On this fifth day of the Week of Prayer for World Peace, we pray for families caught in conflict. Rev. Qalvy Grainzvolt offers a prayer from the Shinnyo-en Buddhist tradition. The mantra, the GOREIJU (mantra of benevolence and liberation) and one of the core chants in the Shinnyo tradition, the JOJUSAN is composed of two words Namu Shinnyo. These words call us to be in oneness with the ever-present nature of awakening and the embodiment of inner goodness.
As we pray for families in conflict, surely our hearts and minds turn immediately to civilians caught in the humanitarian crises of war, those waking to turn to prayer and suddenly ripped from their homes. Those seeking shelter when their homes are no longer safe. For many the safety of the embrace of family is ruptured. We remember also those who are not civilians. Who are fighting for the protection of their families, and homelands, and heritage. For the families that have to let them go. Caught in conflict. Rev. Qalvy reminds us to open our understanding of family from the level of the individual to the scale of nation to the entirety of the earth. He references the leader of the Shinnyo-en Buddhist order, Her Holiness Keishu Shinso Ito, who teaches that the very earth is permeated by lovingkindness, wisdom, and compassion. To pray for families caught in conflict is to awaken to the renewal of connection among all beings of the earth.
Interconnected and Interdependent
We are honored during this Week of Prayer for World Peace to have prayers offered by participants from eight different traditions. Of the many, many different traditions of the world, these are but eight. And next year, when the Week of Prayer will recognize its 50th year since the first call to peace was issued globally to an interfaith community, there will be eight other traditions represented. It is not always easy when we do not hear our own tradition uplifted. But Rev. Qalvy’s message today is a reminder that we are called to find our interdependence. Unique traditions upheld, not melted into one voice, or one way of thinking, or one intention in prayer, but interconnected. Interdependent.
Certainly this is the meaning of family at its core. Whether we are bound by blood or ceremony, by tradition or by choosing, a family is a grouping of individuals, each with their own needs and distinctive voices. Families can be a place of shelter and nurture or of hurt and harm. The ties that bind can be like a frayed rope, threads snapping or severed. And so it is in war. The household of the world, the oikoumene, disconnected. And so we pray for families caught in conflict from the level of the individual to the scale of nation to the entirety of the earth.
Using the Term Tradition
Perhaps you have noticed that in Alignment, where we offer resources and sessions of prayer and meditation, of wisdom and wonderings, from many different traditions, we use the word tradition instead of religion or faith. We also use different words to express some understanding of the divine within us, beside us, and beyond us. Not all traditions would consider themselves to be a religion or a faith. And not all traditions would name a divine being. Not all traditions are comfortable with the use of pronouns when talking about God or even capturing in words what is most sacred in their hearts. The word tradition references that which has been passed to us by those who have walked this way before us. Tradere = to hand over. We hold in our hands something to be shaped to our own understanding and our own experience, to our own needs and visions. Just as we come from a place of origin and may feel splintered from it, so in our spiritual traditions, in the roots of our faith, we may find places where we feel in conflict. The importance of the word tradition lies in that image of something that has been handed over to us, that warms in the shape of our cupped hands.
In my own Reformed tradition with Celtic Christian roots, we hold as a motto of the tradition the call to be constantly aware of the present circumstances. Ecclesia reformata semper reformanda est: the church having been reformed, reshaped, must always be reforming. In the Presbyterian Church (USA) our constitutional documents include a Book of Order and a Book of Confessions, both of which are reissued regularly as they are amended. Most moving to me is the inclusion of twelve confessional statements that speak to one another across the centuries and across the globe in response to the needs of the time. If the circumstances arise in which the Church needs to state anew what it believes, to realign with the needs of the world, a new confession is written and/or adopted. What has been handed down remains as authority, and what is standing before us frames new statements of guidance and accountability.
Reverend Qalvy Grainzvolt is an ordained Shinnyo-en Buddhist priest based in New York, USA, a uniformed police chaplain, as well as the Buddhist chaplain and mindfulness faculty member of New York University. Rev. Qalvy holds professional licensure in clinical mental health counseling and seeks to diminish stigma around issues of mental health in faith settings. May his words of compassion guide us as we pray for the wellbeing of families caught in conflict.
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n.b. The doors open at midnight US Eastern Time each day of this week with a new prayer. Once a prayer opens, it will remain open to be revisited through the year. Please contact us if you would like the embed code to host the WPWP on your own website.
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