Family’s traditions rooted in love

Openness and respect needed when accommodating more than one religion

Earlier this year, I got a call from a family from out of town who had been referred to me through contacts here in Houston. This family lived in another city in Texas, but their roots were here in Houston.

The family was absolutely lovely to work with: kind, warm, a rich sense of humor. Their mother had died after a lengthy bout with cancer, and so while they were deeply saddened by her death, there also was a sense of relief that she was no longer in pain.

Like many families, this one was complicated. The mother who died, a sort of matriarch of the family, was Christian, but much of her extended family was Jewish.

While the mother wanted to be buried here in Houston, the family did not have deep connections in the Bayou City. We were working on a tight timetable; first contact was on a Wednesday and the service was on Sunday. They asked it to be rooted and grounded in the ways of a basic Protestant Christian funeral, but with an openness and respect of the Jewish tradition as well, weaving in aspects of Jewish liturgy and belief.

Such events can be fraught with pitfalls, but I drew on my experience as a Christian minister, a hospital chaplain and skills drawn from my interreligious work. It also helped that the family was an absolute delight to work with and were able to articulate what they were hoping for in the funeral. It was clear that the family was well-experienced with open lines of communication about their varied religious traditions, and a good reminder that multifaith families benefit from open and honest dialogue rooted in love and respect. It made my job easier, and what we created together felt more than just a pastiche of prayers and thoughts from two faiths. It was integrated, whole and, most important, meaningful.

Fears about cultural accommodation, appropriation, syncretism and relativism abound in situations such as these. “Religions are not meant to mix.” “There is only one truth.” “It has to be one or the other.” “What you did was not right.” I have heard these concerns before, and I understand them.

What I have learned, though, is this: Religious traditions exist as sets of beliefs, dogma and rituals, but they are first and foremost lived experiences. They live and breathe and have character because they are part of people’s lives and

the connections made between people and the Divine and then the connections between individuals. These are the connections that those who are alive now have with those who have passed on before us.

Traditions are best when they are living traditions; otherwise, traditions become nothing more than bad habits. We need to listen to these connections and pay attention to them.

This family’s encounter with God in two traditions, rooted in their love and affection for each other, was the vehicle for creating a meaningful experience in the midst of death. Though they certainly did not agree on matters on belief, they agreed to love their mother and each other.

Can we agree to do the same with each other? The Rev. Gregory Han is director of interfaith relations at Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston.