“I bow to the one who signs the cross.
I bow to the one who sits with the Buddha.
I bow to the one who wails at the wall.
I bow to the OM flowing in the Ganges.
I bow to the one who faces Mecca,
whose forehead touches holy ground.
I bow to dervishes whirling in mystical wind.
I bow to the north,
to the south,
to the east,
to the west.
I bow to the God within each heart.
I bow to epiphany,
to God’s face revealed.
I bow. I bow. I bow.”
~ Mary Lou Kownacki

A friend forwarded this prayer-poem to me from the website of wise woman Joan Chittister. Last week I had been looking forward to hearing this nun who lives on the edge and tries to bridge people of so many communities. She was to have spoken at Westminster Presbyterians Church but had to cancel due to illness. I pray God’s healing presence upon her.

The gentleness of these words astound me. For the most part I don’t think we use the word ‘bow’ very often. In our postmodern culture it is a term we might think of as passé. It is either an ancient term relegated to religious practices of another time or only seen in those rare times when royalty is present. Those of us blessed to live in places where individuals of Eastern ancestry are present may have experienced being bowed to. It is a humbling experience.

In reading these words recently published as ‘A World Prayer’ I imagined each of the people and groups of people represented in each line. What would happen if we honored all this vast variety of humanity with an equal bowing? How might our world be different? It is a rich and wonderful idea.

Many of us did not grow up in places where there was much diversity of faith traditions. Most of us continue to walk in the world with others most like ourselves. It is just the nature of what it means to be human. And yet, if we are blessed with the opportunities to see people live out their faith in ways unfamiliar to us, we come to understand our own traditions in even deeper ways.We also come to have a greater gentleness toward the struggles and intolerances of our world. At least this is what I believe.

Recently I had a conversation with my mother who is in her eighties. I can’t remember how the thread of the interchange began but at one point she began to talk about how she has come to understand that others around the world know and express their experience of God in a myriad ways. We talked about how easy it is to build the hard edges of ‘our way’ into the only way. But, she said, ” Who am I to deny others their experience of God?” My heart swelled at these words.

I have walked this path with those who sign the cross and those who sit with the Buddha. I have watched my children play side by side with those whose relatives wail at the wall. I drive and walk past neighborhoods where people in clothes that seem exotic to me touch their foreheads to the holy ground. I have seen those who whirl like dervishes and I have longed for what they were having in their dance. I am honored to live in a part of the country where the native ones honor the directions.

And so I bow. To the One who breathed each of these revelations into being. I bow.