Here’s a quote I’ve long treasured:

The statement commonly heard in some circles, “All religions lead to the same goal,” is the result of fantastically sloppy thinking and no practice.

It’s by a not-yet-30 Gary Snyder, “now making it in Japan” as the contributor’s blurb proclaims, where he’d gone to immerse himself in Zen Buddhism. I love the youthful bravura, not just “slopping thinking” but “fantastically sloppy.” And, of course, I totally agree with his conclusion that all religions don’t lead to the same goal, much less arise from the same promptings.

His very next sentence, though, continues to jolt me:

It is good to remember that all religions are nine-tenths fraud and are responsible for numerous social evils.

Ouch! Remember, he’s already deep in what would be years of Zen study in Japan and he’s aware of social evils in even that track? And fraud? Despite the many shortcomings I could cite in Quaker action past and present, “social evils” and “fraud” do not come up on my radar, even acknowledging the years when entertainment was taboo. As for the ashram? Well, I’m discovering much I didn’t see at the time.

Still, it’s that one-tenth that redeems the rest, the three elements Snyder values at the conclusion of the essay:

… contemplation (and not by use of drugs), morality (which usually means social protest to me), and wisdom …

The essay – “Note on the Religious Tendencies,” originally published in 1959 in Liberation magazine and republished a year later as “Notes from Kyoto” in Seymour Krim’s The Beats anthology (“Raw, penetrating stories, poems and social criticism by Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and many others” – Snyder was not yet famous) has not reappeared in his later collections, as far as I’m aware. I am curious if it’s merely been overlooked or if he’s rather backpedaled from its brashness. I still love to reflect on it, though.

“Social protest,” I might add, for me comes in traditions that challenge the conventions of the larger society at large. Think Amish, for instance. Just living, that is, as a witness.

A statement by the Roman Catholic chaplain during a coffee table conversation back in my freshman year of college has stuck with me: “It’s easy to be ecumenical when you’re all losing members.” Remember, that was back in the ’60s, before the real declines kicked in.

At the time, I’d recently abandoned the mainstream Protestant teachings of my childhood and anything else that smacked of religion. It would be another five or six years before I’d venture into anything vaguely spiritual, and that would be by way of the physical exercises known as Hatha Yoga as they led on into meditation and then the monastic life of the ashram.

(Ecumenical? I may have jettisoned the teachings, but I was still a tad scandalized by the fact the chaplain smoked cigars, something that was definitely taboo among the clergy I’d known.)

One of the lessons of daily practice in ashram was the importance of upholding a tradition and delving ever deeper into it rather than importing from others. I remember Swami’s negative reaction when I introduced some Hindu chants that didn’t come down through our line. Sometimes, too, we’d have visitors who were essentially hopping from one yoga ashram or Zen center or Tibetan temple or otherwise exotic circle to the next, the way a tourist might “do” Europe. We were told to be polite but not expend too much energy on them, sensing their desire was basically superficial or shallow.

Over the years I’ve come to appreciate the unique aspects of different communities of faith practice. In each tradition, to go deep requires focus – and no one can do everything, much less do it well. “Ecumenical,” to my ears, has usually conveyed a sense of generic blandness, a reach for the lowest common denominator, an erosion of something.

But not always. Sometimes, especially in smaller localities like mine, it’s been a means of sharing resources for action. The soup kitchen and food pantry are two examples, along with the monthly gatherings of the clergy for mutual support.

An annual Thanksgiving service is a highlight, too, welcoming all faiths to participate. I’ve come to see it as a festival of prayer and music, along with a dash of Quaker silence or holy dance by an Indonesian congregation. It can be a sampler of what each of us does best – and perhaps even aspects we don’t get in our own traditions. If anything, I hope each of us comes away with a renewed appreciation for what we do uniquely as part of a broader mosaic.

Regulars at the Red Barn no doubt are aware I’m among those who feel religion is important. Not just any religion, even though it can be a starting point. And not exclusively mine, no matter my reasons for touting its virtues.

My perspective, to be candid, values the prophetic stream as it runs through the centuries of the Bible, along with an alternative Christianity that emphasizes the Holy Spirit and practice based in small circles with elders and personal experience. As I said, not just any religion, no matter how much my understanding has drawn on yoga and Zen and Tibetan Buddhism or Native American wisdom. Admittedly, the elements I hold high can be found outside the Judeo-Christian mainstream, and much I’ve learned from them has informed my own faith journey.

In reflecting on ecumenical sharing, I might also point to ways contrasting faith communities can occur within a denomination. Ways Irish Catholics might differ from, say, Italian or Brazilian. In the Quaker world, not everyone meets in silent worship – many have pastors and choirs, and we might note there are more Friends in Nairobi than in Philadelphia.

One remarkable presentation of this is found in a book I received for Christmas from a future Episcopal priest. Several years would pass before I actually got around to reading it, but the impressions last.

Rodger Kamenetz’ 1994 The Jew in the Lotus initially struck me as a cutesy title with its twist on the Tibetan Buddhist chant, Aum Mane Padme Hum, which is sometimes translated as the jewel in the lotus. But the narrative is more a discovery of faith through personal encounter. Beginning as a secular, or non-observant, Jew, the author is invited to be part of a delegation who will meet with the Dalai Lama to discuss their faith. He seems to be there purely as the neutral observer. In the journey and its preparations, though, Kamenetz discovers how little he knows about his Jewish legacy and how radically different the practices of the other members of the party could be. His eyes are opened to new ranges of thought and feeling. What the Dalai Lama most wants to learn is ways his followers might survive apart from their homeland – something Jews have been doing for millennia. But that doesn’t prevent some lively discussion of esoteric teachings about dakini, as he sees them, and thousands of angels everywhere, as some of Kamenetz’ companions experience them, or of Kabala, too – things new to Kamenetz.

Religion, then, can lead to wider ways of viewing the world around us. There’s more to life than materialism or empirical thought can embrace. How, after all, can you discuss love or hope or selfless service from a concrete reality basis?

Or, as St. Paul observed, trying to speak of these can easily sound like folly.

So who’s to say there aren’t angels dancing in the snowflakes? Or on the tip of my beloved’s nose? Sounds like a good start for a poem, if you ask me.