My Experiences with Religious Diversity in Australia and New Zealand, December 2009

GAIL KATZ’S JOURNAL ABOUT HER RELIGIOUS ENCOUNTERS
AND OBSERVATIONS DURING HER TRIP
TO AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
DECEMBER 2009

I have had the pleasure of writing about my experiences with religious diversity during my incredible trip to Australia and New Zealand (November 30th – December 19th, 2009), including my time at the Parliament of the World's Religions Conference, entitled “Hearing Each Other, Healing the Earth” in Melbourne Australia. I hope you enjoy my journal and the photos that accompany my thoughts!!

Gail Katz, December 2009


I left Detroit on November 28th with my husband, Bob, to fly to Australia to attend the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions in Melbourne, Australia. Our plane left from LAX and landed in Auckland, New Zealand where we caught a Qantas flight to Cairns (pronounced like "cans"), Australia for a visit to the Great Barrier Reef and an exploration of the native wildlife there (incredible wallabees, platypuses, dingos, koalas and birds).

The beautiful landscape and the moonlit ocean waves in front of my hotel were so spiritual, but my visit in Cairns to the St. Monica’s Catholic Church, home of the Peace and Creation Stained Glass Windows, was a highlight. The Peace Window (according to the brochure made available in the church) celebrates the fifty years of peace in the Pacific region since the end of World War Two. The Cathedral itself was built as a war memorial commemorating the decisive Battle of the Coral Sea which was fought east of Cairns in May of 1942. The windows incorporate layers of meaning – natural, historical and spiritual. Some of the elements of the Peace window include a smudged dove (the Holy Spirit) which struggles to emerge in the upper right window, while in the left is a rainbow with clouds parting to reveal the sun, recalling Noah’s story with God’s renewed Covenant. Whales and dolphins frolic in a procession across the window. They represent God’s presence, as angels would have done in more traditional religious windows. They hint that they are the intelligent ones who do not go to War!! “Peace” is also written in 28 other languages around the border of the window. Whatever part of the world you are from, the word for “peace” may be recognized.


There is a lot more to say about the Peace Window at the center of the church, but along both sides is a breathtaking depiction in 24 stained glass panels of the theme of Creation in Genesis Ch. 1 & 2. The Creation theme provides the entire space with a sense of unity. The first twelve windows on one side of the church represent a world as yet uninhabitable to human beings. Darkness, deep space, the ocean, hot lava landscapes and a choking sulphurous atmosphere cannot sustain air breathing creatures. The stained glass panels then gradually depict the flora and fauna of Australia. The windows depict the creation of the heaven and earth and the tranquil, restful scene when God completed His work and rested. The windows eventually depict Paradise Lost as you approach the last set of twelve stained glass panels. The clouds, the sunset, the mountains, leaves and tree trunks are intensified in color and spirit to a point of brilliant light in the final image of the windows. All things are returning to God! I was so captivated by the stained glass (yes, I am a collector of comtemporary glass!!) and so moved spiritually by the intensity of this magnificent display that I had a hard time leaving the church.




From Cairns, I flew to Melbourne to attend the first three days of the six-day Parliament of the World’s Religions Conference. How does one describe what it was like to be in the same space with just about every faith tradition and just about every cultural dress and headdress? Here I was at this interfaith conference of about 8,000 people from about 150 countries of the world - looking at the incredible diversity of humanity - the colorful saris and robes, the multitude of kipot, turbans, hijabs, and shaved heads, along with every shade of skin on this earth. I was completely in awe of how beautiful the religious communities of the world were in this coming together of men and women from the far away corners of the earth. There were Sikhs talking with Jews and Monks conversing with Hindus. No matter where you went within the Melbourne Exhibition Center, everyone was polite and anxious to find out who you were and where you were from. There was the Tibetan monk making a sand painting of vibrant colors, right next to the shrine of the Dalai Lama, who was scheduled to be the closing keynote speaker on the last day of the conference.

In the midst of this beauty - earnest people coming together to share ideas, increase respect, and work together on interfaith initiatives - the protesters were attracting attention outside of the Melbourne Exhibition Hall - the Atheists who were shouting - "Human Rights, not Religious Rites" and the fundamentalist Christians with their banners crying "There's only one path to God - Jesus!" - reminders that people who do not open their minds to others can only produce hate and fear. It seems that Religion and Controversy struggle with each other all over the World. But we were inside the magnificent Exhibition Center - the folks that were here to listen to each other, to figure out how to save Mother Earth together, how to end poverty, and how to empower women. People who would never have come together were it not for this World Religions Conference, and would never have had the chance to dialogue with each other. I loved that a group of Sikh students stopped Rabbi Brad Hirschfield and asked him "What does it mean to be Jewish?" and together they spent an hour learning about each others' religions.

There was the dinner conversation I had with a Muslim from Tasmania who introduced me to his Imam, sitting right next to me, who was from Malaysia, and informed me that the oldest synagogue in Australia was in Tasmania, not far from his mosque of 150 people. Below are more highlights and happenings that I encountered in this very exciting conference atmosphere.


I attended a session concerned with HIndu-Jewish Dialogue, a dialogue between members of the two oldest religions. Rabbi David Rosen (Director of the American Jewish Committee's Department of Interreligious Affairs), Swami Avdeshananda Giri, Swami Parmamananda Saraswati and Bawa Jain (Secretary General of the World Council of Religious Leaders) were the speakers at this dialogue. It was interesting to hear mention of the large number of Israelis who go to India, many of them estranged from their own religion, and in the process of discovering Hinduism, also discover their own traditions. Many of these Israelis return to Israel as more committed Jews. The point was made that there are very small distinguishing traits among the DNA of human beings, and thus our religions have so much in common such as the values of family, work ethic and faith.

Rabbi Rosen delineated many of the ways that the Jewish and Hindu communities were reaching out to one another, especially through many of the efforts of the American Jewish Committee.
How surprising it was after his presentation when a member of the Hindu community stood up and proclaimed that this mutual understanding between Hindus and Jews would NEVER happen!! Needless to say he was chastised for this outburst, but I do wonder what he was doing at a gathering of the people of the world's religions for interfaith understanding!!

The Friday evening, December 4th, that I was at this incredible conference in Melbourne, I was invited as part of “Communities Night” to attend Shabbat services at the Progressive synagogue in the area, Temple Beth Israel. I was instructed how to get there by use of the public tram system, and promptly ended up in the wrong place on the wrong tram. The people I spoke to on the tram were most helpful and a woman on my tram even got off before her destination to make sure that I was headed in the right direction to the synagogue. The people in Australia were so friendly and personable! Most of the synagogues in Australia are Orthodox. Progressive Judaism, similar to Reform Judaism in the States, is "an enlightened approach to Jewish practice and belief that seeks to draw on the best of Jewish tradition while responding proactively to the modern world," according to their pamphlet in the lobby of the synagogue. "The most obvious difference is our egalitarian outlook; men and women are treated equally in all aspects of synagogue life and sit together in the synagogue. We enjoy accompanying our worship with a range of musical instruments, including the organ. Though we value areas of ritual such as ‘kashrut’ (keeping kosher) and observe them within the synagogue, on a personal level we respect people's autonomy and encourage our members to make informed decisions about their Jewish life style and beliefs. Sermons often address topics of social justice and human rights that come under the heading of ‘tikkun olam,’ mending a broken world. We endeavor to show respect to people of all faiths." Temple Beth Israel is very proud of the fact that they are the first progressive congregation in Australia and New Zealand. The warmth of the community and of Rabbi Fred Morgan, the Senior Rabbi, was an experience that I won't forget. Rabbi Morgan was very involved in the Conference as well, participating in conversation with Swami Shankarananda. Both of these religious leaders had come from similar backgrounds - both Jewish New Yorkers, graduates of Columbia University, and “Hinduphiles,” yet they have ended up in two very different spiritual places. They are working together to identify points of mutual respect and common concern as religious leaders in contemporary Australia.

I have to say, as the president of WISDOM (Women's Interfaith Solutions for Dialogue and Outreach in MetroDetroit) I was quite taken with the many sessions that focused on breaking through patriarchy and underscoring new visions for women of faith. Gender relations have emerged as one of the central social and political challenges for the 21st century, and they have special significance for the world's religions. New opportunities and roles for women are opening new vistas and reflect universally agreed-upon human rights, but a host of obstacles still stand in the way of these ideals. I discovered the eloquence of Sister Joan Chittister, (Executive Director of Benetvision, a center for contemporary spirituality in Erie, Pennsylvania), who was a very dominant figure at this conference. She spoke about the fact that 70 % of people in poverty are women. In her focus on gender equality, she underscored the plight of undowried widows, illiterate girls, beaten and trafficked women, and encouraged all of us to face the fact that religion has a lot to do with these atrocities. It was mentioned at this presentation that "women, religion and development" is a barren area when it comes to research, and should be an action item and a priority. The website www.enditnow.org was highlighted. This is a global campaign to raise awareness and advocate for the end of violence against women and girls around the world. The Women, Faith and Development Alliance (WFDA) was also highlighted.

For the first time, women's organizations, faith communities and the international development community have come together to tackle the issue of women in poverty, creating one of the most powerful and far-reaching, anti-poverty coalitions in history. WFDA's goal is to “launch a campaign that will increase financial and other investment in women and girls by governments, multilateral institutions, non-governmental organizations, corporations, and individuals.” Gather the Women, another organization mentioned, invites women to “demonstrate their courage to risk leaving old conformities by joining with millions of others throughout the world to celebrate women's true worth, to express shared concern for our human family, and to create and support actions that will enable humanity to live together in a balanced, harmonious and peaceful world.”

How sobering was the fact, mentioned by Jane Sloan, Executive Director of the International Women's Development Agency, that it would cost the world two days of military spending to save the lives of six million women and girls. Sr. Joan Chittister underscored the fact that the world wide attitude toward gay men is so poor because the feminization of men is just another comment on the inferior status of women - a further statement about men's attitude toward women and their view of their own masculinity. Jacqueline Ogega, a speaker from Kenya, and the director of the African Women of Faith Network, described the potential power of women. At the brutal height of the civil war in Sierra Leone, a group of women of different faiths, distraught at their children being forcibly recruited as child soldiers, boldly decided to confront the rebels in their mountain bases, and were allowed to take some of the child soldiers back with them. This incident, said Ms. Ogega, is an example of how women have contributed to resolving conflicts in Africa, even though they are largely excluded at the political level. Women of faith had also banded together after the genocide that claimed up to 1 million lives in Rwanda to overcome deep hatred between Tutsis and Hutus and their own personal trauma to promote forgiveness. "Women are generally undervalued or not valued at all and are marginalized in terms of conflict resolution. Most of the time we look at women as victims of conflict rather than as resolving conflicts, and it is very important for us to shift that mentality." Liberian Peace Activist Asatu Bah-Kenneth, promoter and cast member of the film "Pray the Devil Back to Hell" (which was shown at the Conference, and which WISDOM plans to show as a community service event with WINGS - Women in Need of Guidance and Skills in Detroit - sometime in February), was unable to attend the conference as she could not get a visa for Australia. Her film highlights the Muslim and Christian Liberian women who, after more than a decade of civil wars leading to more than 250,000 deaths and one million refugees, rose up and forced peace on their shattered country and propelled to victory the first female head of state on the African continent!!


I have to admit I became a Sr. Joan Chittister junkie throughout this conference, and followed her to two other presentations, one entitled "The Divine Feminine." Female divinity, or feminine aspects to the divine, can be found in many religious traditions. For some women and men, the Divine Feminine is a source of strength and balance. The feminine aspects of the divine are foundational to their religious practice. Redressing the current imbalances of the world - excessive greed, polarization, isolation and environmental destructions - require a new or renewed connection to the feminine energies of the divine. Joan Chittister stated that every major spiritual tradition has a strong presence of the feminine. She addressed the fact that when God spoke to Moses, God said "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'" There was no gender delineated in God’s words. But most of the world defines God's presence as a masculine one. Joan said to us that we are confused about who God is, but God does not have an identity problem! By casting God in male form only, we limit our knowledge of God and lose sight of God, our mother. In Joan's powerful words, she instructed her audience that by eliminating God, the mother, we "see with one eye, we hear with one ear, we think with only half of our brain, and IT SHOWS!!" Women, who are left out of property, politics, food, water and schooling are the invisible majority of the human race. When I later attended the session entitled "Conversation with Sister Joan Chittister" it was fascinating to see that over half of the audience were men, clearly demonstrating that the societal problems previously discussed are no longer just a women's problem, but the entire human race is struggling to deal with them. This was in contrast, according to Joan, of the women-only sessions that were held at similar conferences in the past. Writing about these conference sessions now that I am home, I am struck by the articles that have appeared in the New York Times and the Jerusalem Journal about the struggle for women’s rights at the Western Wall (the Kotel) in Jerusalem. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/world/middleeast/22jerusalem.html) Last month Nofrat Frenkel, age 28, an Israeli medical student and a committed follower of Conservative Judaism, a modern, egalitarian denomination, was the first woman in Israel to be arrested during prayers at the Western Wall for publicly wrapping herself in a tallit (a fringed prayer shawl). About 150 Jewish women recently gathered at the Western Wall to pray and to challenge the constraints imposed on them by traditional Jewish Orthodoxy and a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court. Under their coats many of these women, supporters of a group of religious activists called Women of the Wall, wore a tallit, traditionally worn only by men. Wearing it openly evidently is an illegal act that can incur a fine or several months in jail. It will be interesting to see if these empowered women can make some headway with the traditional Orthodoxy!! I’m sure that Sister Joan would have powerful comments to make about this occurrence.

As a retired teacher of English as a Second Language in the Berkley School District in Michigan and the former coordinator of the Religious Diversity Journeys for Seventh Graders through the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion, I was quite intrigued with the session entitled "Innovative Approaches to Interfaith and Multicultural Educational in Schools." This workshop explored different approaches to multicultural and interfaith education in schools through a presentation of innovative pedagogies. These educational approaches encouraged respect for the "other" through a process of storytelling and respectful listening and the use of gardens and nature in children's education. Simon Oats, an Australian teacher, illustrated his methods of working with youth through the sharing of personal stories that gives our youth time for reflection on the negative experiences of bullying, fear and injustice. I was so taken with Simon's presentation that I gave him a copy of Interfaith Heroes, Volume Two, written by Dan Buttry, and told him how I had used these stories when I worked with my seventh graders and encouraged them to become diversity heroes!! Simon promised to keep in touch with me when his storytelling book comes out in print next year. During the Question and Answer period, I stood up and highlighted WISDOM and the Religious Diversity Journeys for Seventh Graders going on in Metro Detroit. One of the session attendees was quite taken with Detroit's interfaith efforts and after the session was over, he presented me with a DVD for the youth that I work with, entitled "Animating the Golden Rule." This DVD illustrates how through self-directed explorations in art, music, rap and drama skits, teenage youth explore ways of embodying the core values of “The Golden Rule” of 13 of the world’s great religions. How appropriate this was, as WISDOM's very first event with youth was a partnership with Kids Against Hunger and our theme was how the core values of "The Golden Rule" were the same in many of the world's great religions!!

Sunday, December 6th was my final day at the Parliament of the World's Religions Conference. Although the conference continued until Wednesday, December 9th, I only attended the first three days, as I brought my husband with me to explore Australia and New Zealand for three weeks. I left him with friends in Melbourne as I gloried in my three-day educational interfaith experience. Sunday offered me a chance to hear four renown rabbis dialogue with each other about "Who Do We Want to Be: Exploring the Mission of the Jewish People in the 21st Century." I was personally interested in this session as a member of the Jewish faith, but it was fascinating to observe that three fourths of the people in the audience were not Jewish (as was evident by a show of hands when the question was asked)!! Contemporary Judaism, whether as expressed in Israel itself or in the Jewish Diaspora, faces many challenges as it moves further away in time from the identification with the Holocaust and from the foundation of Israel. This esteemed panel of Rabbis discussed these challenges and the evolving nature of Judaism today. Along with Rabbi David Rosen, already introduced earlier in my journal, was Rabbi David Saperstein, designated in Newsweek's 2009 list as the most influential rabbi in the United States and described in the Washington Post as the "quintessential religious lobbyist on Capitol Hill." Rabbi Brad Hirschfield was also among the panelists. In November 2008 WISDOM sponsored Rabbi Hirschfield at the West Bloomfield Jewish Community Center's Book Fair. He is the author of You Don't Have to Be Wrong For Me to Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism and a columnist for Beliefnet.com. Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence, the chief rabbi of the Great Synagogue of Sydney, Australia (which my husband and I visited when we arrived in Sydney three days later), was also present. Some of the major statements at this session were the following:

- Peace in the Middle East is imperative as it is the center of global conflict and the cutting edge of interactions of civilizations. We must break out of the cycle of violence.

- The rest of the world only thinks of the Middle East in terms of politics, and not about its richness and diversity.

- The beauty of the Jewish text is that we are all made in the image of God, and we need to work toward making a better world.

- We are a Noah generation - facing a world that is cursed with lack of resources and poverty - the destruction of the Earth.

- We need to embrace the Jewish commandment of “Tikkun Olam” - repairing the world. We need to embrace this world view and to bring God's light into the world. It is not enough to study the text, but we must live out the commandments through our actions.

- Every story in the Torah has a parallel in other religions with one exception - the story of Moses receiving the Laws at Sinai. The One God called upon the Jewish people to be the ethical people and to embrace social justice even more than the ritual.

- Reform Judaism is a ground breaking movement - with an embracing of GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered) Jews, mixed marriages and converts, along with acceptance of Jews having a patrilineal descent in addition to the matrilineal descent.

- We must have civility of discourse with each other, because segments of our Jewish community are so angry at each other. Divisions between Jewish groups are deepening.

- Jews are more embraced by different parts of the world now than ever before in Jewish history!!

- The question should not be "Is the world big enough for us, but are we big enough to embrace the world?"


I concluded my Conference sessions with the one entitled "Sacred Envy - Exploring What We Love About Our Faith, What We Admire In Others, and What Challenges Us In Both." The presenters were Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, Sister Joan Chittister (I couldn't resist another session with her wit and wisdom), and Imam Feisal Rauf (author of What's Right with Islam is What's Right with America: A New Vision for Muslims and the West). To be possessed of 'sacred envy' means to be envious of the beauty found in the sacred practices and teachings of faiths not our own. This conversation among the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian leaders encouraged participants to explore what they enjoy most (and least) about their own communities and also what they see as deeply beautiful (and deeply challenging) in others. We can be firmly rooted in one place and look across to another place to say that it has a beauty that only they can pull off. Sacred Envy is like a vaccine. You take in a little bit of the illness so you don't get sick from too much of it. Therefore you can envy another’s religion in a healthy and sacred way to protect ourselves from letting the envy become toxic and unhealthy. We can allow ourselves the luxury of appreciating the beauty of others. Imam Feisal explained that Muslims should not follow only the Prophet Muhammad and forget about the other prophets. Sister Chittister pointed out that God made the Tower of Babel because when everyone spoke the same language and thought the same thoughts, no one learned anything from each other. Rabbi Hirschfield underscored the point that Jewish social activism is not about only helping fellow Jews, but a way of being human and building a better life for everyone. Jewish fear, he stated, has become an obsession. More energy has gone into maintaining the fear of the destruction of the Jewish people (post-Holocaust) than building bridges.


As I prepared to leave the Conference on Sunday afternoon, I stopped to write a personal message on the 60-meter-long scroll already inscribed with thousands of messages of support and hope to the world leaders gathering in Copenhagen for the Climate Change Conference the following week.

I had learned a lot about Australia's religious diversity. 64% of Australians are Christians, with almost 26% being Catholics and almost 19% being Anglicans. This is in contrast to the first census taken in 1911 when 96% of Australians identified themselves as Christian. The non-Christian religions are clustered in Sydney and Melbourne, with 47% of Hindus and 47% of Muslims living in Sydney and 46% of Jews living in Melbourne. Australia's three most common non-Christian religious affiliations are Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. Buddhism is the second largest religion in the country after Christianity, with Islam being the third. 73% of the Indigenous population reported an affiliation with a Christian denomination, (Anglican and Catholic for the most part), as I discovered when I spent time with the Maoris in New Zealand.
My husband and I left Australia after a two week stay (which included a visit to Sydney's Jewish Holocaust Museum and a tour of The Great Synagogue) and spent a week in New Zealand. We were so fortunate to take a bus out to the Milford Sound, snapping photos of the incredible mountains, valleys, waterfalls, rock formations and sheep and goats everywhere. We overnighted on a ship in the middle of the Milford Sound, and I felt as if I were in heaven itself, truly God’s creations all around us.

The scenery was spectacular, but the highlight of New Zealand was the day we spent with a private Maori guide, learning about the native religion of this very beautiful country. The Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. They are Polynesian and comprise about 14 percent of the country's population. Maoritanga is the native language which is related to Tahitian and Hawaiian. It is believed that the Maori migrated from Polynesia in canoes around the 9th century to 13th century AD. Getting to know our Maori guide, Ngahihi o te ra Bidois, was a treat that I will always cherish. I learned right away that the traditional Maori welcome demands a hongi, which is a greeting that involves pressing noses as opposed to giving kisses.
Ngahi (for short) lives in Rotorua, New Zealand, which is the Maori Cultural Tourist capital of the world. His name was bestowed on him by Maori elders before he was born, and it means “The Rays of the Sun.” Ngahi had worked very hard to attain the relevant knowledge and skills to achieve great financial success working in the business world, and, by the age of 26, he was doing extremely well. But, he told me, he began to realize that he had turned his back on his own indigenous Maori Culture. He had lost his identity as an indigenous Maori of New Zealand. Ngahi revealed these thoughts to me - “Everything was ‘I’ this and ‘I’ that, and I couldn’t see beyond myself.” He went from being in a successful business to being unemployed with no money in the bank within a short period of time. His unemployment helped him to make the decision to come back to his people, his culture and their beliefs. Ngahi looked long and hard at his personal goals and got retrained in the education sector where his teaching included working with children in a Maori Total Immersion school, teaching and managing in what he called the secondary and tertiary sectors as well. He returned home to Rotorua after being away from his family and his tribe for 20 years, and at this time he decided to receive the most valuable gift from his Maori ancestors – the “ta moko” or the facial tattoo. It took 8 hours to have the tattoo permanently etched into his face – 8 very painful hours. Ngahi revealed to me that the tatoo pain was not as bad as the pain he felt when he realized that he had turned his back on his culture and his people, or the corporal punishment his parents received for speaking their indigenous Maori language at school, or the pain his people endured during the enforced colonized loss of their Maori language, land, culture and art forms. He is now so proud to be carrying this gift from his ancestors. As a Maori, the “wairua” or spiritual part of his being is very important to him, and he believes that we all have spiritual guardians. Ngahi explains this in regard to his “ta moko” experience.

“The spiritual part of my being was very significant in the ‘ta moko’ ceremony when I received my gift from my ancestors. During the hours between midnight and 4 in the morning, the pain seemed to disappear and I had visits from my ancestors who came to me from the spiritual realm. They shared many things with me regarding the ‘ta moko’ gift I was receiving and other gifts I had already received. Some had tears of joy as we spoke and they all brought with them light, wisdom and love which rested with me. I am a friend of Te Atua, who you may know as God, the parentless one. He is at the center of my decisions, and it is He who opens doors and encourages me to walk through them. My ‘ta moko’ indicates the gift of ‘seeing’ to those who know the ancient Maori art. There are two ‘matau’ (fish hook designs) on each side of my face which accentuate my eyes, indicating the ability to ‘see.’ My father and my mother also had the ability to ‘see’ into the spiritual realm and it made sense that I would receive at least a portion of it. The gift of ‘matakite’ (being the seer) has always been a part of my life.”

Ngahi took me and my husband to his Maori village where we had a delightful cup of tea with his aunt and uncle. Four of his uncles as well as his father still live in the village that his father’s mother used to own. He showed us his “marae,” his Maori village complex and the meaning of the wooden statues that stand at the entrance to the marae, and explained the Maori attendance at the church that stands next to the marae. St. Faith’s Church in Ohinemutu, Rotorua was the first permanent Christian church in the Rotorua area and was built in 1885. The church was rebuilt and rededicated in 1967. Most of the Maori have some connection to Christianity in addition to their native beliefs which revolve around their ancestors. The church’s decorations represent the Maori culture. The five figures at the base of the pulpit represent the demi-gods of Maori myth – they also represent the Maori in his primitive naked state before the coming of the Word. With the coming of Christianity, the Maori is seen here supporting the pulpit. Outside in the church grounds are tombs of leaders of the tribe. In the chapel is a figure of Christ sandblasted on a plate of glass, and depicts Jesus walking on Lake Rotorua. If you kneel down in front of this window, Jesus’s feet “touch the water.” His cloak is the type worn by the Maori chiefs and is adorned with Kiwi feathers. The mixture of the Maori culture and Christianity in this church was most fascinating and very spiritual.

As the time came for Ngahi to say goodbye and take us back to our Bed and Breakfast, he slipped a package into my hands. When I opened it later, I discovered he had written his memoirs as an inspirational story for others. His book was entitled Ancient Wisdom, Modern Solutions. His personal words to us inscribed in the front cover were “Dear Gail and Bob, Thank you for sharing a day with me in my Paradise. Kia Ora (which means ‘Greetings’)!!”

The next day we made the trip from Rotorua to Auckland, New Zealand, our last stop before we headed back to Los Angeles and then to Detroit. We were invited to attend Saturday Shabbat services at the progressive synagogue in Epson ( a suburb of Auckland) called Beth Shalom. Their rabbi, Dean Shapiro, was an American from Los Angeles, and was the only one in the synagogue that read the Hebrew text without a New Zealand accent!! We were warmly welcomed and were lucky to be part of the Bat Mitzvah of Leora Karon, who was presented with her first Tallit (prayer shawl) by her father (note the major difference here from my previous discussion of women and the tallit at the Western Wall!). Leora’s father reminded the congregation that the fringes (tzitzit) on the tallit are to remind us of the 613 Commandments mentioned in the Torah. I was impressed that Leora was the one to lead the Shabbat morning service predominantly in Hebrew, as well as reading the week’s Parasha (portion) from the Torah – which was the story of Joseph and his brothers in Egypt. How incredible it was to think that this exact same Torah portion was being read in Hebrew on this same Shabbat morning in synagogues all over the world!! As I looked around at the small congregation, I noticed a Maori gentleman wearing the traditional tallit and kipah (head covering)!! In an email conversation with Rabbi Dean Shapiro, he pointed out to me that his synagogue included several folks from the Maori community who considered themselves to be part of the Jewish community!! It was the last day of Chanukah, and it was so meaningful to be in the synagogue as Rabbi Shapiro retold the story of Chanukah, the story of how the Syrian-Greeks sought to forcefully Hellenize the people of Israel, and against all odds, a small bank of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to the service of God. The rabbi explained that this festival of light celebrates the triumph of light over darkness of purity over adulteration, of spirituality over material things.

As our driver took us on the road back to the Auckland International Airport, he drove by the St. Matthews Anglican Church to talk to us about the controversy that had occurred over the last several days in Auckland. A billboard featuring Joseph and Mary in bed had drawn condemnation from the Catholic Church. The words above the picture said “Poor Joseph, God was a hard act to follow.”
St. Matthews had erected the billboard in the hope of putting to a debate the conception story of Christmas to be able to highlight the real significance of the celebration. Church Vicar Archdeacon Glynn Cardy said that it was intended to challenge stereotypes about the way that Jesus was conceived and get people around the world talking Jesus at Christmas-time!! This controversial billboard was taken down, however, after a woman slashed it with a knife. The Anglican Bishop of Auckland, John Paterson, was among critics, calling the billboard insensitive and disrespectful. Religion and controversy, as we all know too well, frequently go hand in hand!

We landed in the Los Angeles Airport 12 hours after take-off on our Air New Zealand flight, and the next day caught a Delta flight to Detroit. It was on this flight that another interesting religious exchange took place. I had the pleasure of sitting next to a seven-year-old second-grade blond adorable little girl who became my conversation companion for the four and a half hour flight. The little girl was sitting between me and her mother, a young mid-twenties woman from California, who was flying with her husband and three children to spend Christmas with her parents in Wisconsin. As they took their seats next to me and buckled up, the mother glanced my way and saw that I was reading Bruce Feiler’s book entitled Where God Was Born, A Daring Adventure Through the Bible’s Greatest Stories. Her face just lit up, and she asked me if I was also a church-going Christian and did I study the New Testament? I explained to her that reading a book about God did not necessarily make me a Christian, that there were many religions that believed in God. I asked her if she was familiar with the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. She replied that she had read parts of it, but her primary focus was reading the New Testament each day and coming closer to Jesus. I mentioned to her that the Old Testament was called the Torah in Hebrew and was the holy text for people of the Jewish faith, and had come before the New Testament. She was truly flabbergasted that Christianity had come after Judaism, and that Christians studied text that was also holy to the Jews, as she had never met a Jew. We had an interesting discussion about WISDOM, my women’s interfaith organization, and I explained that the women on my Board of Directors were affiliated with 8 different religions, and that I was on my way home from attending a conference about religious diversity at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia. Then her adorable little girl spoke up and announced that she knew one word in Hebrew, and it meant “hello,” but she couldn’t remember what it was. When I mentioned the word “Shalom” which I explained meant “hello,” as well as “goodbye” and “peace” in Hebrew, they were both quite surprised. (I also mentioned this was the name of one of my cats, which the little girl found most amusing!!) This encounter certainly reinforced why our interfaith efforts are so important – to increase respect and understanding about our religious diversity. There are so many people who are living in segregated communities and live with such misconceptions and lack of knowledge. Right after this exchange, my husband tapped me on the shoulder from across the airplane aisle and read me a quote from the New York Times that captured some of the comedians’ lines on TV that week. One of the comedians, Jimmy Fallon, told the joke that President Obama was getting ready to host the administration’s first Chanukah party. In an embarrassing moment, right after the President lit the menorah, Biden blew it out and made a wish. Although a joke, I felt that my airplane companion might have made this same mistake!

And so I am home again, and back to my interfaith activities that I love. I am truly blessed to have been given this opportunity to travel throughout Australia and New Zealand, attend three days of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, connect and converse with people from all over the world, stand in awe in front of spectacular water falls, geysers, mountains, flowers, birds, and animals and realize how wonderful a world we live in, if only we could all understand and respect our differences, expand our world views and just get along with each other! Peace and a Happy and Healthy 2010!!

Gail