When I need chocolate, and nothing but an enormous brick of Cadbury Dairy Milk or a handful of a Kinder Surprise (those yummy chocolate eggs with little toys inside that my kids love so much) will do, I head to World Market, the big box chain store that also stocks chocolate-dipped Pocky Sticks from Japan.
And bottles of Italian soda in every flavor.
And squat jars of lemon curd with enticing labels.
And even piñatas filled with brightly-wrapped Mexican sweets.
It certainly isn’t the only store with a large candy selection, but it’s one of my favorite places to shop if I want to try something new from a hemisphere other than the one I live in.
Of course, some people might think my paper sack of all-on-one-shelf chocolate souvenirs is a kind of candy cheating. I’ve never been to England, Austria, Japan, Italy or Mexico. But I have tasted from those countries.
I enjoy sampling religious rituals and services from around the faith world as well.
When I was a child, my parents took our family to other churches at least once or twice a year: Catholic mass, a Lutheran Santa Lucia procession, a Presbyterian service. Attending various First Communion ceremonies for friends of age or Baptist youth group praise meetings added flavors to sample. Later, when I was a married adult, I occasionally attended other Baptist, Methodist, Catholic and Assembly of God services with the extended family I had married into. Borrowing from those traditions, or at least what I most enjoyed from them, a snippet here or prayer phrase here, added flavor to my worship. Even traveling to other LDS services – General Conference IN the tabernacle, Sacrament meeting in a colonial-style red brick meetinghouse in Washington D.C., or a testimony meeting in a tiny branch in Willmar, Minnesota, for example – adds to my practice of Mormonism.
Over the last few years, I’ve had multiple opportunities to worship with a dear Episcopal friend, to attend a local Holi festival, to eat Passover seder, to listen to Unitarian handbell choirs and to study the Bible with southern evangelicals. I would very much like to squeeze in a trip to a nearby Hindu temple before the year is out. And I am eagerly awaiting an upcoming meditation retreat that will help me better understand foundational principles of Buddhism. Each new religious tradition I am exposed to teaches me something new. Each new hymn I sing awakens my ears.
However, I’ve heard such service sampling described as “religious tourism” by one critical acquaintance. We’ve also heard recent warnings against cafeteria Mormonism over the pulpit, the implication being that picking and choosing what tastes best or looks most appetizing is somehow spiritually deficient or even dangerous. I don’t think the charge has much traction in my testimony, but it gets me thinking. I hope that my occasional attendance and observance of these other religious practices has depth. I hope that I am adding nutritional value to my spiritual diet. Like Kathleen Norris, a midwestern (protestant) poet who spent eighteen months over the course of several years living the liturgy with Benedictine monks at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, and then wrote about her moving experience there in The Cloister Walk, I want to be enlightened and expanded by my exposure to other rituals. I want them to help me draw closer to God and other people.
Are there any religious traditions or rituals of other faiths that have been meaningful to you?
Or do you think picking and choosing from the smorgasbord of religious rituals is little more than play-acting or putting on a costume?
I find the term “Cafeteria Mormon” annoying. Nobody keeps all the rules or believes all the offical and unofficial doctrine of any religion. People need to make thinking choices about what to believe and practice. Why should personal spiritual decisions be allocated to others?
I hear ya! The cafeteria is a useful analogy & shouldn’t be used as a pejorative description. ?!??!!
Your experiences of other faith traditions sound like they’ve been rewarding, Erin. I’d love to go and see more of them myself. Having said that, it’s interesting to me that I’ve been to less other churches since I lost interest in my own. When I was active and unquestioning as a member of the LDS church, my visiting other churches out of curiosity or with friends never drew criticism: Perhaps it’s the threat of a ‘religious tourist’ who is looking for more outside of the church that causes critics to try to label negatively. The irony is that if we were more willing to adopt useful and productive practises into our worship and culture, we’d be less likely to have dissatisfied members.
Andy, I think you hit the nail on the head. I couldn’t even FIND that nail … someone who is looking to supplement vs. someone who is looking elsewhere. Whether or not such concern is valid, I think the default reaction is often to assume that religious tourism = looking elsewhere.
I wonder if in the future, visits to churches or services will feel more like visiting exhibits at a museum or attending a cultural function. I already have that experience at times. It isn’t unpleasant, just different.
BTW, your American chocolate can’t hold a candle (wax, get it?!) to our Cadbury’s Dairy Milk! Our little city of York has a big chocolate factory, and we can smell it in the air some days. :)
Oooh – a chocolate factory? Yummy! How very Willa Wonka! :)
I mean, uh, the OTHER book Roald Dahl wrote, the one about Willy Wonka. (Willa Wonka must be the one about his twin sister.)
I gave up soda for Lent this year. I had been drinking too much of it and wanted to get rid of the cravings. I also wanted to find a way to pay attention better to the Easter season. Borrowing from the Lenten tradition absolutely improved my experience of the holiday. Every single time I considered ordering a soda I remembered my commitment and my thoughts were pointed to Easter. I will definitely make this a tradition for myself in the future.
I know plenty of people (Mormon and non) find it distasteful when people borrow from other traditions. I do not understand this attitude from LDS members. We are specifically taught to embrace truth no matter its source. As a lifelong member steeped in the language of Mormonism, I often find that studying the truths that I already embrace in other traditions illuminates them ways that help to inspire and motivate me. Because they are presented from a new perspective and in less familiar metaphors and language I am awakened somewhat more, if that makes sense.
And I loved The Cloister Walk. Definitely one of the best books I’ve read in the last few years.
Another Cloister Walk fan. How cool!
I also find that occasional and/or frequent aversion to other traditions a bit hard to understand. Your Lent example was very powerful. Thanks!
I think picking and choosing is an important part of development of spirituality – it can really steer us in the direction that is personally relevant. For myself, lately, I’ve felt that there must be truth in the idea that picking and choosing without devotion though, can take the wind out of one’s sails. I feel some pull to the idea that if you dig shallow holes you’ll never reach water, that there may be truth in the Buddhist suggestion to “practice like your hair is on fire”, and the Yoga Sutras suggestion that you will get out of your practice what you put into it. Is it possible to practice both great doubt and great faith simultaneously?
I like to think that my relationship with the church is committed, but not monogamous. There is a lot of good, spiritually-enhancing stuff to be found in other traditions. We have a responsibility to seek out truth wherever we can find it, and if that means a German Lutheran Palm Sunday service, giving up something for Lent, or going to the mosque for Friday prayers, then so be it.