Editorial Reflections

After 80 years, our lives are a laboratory for ecumenism and unity

 

Readers of The Fig Tree are part of the 80-year legacy of the Bossey Ecumenical Institute, a residential study center that brings together groups of 30 to 60 each year at a Swiss chateau overlooking Lake Geneva and the French Alps.

In that idyllic setting, we lived, prayed, ate, walked, studied, conversed together as a community for up to six months. Despite the idyllic setting we interacted on the painful matters of the world, faiths, differences, wars, inequities, struggles, health, tragedies—every issue under the sun—are discussed.

Bossey was founded in 1946 as an international, interconfessional residential graduate study center for people to deal with the difficult questions about how to live faithfully in a fractured world.

From midnight until 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 7, I participated on Zoom in the 80th anniversary celebration of Bossey with church and civic leaders from around the world.

For eight decades, Bossey has influenced the lives and ministries of thousands of students who have gone on to serve churches, faiths, nonprofits and communities around the world. Through open, respectful study, daily encounters, dialogue and friendship, we students were transformed in this "laboratory of ecumenism," and began a pilgrimage we have continued through our lives, drawing others to walk with us to forge reconciliation and unity.

I attended Bossey in 1969 to 1970 with 60 people from 40 countries, participating in shared life, in formal and informal dialogue about our faith and how churches were engaged in the lives of people and action for social, human, civil, women's, environmental and religious rights.

I became involved with connecting Bossey alumni, and as a result, directory editor Malcolm Haworth, as a teen, and I had participated in the 50th anniversary in 1996. I started a newsletter called "Beyond Boundaries." That year, Marijke Fakasiieiki, now development and editorial associate for The Fig Tree attended the graduate theological studies before she attended Pacific School of Religion. Marijke has also been involved in connecting alumni.

Part of the legacy of my experiences at Bossey is sharing with people in the Inland Northwest through The Fig Tree community and regional stories of how churches and faith communities have an impact on the quality of life here. We also share stories from Ecumenical News International and the Communications Department of the World Council of Churches in the monthly print Fig Tree.

Few media pick up those stories, which this month included a call for studying forests around Ethiopian churches to help restore tree cover, for human rights progress at the UN and for Indigenous and youth voices to be heard at the COP 17 climate summit in Ulaanbaatar. Each month there are more stories shared at oikoumene.org than we can include.

For 43 years with The Fig Tree, I shared stories of people on a similar pilgrimage right here to build interfaith understanding, common witness, persistent action and a hopeful reality. It is a joy to share with and walk with our partners here.

Mary Stamp - Editor

Information: https://oikoumene.org/bossey