Tributaries of the Same River
Toby Sims interviews Béla Ogonovsky about the way religions and belief systems can work together to engage with a shared reality.
There is a certain human experience that I believe is common to all cultures, which is sometimes called religious or transpersonal experience. In The Great Secret, the classical Persian poet Hafiz wrote: “The Beloved has gone completely Wild—He has poured Himself into me!” which I think captures it beautifully. But religious experience isn’t the sole property of religions. The famously atheistic Richard Dawkins observed: “Einstein was openly ruled by the aesthetic scientific muse: ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.’”
Bela (right) in Lourdes with his siblings July 2015
A sense of wonder, awe, and mystery are experiences which unite us; what can divide us is the language which often frames it.
Carl Jung understood that there was a new, more universal consciousness slowly emerging, and I notice that science, depth psychology, and religions are reaching outwards, like the hyphae of fungi, towards an encounter in the territory they share. It is an action involving the whole of humanity, but one carried out in a billion tiny increments.
The Hastings and Rother Interfaith Forum is a meeting place for those reaching out, and Béla Ogonovsky has been an integral part of its process.
Béla’s father was Hungarian, his mother English (she sang in the Budapest State Opera before the War). Béla came to England at the age of five, and his embracing of other faiths stems, in part, from early experiences: “I encountered prejudice at an early age. It was not necessarily evil, but ignorant: ‘Wass yer name?’ – ‘Béla.’ – ‘No yer first name.’ – ‘That IS my first name.’ – ‘Orright, wass yer second name then?’ – ‘Ogonovsky.’ – ‘Kinell! Thass a funny name.’ Well to me it was normal, but it provided prejudice, including fisticuffs.”
Béla went to a Jesuit school, where questions and debate were actively encouraged. As a Catholic, he had been luke-warm, faithfully obeying laid down rules, but questioning the validity of some of them to himself. As a young married man, he moved to South Norwood. Visiting his local priest for the first time he was told: “Ah, I need someone who lives in your area to be the community steward.”
Béla told me: “I started getting more involved in parish life and got hooked. Because I wasn’t all that devout, it was my way of ‘doing the business’. It was about the time of the First Vatican Council, and Fr John embraced reaching out to other denominations. Fr John and the parish joined Churches Together in Croydon; I felt it was Christian to reach out and took an active part. But many who weren’t actively ‘anti’ didn’t seem to want to get involved.”
Béla retired to Bexhill. “We have a mini-‘Churches Together’ in Little Common. Sometimes we look at issues that theologians struggle with. Non-Catholics can’t receive Communion in a Catholic church, but Jesus said: ‘Do this in remembrance of me.’ Would He have refused anyone who came to him – NO!
“I used to travel on pilgrimages to Lourdes with my disabled sister and stayed at Hosanna House, designed for the disabled. The local Bishop issued a general dispensation for carers to receive Communion whether they were Catholic or not. I came back on a high: I realised that being a true Christian was about being inclusive!
“At a Churches Together in Bexhill unity service in 2006, I was asked whether there might be interest in a local interfaith forum. I signed up straight away. We’ve had people of many different cultures: Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Baha’i… pagans and humanists too – but why not? We should be a group of people who share ideas and spirituality. I’m a Catholic, which is right for me, but I don’t believe others are ‘wrong’. There’s one truth but lots of ways of holding it, of seeking it. If anyone is seeking God, they’re looking to be better. God is good; God is goodness. So if you’re seeking, it’s a case of ‘seek and you shall find’ (Matthew 7:7). If you’re doing what you believe is right, you’re seeking God. Different faiths seem to me like tributaries of a single river.
“I may appear to be smug; I’m happy in my own skin. However, I’d like the Catholic Church to follow the lead of our Pope Francis. But I fear there are vested interests in the hierarchy who vehemently resist change. Christians, and all the major religions, believe that you should do as you would be done by, and if you believe in Jesus do what He would do. We are all God’s creation; surely being inclusive is what He wants of us. But the trappings of our religions can be such a hindrance.”
• Find out more about Hastings and Rother Interfaith Forum at hastingsandrotherinterfaith.com. Toby Sims is an independentfuneral celebrant, check out his services at tobysims.net.
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