ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 22, 1996 TAG: 9609200014
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: The Back Pew
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
One of the joys - and there are many - of being a reporter who specializes in coverage of religion is getting to learn about so many holidays.
Many are joyous, others are somber, virtually all are interesting. And nearly all are meaningful - even for someone outside of the faith traditions in which they originate.
Here in the United States, the dominant faith of Christianity has most often lent its holidays to non-Christians.
Elements of Christmas, for example, can be observed by almost anyone, with its emphasis on family and giving.
Many of the most festive elements of the Easter celebration - the most distinctively Christian holiday - come from earlier non-Christian traditions. Eggs and rabbits, for instance, were used in celebrations of spring that originated outside of Christian influence.
And Easter's origins reach back to a celebration of the Jewish holiday of Passover.
At sundown tonight, Jews will begin the celebration of another holiday - their most solemn of the year - Yom Kippur. It is the Day of Atonement in which Jews everywhere remember and recognize the forgiveness of God.
Scripture and tradition call for healthy adults to abstain from food, drink, sexual relations - anything that would interfere with the intense introspection that is one of the objects of the day. It is a time to escape preoccupation with the physical world. Not because "the world" is inherently evil - a concept contrary to Judaism's doctrine of the goodness of creation - but as an opportunity to shift one's focus, momentary at least, to the spiritual.
And along with the focus on human beings' relationship to God, is an equally important duty to seek reconciliation with other human beings.
It doesn't sound all that difficult, and it's something that we all probably think about pretty often, but in practice once a year may be all most of us could stand reconciling ourselves to those from whom we've become estranged.
Perhaps even those of us who are not Jewish ought to try it.
The reality, of course, is that we cannot be reconciled to everyone - even to everyone we really, truly want to be. Reconciliation is a two-way street, and we cannot control - sometimes even predict - the response of the other party in our effort.
What is really important about the idea is that we try. That we - I -Ihave wronged.
The observance of Yom Kippur includes both the expectation that individuals will make a personal effort at reconciliation as well as participation in a ritualized expression of the intention of reconciliation.
It's a notion to which we give much lip service. Like the weather, however, most of us talk a lot of high-sounding rhetoric about being reconciled to our neighbors, but we don't do much about it.
At every level of our society, the goal of peaceful co-existence with our neighbors is difficult.
In international affairs, we talk a lot about reconciliation, but find ourselves in conflict with other nations and peoples.
During election times, such as this one, we see that there really is not much of an effort at reconciliation of different outlooks. That would be contrary to our political traditions in which we reward not cooperation, but dominance in a conflict of ideas.
Even at the basic level of sharing the natural resources that most would consider a gift from God, Virginia and North Carolina argue about who should get water from Lake Gaston.
Neighbors come to blows over which high school football team is better.
One definition of reconciliation is to bring people or things or ideas into harmony. Just as musical harmonies bring different notes together into a pleasing whole, Yom Kippur reminds us that the human symphony should be one of harmony with each other and with God.
It's a holiday all of us might want to pay more attention to.
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