St. Patrick’s Day: A Cultural Community Celebration!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!  I am thinking that this a perfect day to talk about tolerance.  The term “tolerance” has been used often as an alternative solution to some societal ills.  Though it sounds good on the surface, merely tolerating one another falls much too short of what could be gained by celebrating the qualities that each of us as humans and as cultures bring to the world.

Simple religious or ethnic tolerance does not allow for a non-Greek to participate in the wonderful and distinct enjoyment of joining in a Hellenic dance.  It does not go far enough for a non-Italian to enjoy indulging in the carnal pleasure of feasting on a full course Italian dinner with O Sole’ Mio blaring in the background.  It does not allow for non-Mexican children to giggle deliriously as they gather candy beneath a broken piñata. It does not allow for a non-Muslim to garner the insight, wonder and connection with peace that can be achieved through disciplined daily prayer.

I believe that there is so much more to be gained by moving beyond simply tolerating each other’s existence.  There is so much that we can learn from each other when it comes to living a life.  There is so much that we can personally enjoy by sharing our lives and our traditional and personal heritages with each other.  And there’s such a greater spiritual and human depth of understanding and love we can achieve by participating in life together.  There is only one race that shares our planet and that is the human race.  We all love, we all hurt, we all laugh for the same reasons.   We all look at the world from the same place behind our eyes as we work with uncertainty at living.  It’s so sad when we fail to recognize that we’re all trying to achieve the same basic happiness and contentment in our lives with the time that we have here.  Our differences lie in the ways that we accomplish those things.  Differences which are many times simply based on our personal upbringing and our location on the planet.  There is no such thing as African joy or Chinese pain.  There is no such thing as Christian love or Hindu anger.  There is only human joy, human pain, human love and human anger.  As humans we can offer comfort to the pain and suffering of others in a multitude of ways depending upon our upbringing, customs and cultural heritage.  Simple tolerance does not allow us to share those qualities for the benefit of all. We can celebrate the joys of our existence through food, dance, song and laughter in a multitude of ways.  Once again simple tolerance does not allow for this to happen.  We can see the face of God and feel the hand of peace through a host of spiritual disciplines.  But again simple tolerance does not allow us to explore and nourish ourselves through the spiritual facets of others lives.  Though I see the good that’s compassionately offered by replacing hostility with tolerance, it doesn’t go nearly far enough in helping the human family bond closer together.   It doesn’t offer us the opportunity to actively participate together, learning from each other and helping one another with our lives so that each of us can get the most out of our time here together.

As I said, today is a perfect day to step beyond tolerance of each other, and move towards celebration of each other and our heritages.  With that said, I’m off to have a plate of corned beef and cabbage, tap my foot to some traditional Irish music and enjoy the premier Irish holiday of the year, St. Patrick’s Day!