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ON COMMON GROUND Guide for Teachers and Students
Ganesha Sharanam (Hindu Experience: "Ganesha, Lord of Beginnings") The Call to Prayer (Muslim Experience: "The Call to Prayer") Namaskara Mantra (Jain Experience: "Beginning with Praise") Shabbat Shalom (Jewish Experience: "Keeping Shabbat") Ek Onkar (Sikh Experience: "The Guru Granth Sahib")
Find out as much as you can about the context and meaning of these chants, recitations, or songs. Using the text document, try out singing, chanting, or reciting them yourself.
7. Passing on the Tradition: The Next Generation
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Look at the video segment from Becoming the Buddha in L.A., in the Buddhist Experience section under "Becoming a Monk" and "From Street Gangs to Temple." Here a young high school graduate becomes a Buddhist monk for the summer before heading to college. The parents of this young man and the initiating monk-like people in every religious tradition-are concerned with passing on their faith to the next generation.
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What do you think becoming a monk might mean to a young man undertaking this life for a summer or a short time?
What are some of the other rites of passage or rites of initiation that enable a young person to come of religious age?
What is the purpose of religious education programs and summer camps?
Use the Comparative Thematic Index (for example: Initiation, Summer Camps, Education) and the Issues menus to start your investigation. How do religious traditions pass on their faith and values to the next generation? How important are rites of initiation to signifying adulthood? What are the challenges and problems for young people claiming their religious tradition as adults? When do young people become "adults" in our society? Think about your own experience or that of people you know.
8. Contemporary Issues Forum
What are the issues that religious people are concerned about, discuss, and struggle with in each religious tradition today? In many of the religious traditions in the CD-ROM, you will find an Issues menu. Choose one of these religious traditions and study the issues, also using the Connections and the Comparative Thematic Index. Prepare a brief report on one or more of the issues you find interesting in the tradition you have chosen.
Present your report to your group, and discuss some of the similarities and differences in the concerns of people of different religious traditions. Are these concerns or issues distinctive to the American context? Or are they more global? Do smaller minority religious traditions seem to have concerns or issues different from those of the Christian majority?
