Brenda Bos

Brenda Bos, Summer 2008 Fellow, Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions

I suppose the main purpose of a fellowship is exposure. Exposure to a new environment, exposure to new concerns, exposure to new ideas. My Beatitudes fellowship exposed me to a different city, Chicago, and a different way of thinking, which is a pluralistic approach to faith traditions. Pluralism is an academic word, one with some distance from the experiences of humanity. What I was really exposed to was an openness to others. The most interesting part of this process of learning from others was the importance of remaining rooted in my own tradition, rather than some sort of swinging in the wind. I had mistakenly entered into this fellowship believing groundlessness was the way of interreligious thought. I assumed when one enters into meaningful interreligious work one is constantly swayed by each impressive tradition one is exposed to. I am delighted to discover the only way to have a meaningful dialogue with others is to know deeply what one believes, and be able to articulate it clearly and powerfully so that the comparisons and contrasts can be seen in the most effective way.
I was also exposed to Chicago’s working class black population. I lived on the south side, exposed to riding the bus at 11:00 at night, seeing people who were just leaving a lousy job where they had been on their feet all day, in cheap shoes, and now were standing on a crowded bus for another half hour to get home. The exhaustion was palpable. The dignity was also palpable. I admired the people I saw, working hard, earning a living, playing by the rules. It made me think a lot about opportunity, access, assumptions, and how little the upper classes share what we have.

And finally, I was exposed to my own talents. I have worked in television for the past eighteen years and have decided to lay that work down and enter the ministry. When I applied for Beatitudes fellowships, I purposely avoided any site that was looking for multimedia assistance. The Council immediately asked me to produce promotional videos and power points for them. My heart sank. I did not want to do this work anymore. I got “on board” with the idea when I realized it would be an excellent use of their resources to utilize my talent. Through this process I have been reminded God wants to integrate all areas of our lives in our work. We do not need to compartmentalize the creative side, the angry side, the sensitive side, the orderly side. We are serving our Creator. If we believe we are fearfully and wonderfully made, we must bring all aspects of our God’s creativity to the work.

Theologian and Pastor Frederick Buechner says: “The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” I think the Beatitudes Society fellows have spent the summer discovering both their deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger. The exposure to those two things is what makes the Beatitudes Society so significant.

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