Despite an Amber extreme heat warning, issued this week by the Met Office, a group of Chaplains from different ethnic and national backgrounds, serving at the Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust carried out their plans to visit different places of worship in Luton.
Nelson Mandela is quoted as saying, "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that gets to his head; if you talk to him in his own language that goes to his heart". Trust Chaplain Vanessa Bradley, stated when we visit different places of worship and learn a word or two from another language or when we learn even something as simple as how to greet someone from another culture, it gives chaplains more confidence to connect with people from various cultural, religious, ethnic, or national backgrounds, not only with their heads but also with their hearts.
She added, “If we want to love our neighbour, we must know who they are; and it is much better we meet with people and let them tell us who they are and what their beliefs are, rather than we learning about them from the books or the media or the widespread stereotypes in our world.”
One of the barriers in the work of bringing people together is often understood to be the formal nature of the British society. People prefer to be introduced first, before they can talk or communicate with one another. That may well be true, but chasing the made pace of our lives, we all are getting busier, lonelier, and more stressed out due to misinformation and disinformation, spread widely by the uncontrollable social medial platforms. In such a hostile environment of mistrust and fear, it is easy to view all those who are different from us, as a threat or enemy.
It is therefore essential, said David Jonathan (Johny) that programmes like GRASSROOTS, Luton Council of Faiths (LCoF) & Near Neighbours, continue to create opportunities to bring people together so that we can understand why people are the way they are; and people can discover those different from us are not our ‘enemies’; they are our ‘allies’, because they share the same aspirations as we do and that is to be loved, to be acknowledged, to be valued and to be affirmed and to pray and work together for the peace and prosperity of all.
He added, “In our divided and wounded world, where peace and unity are threatened by the rising political fundamentalism, majoritarianism and general intolerance, if we are to be the hope, then as Martin Luther King puts it, we have no other option but to learn to live together as brothers & sisters.”
The Bedfordshire Hospitals Chaplains Day Out became even more special as the BBC Songs of Praise Team followed and covered it all. It is likely to be broadcasted on the first Sunday in September.
Bedfordshire Hospitals Chaplains listening to explanations at the Gurudwara (Sikh Temple)
One of Bedfordshire Hospitals Chaplain Patrick in conversation with a Sikh friend Mr Avtar Singh at Guru Nanak Gurudwara (Sikh Temple)
Bedfordshire Hospitals Chaplains were warmly received at Madinah Mosque on Oak Road Luton
Bedfordshire Hospitals Chaplains listening to explanations at the Lewsey Farm Hindu Mandir (Temple)