A Conversation with Rev. Greg McGonigle

Brian Green

Dean McGonigle, thank you so much for being with me today!

Gregory McGonigle

Thank you so much, Brian. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Brian Green

To get started would you tell us about your background, especially your interfaith and multifaith work? How did you get to where you are now?

Gregory McGonigle

Well, Brian, I grew up in Boston in a Catholic family in which faith and education were two of our highest values. Growing up, I always felt drawn to spirituality and I was very involved in church. In high school, I decided I wanted to study religion in school so I went to a religious school and started studying the Bible more closely, which opened up many questions for me. At the same time, in literature courses, I was studying the New England Transcendentalists, and I was drawn to many of their ideas—of connecting directly with God, connecting with God through nature, learning insights from the world’s religions, and progressive principles of social justice.

When I got to college, I decided to study world religions and I also found a Unitarian church, which became my spiritual home. I was also involved in my university’s chaplain’s office, and with friends we realized that although there was religious diversity, there were not interfaith spaces. So we founded an interfaith council. I went on to graduate school for religious studies, and my first week of school September 11, 2001 happened. At that point, I decided to dedicate myself to promoting interreligious understanding and positive engagement between the world’s faiths.

Since then I have served at UC Davis, Oberlin, Tufts, and now Emory, with a consistent focus on supporting religious diversity and expanding opportunities for interfaith learning and engagement. I’ve been so blessed by the many friends and fellow travelers of all faiths I have gotten to know.

Brian Green

It's interesting that you mentioned the Transcendentalists, who along with the religious traditions you mentioned valued solitude and contemplation as well as times of “gathering together.” Recently, due to COVID, we've found ourselves caught in this tension between gathering and solitude in a different way. How has the work of the Office of Spiritual and Religious Life at Emory dealt with COVID and how do you see that work continuing?

Gregory McGonigle

Well, all religious traditions have elements of both community and times for being in solitude and contemplation. But I think the most natural way for most religions “being” is being together, being in community. Even the word “religion” means “to bind together.”

COVID has been an unnatural time for religious life at Emory and more broadly. Many congregations moved their rituals and practices online where that is possible. When this first happened back in the spring, we realized we needed to think about doing spiritual life in a totally different way. Not just at Emory, but at many universities we were in conversation with, the most natural way of doing religious life is bringing people together and doing things in person—and that's just not the safest way to be with one another right now. The question is, how do we start to translate the principles of what we do into this new way of being that we're in?

We quickly moved what we could in terms of our gatherings and programming online last spring and now we have something like 40 different meetings that happen every week online connected with our office. There's a list of those on our website under “weekly gatherings” where you can see all the different times and services live streamed. Initially, we noticed good attendance and even an uptick in attendance at some events--for some it's easier to log on than it might be to get out of the house and go somewhere else to practice.

It's also been a time for interfaith exploration, because there is the opportunity to more easily visit a faith tradition or community that isn't your own. So there have been those positive elements, even though it's not our usual way of coming together and is probably not the most ideal way.

Some of the other things we did included designating chaplains to different residence halls for students who are on campus, and we provide chaplaincy support to the isolation and quarantine center.

We've also done some additional programs specific to COVID. We sponsored a Healing through Arts program which encouraged members of the community to create artwork reflecting on the several pandemics that we've faced through COVID, racial injustice, and even a very divided election season in the United States. We've done some additional online community gatherings and vigils. We cooperatively held a vigil around racial justice in June that had something like 2200 participants logging on from our current community and alumni—many more than we could have had in Cannon Chapel.

So, in some ways it's been a time for expansion and doing new things, even though I think all of us are looking forward to the time when we can be together in person again.

Brian Green

Well, one of the times when we normally come together is the Thanksgiving holiday—and so I want to talk to you about the concept of gratitude.

Gratitude is one of those things that we may know when we feel it, we may think we know it when we see it, but sometimes when we start to talk about it can seem trite or simplistic. Could you talk about what gratitude is in your view?

Gregory McGonigle

I appreciate your bringing this up; I think it's important, especially this year, to think about gratitude. So many people have been through so much suffering with what's been going on in people's own lives and with instability around health, finances, and circumstances in the world. It might be easy to think, “well, how can we give thanks in this time, how can we be grateful in this time?” But, I've heard many people say that we need Thanksgiving and gratitude more this year maybe than ever, in part because of the hard times that so many have experienced.

I read something interesting recently that talked about the fact that it's not possible for us to hold anxiety and gratitude at the same time in our brains—they’re such different emotions. I think it's why in positive psychology there's a recommendation to make lists of things that we're grateful for and to start the day or end the day that way because it puts us in a different frame of mind.

For religious traditions for thousands of years, gratitude has been a deeply important virtue and value. For theistic traditions, it’s the idea of gratitude to God as creator or the foundation of being that makes life possible. In traditions that are not theistic--for instance, in Buddhism—part of the suffering we experience is because we're always desiring for things to be different from how they are, or we want more of what we see as “good.” The Buddha's teaching is that we cannot be both greedy and grateful at the same time; they are really different ways of being. By cultivating gratitude, we get away from this idea that we constantly need to be thirsting or striving for things to be different.

It's a kind of an orientation toward life--it's easy to be grateful for the things going well in our lives. I think the most challenging part that many spiritual traditions teach is to try to cultivate gratitude with whatever comes and an openness to it as a spiritual viewpoint that is with us even in the ups and downs of life. I think that that's what can be cultivated in community, through holidays like Thanksgiving and through different practices.

Brian Green

It’s interesting that many of the anxieties that you mentioned are fundamentally anxieties about how we're all interrelated and interconnected with one another. It's questions like, “if I go and see someone I love, am I putting them at risk?” We’re worried about the spread of a disease, worried about decisions that impact how do we decide what to do versus whether or not someone can make a living.

And then gratitude at the end of the day is also about interdependence, right? It's about recognizing the gift of each other even when that may be very difficult to do.

Gregory McGonigle

I might say for myself as a Unitarian Universalist, the idea of all life being connected is one of our deep foundational principles. The idea of respect for the dignity of every person and that all life is interconnected are two of our deepest touchstones.

Interdependence is one of those challenges of spiritual practice. Interdependence with all life means that we're connected with the good and the bad; we're connected with the pleasant and the unpleasant.

But that's all part of our experience. There's a sense of gratitude that can also mean appreciation and noticing. So, taking the time to step back and see the interconnections between things.

I remember one meditation that is done in some communities where you take any one object and you think about the things that are necessary for that object to “be.” First you think about the things that constitute it. Then you realize that you're a part of it too—and we realize we're really connected to everything and to everyone else.

For me, this inspires a sense of wonder and awe that is also really close to gratitude as well. It's probably a bit of a mystery, but I think that the fact that our spiritual traditions have taught that it is such an important value and virtue for so long probably indicates that there's something about an orientation of gratitude to the world and to our lives that is not only fundamental but really beneficial for our being and for our having a sense of peace with ourselves and with one another.

Brian Green

You mention peace—in the Ombuds office, we tend to focus on conflict, which is also about interconnectedness. You mentioned being interconnected with both the good and the bad. Most people conflict with something or someone because they're in some way dependent on that thing or person. Do you think gratitude has a role in how we experience and approach conflict?

Gregory McGonigle

I think it’s probably where the rubber meets the road in terms of gratitude. It is in times of conflict and challenge that it can be most difficult to experience gratitude. What our spiritual traditions teach is that there is a larger context to many of the conflicts that we experience. I think about the elections in the United States and the kind of division and conflict that we are experiencing as a society right now. I think for many people, and maybe myself included, focusing on the conflict itself can make us really discouraged about where we are as a society where we are in our human relations--why don't we ever learn and why don't we seem to move forward? Spiritual wisdom and spiritual thought that reorient our perspective toward life and encourage us to see community in a larger frame with that sense of gratitude can invite a different way of approaching the kinds of conflicts and divisions that we're in.

I think that for certain kinds of conflicts, the timeframe for really appreciating what the conflict might teach us, or how we might grow, or how they might lead to growth for others, might be much longer.

But I do think the opportunity to stand back to reflect and maybe experience gratitude, that sense of appreciation and of awareness, can create a different way of looking at things.

Brian Green

As you know, we're heading now into this Thanksgiving holiday which is going to have a lot of challenges. I know a lot of people are struggling with some of the things we talked about earlier about getting together in smaller groups, dealing with differences between people who in our immediate circles around COVID or other things. Can you offer us some wisdom about how we can stay grounded and thankful as we go into next week?

Gregory McGonigle

That's a great question. I think many of us look forward to the holidays as opportunities to celebrate and see people that we love, maybe enjoy some food that we love, and go places that we love. This year it is looking different for many people. We’re needing to be creative and find different ways of navigating the holidays. And it’s important to be honest about the fact that it brings about a certain amount of stress. Sometimes the holidays are also stressful. Some of the stress comes from maybe relationships where we're not as close or things are not as we wish that they would be. I think it's very important, maybe more so this year, to take the opportunity to get in touch with oneself and really think about how am I entering into this holiday this year.

Thanksgiving from an interfaith perspective is a holiday that so many people come together on. There are often interfaith celebrations and gatherings that happen around Thanksgiving that probably won't happen this year, or are not happening the same way, and there'll be a kind of loss. But maybe there's something from Thanksgivings past and some of the lessons and gratitude that we can bring into this moment. In fact, maybe the ways that things are different right now inspires a kind of appreciation for what we really value.

I do think the COVID time has been a time of real introspection and reflection for many of us, a time for thinking about what is most important—is it family, is it friends, careers, service to the community—and I'm noticing many people doing that reflection on a deeper level. So it may be that having a different experience around Thanksgiving this year allows us the space to have a more reflective and even transformative experience of what Thanksgiving actually is.

Brian Green

What is something that you're thankful for right now?

Gregory McGonigle

There are a lot of things I'm really thankful for--I'm thankful to have been mostly healthy during this time. Thankful for all those who are trying to make sure that all of us are healthy, our healthcare workers and those who have been responding to this pandemic. I am thankful for my family and friends, great colleagues, and people who inspire me. As I think over the past year, we've lost a lot of people who are heroes and activists for social justice and leadership—but I'm thankful for the example of their lives, and I'm also thankful to see a new generation of leaders and inspiration coming forward. Honestly, I'm grateful for being part of the Emory community, because it really seems that Emory has been a center for responding to what's going on in our society in terms of health and in terms of civic life. So, I'm really grateful to be here in this community and hopefully to contribute in some ways to that.

Brian Green

Well I, and I'm sure the entire community, are very grateful for you and for your work and the work of the Office of Spiritual and Religious Life, but especially I'm thankful for your willingness to talk with me today. Thank you very much.

Gregory McGonigle

It’s a pleasure. Thank you so much, Brian. We are grateful for your work and that of the Office of the Ombuds as well. And I wish a happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Brian Green

Happy Thanksgiving to you. Take care!