have been in the area of theological or spiritual anthropology; that has been my fascination since I first heard Bede Griffiths talk in 1992. So the topics that we explored on this theme were right up my alley: the individual, the individual in society, the individual and the Cosmos, and then the dangers (and challenges) of AI. These are the fundamentals upon which all our other decisions are based––what is the human person and his or her relation to Absolute Reality, the Cosmos, to each other?
These sub-themes we discussed in the small group made up of eight or so people (folks were coming and going) that we met with each time. I was asked to lead the discussion about AI. It was kind of ironic because there have been three occasions recently when I have been asked to contribute something about AI and I have had the same response each time: it is not my area of expertise, and I am not really that interested in it. This time I did not feel as if I could refuse and so I set myself to do some homework. Fortuitously I had just read a fascinating article in the Italian magazine Internazionale that I like so much, and had just heard a brilliant interview by Russ Douthat with the English writer named Paul Kingsnorth that had really captivated me. Other than that all my opinions have been shaped by Ilia Delio and Federico Faggin. So I whipped some pages of notes together and did a respectable job, I think. One Teilhardian optimistic voice (Ilia, who quotes Antje Jacklen saying that “the development toward techno sapiens might well be regarded as a step toward the kingdom of God”), one pessimistic (Kingsnorth: “This is a war on human nature!”) and one moderate, Kwame Appiah, writing about the process of “de-skilling”, with Faggin in the background whispering, “AI will never have qualia––feelings! That’s the hard work of consciousness!”
There was a young Greek Orthodox bishop who was very articulate in the field, and he sort of dominated the conversation afterward. We all got a good education from him. His conclusion is that “It’s here. How are we going to live with it?” My conclusion was with Appiah: An ethical management of the technology today means to ensure ourselves that the capacities that make us human––judgement, imagination, understanding––remain alive in us. … This is the most urgent challenge: to be able to maintain intact our ability to make our mark on reality, remaining the authors of systems that are ready to take on much of our thinking. What are the spiritual traditions supposed to safeguard and how are we going to do that?
They were serious about these being world leaders. In attendance were esteemed representatives from Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity––Anglican, Orthodox and Roman Catholic. It was held at a grand location called the Global Retreat Center, an old manor home now run by the Brahma Kumaris (you ought to look that movement up too––https://www.brahmakumaris.com/ ). Everything about the place was pristine, from the furnishings to the towels and the food. Among the people I was excited to meet were Rowan Williams, former archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Cristoph Shoeborn of Vienna, and Rabbi Arthur Green whose book Ehyeh on Kabbalah was very important to me. Concerning those three: Rowan was late coming due to some health issue, but I caught up with him on the last day; he was very approachable and remembered San Gregorio al Celio well due to his meeting with Pope Benedict here. Cardinal Shoenborn: I don’t remember ever speaking to someone like this before; when I met him, I said, “It is an honor to meet you, sir.” He was a lovely man, now 80 years old, humble and erudite, and always introduced himself as “Cristoph”; he asked me the first day if I was planning on celebrating Eucharist, which I was hoping to, so we celebrated each evening in his little retreat room, he having brought all the necessaries with him. He also apologetically preached a little each time, explaining, “I am a Dominican, you know.” And Rabbi Green I impressed by reciting from memory of paragraph from his book that I loved so much that I use it as a regular part of my own litany to prepare for meditation each day, on the neshamah, the breath that God breathes into the clay in the second story of creation. I told Alon at the end that I know I was just filling in for Abbot Jeremias, but I would very much like to stay involved––and I don't’ say that often. Alon is also working hard to develop an interfaith center in Assisi, which is how I had first heard of him and his work.
On the last evening before flying home, I went into Oxford and had a great Mideastern dinner with my dear friend Aaron Maniam and two other members of my advisory board (The Peace Council) who are also there in Oxford, Arzoo and Lucas. A medical doctor friend of Arzoo’s came along who was a real pistol and we had a roaring good time eating and talking and laughing. I crashed at Aaron’s flat that night and took the airport shuttle from Oxford to Gatiwck and back to Rome.
With only a few days to catch my breath and attend to some business at my desk, my next stop was Geneva, Switzerland. As some of you may know, I was asked to be on the Board of Directors for the World Meditation Day Foundation, an organization founded by a Chinese Shaolin Buddhist monk who got the United Nations to officially declare a World Meditation Day (December 21st, by the way). Our first official board meeting was in Verduz, Lichtenstein, because it was the then-Ambassador from Lichtenstein to the UN, Myriam Oheri, who had sponsored the resolution. We met there at that meeting, and she apparently liked what I had to offer and suggested to the organizers of an upcoming conference to invite me to be participate representing Christianity and World Meditation Day. The Conference was organized by the Human Rights Division of the UN entitled “United and Present: Global Solutions from Within,” basically about bringing the practice of meditation into diplomacy work. It was quite an august assembly that included the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Princess Noor bint Asem of Jordan, and Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Wherever You Go, There You Are) and founder of MBPM (Mindfulness Based Pain Management), who as far as I am concerned is like a rock star to meditators.
My next-door neighbor here at San Gregorio had asked to go along with me for this, Francesco Romolini. He just graduated from the prestigious Luiss University here in Rome in International Studies and has been helping with some travel and other logistics, and so he went as my “assistant.” And he was great company, a perfect gentleman and very helpful––and very eager to experience the UN. He was even more starry-eyed than I was to get the chance to be there and experience the UN from the inside. The day before we also got to attend another hybrid meeting of a working group called “Faith for Rights,” which is an “informal network of faith-based actors across the globe for a cross-disciplinary reflection and action on the deep, and mutually enriching, connections between religions and human rights,” again through a connection I made at the event at the Greg.
As we walked into the assembly hall for the main conference, I wondered aloud to Francesco if we had assigned seats and he teased me saying, “Do you think you’re important enough to have an assigned seat?” Well, not only did I have assigned seat with a name plate––so did he! And his was at a table in front of mine! Whoever was guiding us to our seats apologized for the mistake (I thought it was funny given his ribbing me about it) and changed our places. But there we were along with the ambassador from here and Her Excellency from there.
Francesco was as pleasantly surprised as I was that everyone, and I mean everyone, was so approachable. I wound up having a wonderful connection with Professor Kabat-Zinn and Francesco made friends with the lovely Spanish woman, Cristina, who was accompanying the princess. (He was thoroughly enamored, and rightly so––she was an exquisite presence). I was asked to be a part of a panel discussion on the second day which included a Vietnamese Buddhist nun, a Tibetan monk, a Hindu monk, a rabbi, and an enchanting Sufi singer from Morocco. We were to talk about the universality of the practice of meditation all moderated by a professor from Oxford.
Why bring meditation into the work of diplomacy? I never want to get stuck on the practical benefits, physical or psychological/emotional, of meditation. That being said, what got brought up at the conference as to why these folks from the UN want their diplomats to involve themselves in meditative practices made a lot of sense.
· Greater ability to manage conflict constructively
· Clearer and more grounded decision making
· Stronger emotional regulation and leadership presence
· Better communication and relational awareness within teams
· Increased collaboration and reduced defensiveness under pressure
· Enhanced focus, concentration and strategic thinking
I also wound up singing at the reception on the first night. I had written a song based on a poem of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish that I was proposing as a possible theme song for World Meditation Day. When the organizers found out about it that they suggested I sing it for this event. At first there was the idea that perhaps the UN choir would sing it with me and so I had Rick Modlin back in Oregon do a choral arrangement for me. But it wound being a much humbler venue––sitting on a folding chair in the reception salon. But it was still very much appreciated, and I was, as always, glad to get the chance to whip out the might mini-Taylor and sing.
The last official thing we did was do a “soft-opening” of a new meditation room there at the Geneva Headquarters with the High Commissioner. Each of us from the panel was asked to do something and for the most part we all chanted: the Sufi singer of course, the Tibetan monk, I sang my standard opening Gregorian chant Benedictus Es, etc.
We collected lots of memories and took lots of pictures in those two days as well as grabbed a handful of mementos, and sweetest of all the entire trip was covered by the UN. I also believe I made some wonderful connections, especially with Myriam, who has now stepped down as ambassador to give herself full time to this work, and Mara Arizaga, the main organizer of the event, who couldn’t have made me feel more welcome and was so happy to have a Christian, even a Catholic presence there. That of course is one of the things I think about a lot and am grateful for: I get to be, and want to be, in many places where there are not a lot of Christian monks/Catholic priests. What a privilege. I told young Francesco, who was feeling a bit blue the next day returning to his regular day job, that we had spent two days with people who had dedicated their lives not to career or money or power, but to something that they thought was going to make the world a better place. What an inspiration.
I don’t know how many people know this, but I worked on the school newspaper all through high school. My dad wanted me to have something to fall back on––he did not want me to be a professional musician!––in case religious life didn’t turn out. I forget how much that has stayed with me, the enjoyment I find in writing. In some ways these travelogues feel more like journalism, trying to share with you the highlights but still give you a sense of the event.
