Today is our American Thanksgiving.
And thanks to the way different holidays are marked out, in the case of Thanksgiving falling as it does on the fourth Thursday in November, this year also happens to be my favorite religious holiday.
The 27th of November in the calendar of the Roman Catholic church as well as for those of the Eastern Churches who follow the revised Julian calendar, this is the feast of Sts Barlaam and Josaphat.
The Orthodox who continue to use the Julian calendar observe the feast on 26th of August.
Well, actually, for the most part this holiday is no longer actually observed.
The source for the official canonization of Barlaam & Josaphat, a story of the prince Josaphat and his conversion to the true faith through the guidance of the hermit Barlaam appears in the West in the eleventh century, apparently composed by the monk Euthymios, although attributed to the seventh century John of Damascus.
In fact the story is quite a bit older than either the eleventh or seventh centuries.
Variations on the story pop up all over the place, from the Golden Legend to Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. It is what one may call a classic.
But then in the nineteenth century scholars realized the true source of the story.
The name Josaphat derived ultimately from the Sanskrit and means bodhisattva, “enlightenment being.”
And they figured out the story, through some interesting turns, was really that of the Buddha.
So, for me, who claims a “physiology of faith,” that is I have a Buddhist brain, a Christian heart, and a humanist stomach, my faith, my spirituality is informed by my deep resonance with the analysis of the Buddha and particularly with the teachings of the masters of Chan Buddhism, but also and about equally by the many stories from the Bible which I learned at my grandmother’s knee, all of it washed through a deeply rationalist and this-worldly disposition, well, this becomes my holy day.
And, I’m more than happy to share it with all of you.
Perhaps you’re interested in what this can look like, a way that crosses boundaries, and opens the heart to what the religions all are trying to point to, each in part, as through a glass darkly.
I feel you can see it, or catch an echo of it in the words of the 1st Psalm when interpreted by the Buddhist poet Stephen Mitchell.
Blessed are the man and the woman
who have grown beyond their greed
and have put an end to their hatred
and no longer nourish illusions
But they delight in the way things are
and keep their hearts open, day and night
They are like trees planted near flowing rivers,
which bear fruit when they are ready
Their leaves will not fall or wither
Everything they do will succeed.
Just this.
And so, may the blessings of Barlaam and Josaphat, the way of crossing boundaries, and finding deepest heart truths completely with, and totally beyond the strictures of religions, be yours.
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