A recent news item caught my attention. It was the story of how Death Valley National Park, the hottest place on earth and the driest place in North America is currently experiencing its best wildflower display since 2016. The dry landscape is carpeted in an array of wildflowers, yellow desert gold, violet phacelia, brown-eyed primrose, desert star, and pink desert five-spot. It has come about because of an unusually wet autumn which allowed the seeds to sprout and a wet winter that allowed the roots to develop. It’s not the only place that such a phenomenon occurs. The barren landscape of the Atacama Desert in Chile was transformed by a carpet of wildflowers last autumn because of the rain. What captured my imagination was the thousands of seeds lying dormant in such desert places only to come to life when the conditions were right. They were there all the time, waiting to be brought to life, waiting with a potential that was not visible but real. For me there is a lesson in this and a sign not to lose hope in a world that seems set to destroy itself through war, climate change, consumerism, hatred, whatever. How many of us shake our heads and wonder at the state of things when we watch the news which, through television, brings conflict and violence into our sitting rooms. How can we be making such a mess of things.
The story of the blooming desert reminded me of a story which I recently shared when I was asked to speak at an iftar meal in a local mosque. Several years ago, a mutual friend asked me to show an American visitor round some places of worship in Glasgow. I did so happily and focussed on the west end of the city where I live. It’s an amazing place in that within the vicinity of a couple of miles there are two Christian cathedrals as well as churches, several mosques and an Islamic centre, two gurdwaras, a mandir across the park, a synagogue up the hill as well as a Buddhist centre and a Christian spirituality centre. It’s a great place to go on an interfaith pilgrimage. It had once been a vibrant multifaith part of the city but now, because of its proximity to Glasgow University, and immigrants moving out to more suburban areas it’s more a student area than anything else. There are small businesses and plenty of cafes and tea shops. As I was taking the visitor around, I was telling him about the area and how there had been many immigrants here, particularly from India and the sub-continent and this was the reason for the different places of worship. He stopped me and said that in his opinion it was because of a spiritual energy. He was sure this was what drew people to the area and got them to set up places of worship. I like that idea and while on the surface this spiritual energy may not now be so visible it is there.
In my last blog I wrote about this time of fasting being a time of spiritual energy but every week and in some instances every day, people of faith come to the various places of worship to pray. Every day there are people going to the mosque for the daily five times of prayer, every day there are Christians from the Catholic, Episcopalian and Orthodox churches attending services, each Saturday the Synagogue has its Shabbat service and on Sundays people are going to the Gurdwaras, the Mandir, all the Churches and the Mosques. That’s a lot of praying. This area is a dynamic community of faith, expressed and manifested in different ways through different religions. But, I believe, all the worshippers are attracted by and to the same God (there is only one after all), want to serve that God with their whole heart and while each one will have different loyalties and points of view about the world situation they all desire peace and want to live in harmony with one another. I do think this energy can be harvested and used by those of us who live in the area to be positive and hopeful about the future of our society and world. It would be powerful, I think, if each of us believers, when we go to our own place of worship could be aware of all the other believers at their place of worship. This might help those places of worship that feel their numbers are dwindling.
Another reason why this area is so special is because it is from the International Flat in Glasgow St. that Interfaith as a movement has spread from the original Sharing of Faiths to the rest of the country and to the establishment of a national interfaith body ‘Interfaith Scotland’. There’s a lot of good going on and much more than I am aware of. And this good has the potential like those dormant seeds of producing unexpected flowers and blossoms. I may live in a vibrant but ordinary area of the city of Glasgow but underneath the ordinariness of daily life there is a potential and an energy just waiting to expose itself. Could I live elsewhere? I don’t think so.
The story of the blooming desert reminded me of a story which I recently shared when I was asked to speak at an iftar meal in a local mosque. Several years ago, a mutual friend asked me to show an American visitor round some places of worship in Glasgow. I did so happily and focussed on the west end of the city where I live. It’s an amazing place in that within the vicinity of a couple of miles there are two Christian cathedrals as well as churches, several mosques and an Islamic centre, two gurdwaras, a mandir across the park, a synagogue up the hill as well as a Buddhist centre and a Christian spirituality centre. It’s a great place to go on an interfaith pilgrimage. It had once been a vibrant multifaith part of the city but now, because of its proximity to Glasgow University, and immigrants moving out to more suburban areas it’s more a student area than anything else. There are small businesses and plenty of cafes and tea shops. As I was taking the visitor around, I was telling him about the area and how there had been many immigrants here, particularly from India and the sub-continent and this was the reason for the different places of worship. He stopped me and said that in his opinion it was because of a spiritual energy. He was sure this was what drew people to the area and got them to set up places of worship. I like that idea and while on the surface this spiritual energy may not now be so visible it is there.
In my last blog I wrote about this time of fasting being a time of spiritual energy but every week and in some instances every day, people of faith come to the various places of worship to pray. Every day there are people going to the mosque for the daily five times of prayer, every day there are Christians from the Catholic, Episcopalian and Orthodox churches attending services, each Saturday the Synagogue has its Shabbat service and on Sundays people are going to the Gurdwaras, the Mandir, all the Churches and the Mosques. That’s a lot of praying. This area is a dynamic community of faith, expressed and manifested in different ways through different religions. But, I believe, all the worshippers are attracted by and to the same God (there is only one after all), want to serve that God with their whole heart and while each one will have different loyalties and points of view about the world situation they all desire peace and want to live in harmony with one another. I do think this energy can be harvested and used by those of us who live in the area to be positive and hopeful about the future of our society and world. It would be powerful, I think, if each of us believers, when we go to our own place of worship could be aware of all the other believers at their place of worship. This might help those places of worship that feel their numbers are dwindling.
Another reason why this area is so special is because it is from the International Flat in Glasgow St. that Interfaith as a movement has spread from the original Sharing of Faiths to the rest of the country and to the establishment of a national interfaith body ‘Interfaith Scotland’. There’s a lot of good going on and much more than I am aware of. And this good has the potential like those dormant seeds of producing unexpected flowers and blossoms. I may live in a vibrant but ordinary area of the city of Glasgow but underneath the ordinariness of daily life there is a potential and an energy just waiting to expose itself. Could I live elsewhere? I don’t think so.
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