Open to all Faiths

What do you get when you take someone who was raised as a Protestant, frequently attended a Lutheran Church with his Grandmother and a Unitarian Church with his Grandfather, and then explored Buddhism in his 20’s? A Handmaker resident who likes to attend Passover Seders, Shabbat morning services, Torah Study, and a Bible Reading class!  

Garet Tencate was raised in rural Pennsylvania in the early 1960’s. He found his parents’ Congregational Church “a little too puritanical”, so when given the choice, he often joined his grandmother at a Lutheran Church service. But he really gravitated to his Grandfather’s Unitarian Church. He found the Universalist services most interesting because they were very participatory, and it seemed that almost anyone was allowed to get up and help lead the service. So it is no surprise that he now enjoys attending Shabbat morning services at Handmaker, where attendees take turns reading out of the prayer book, and can ask questions of service leaders Mel Cohen and Dan Asia (and get answers) at nearly any part in the service.  

These are not the first Shabbat services that Garet has attended. As a teen, he often spent time with his next door neighbors, who happened to be Jewish. He enjoyed hanging out at their house because he found the whole family to be really interesting to talk to, and it gave him the opportunity to attend Shabbat Services occasionally with them.   

After he became a resident of Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging's Rich Skilled Nursing Neighborhood, Garet’s intellectual and spiritual curiosity led him to check out the weekly Torah Study class led by Rabbi Howard Schwartz and Rabbi Richard Safran. He has since become a regular and active participant in the discussions at these virtual classes on Wednesday mornings. Garet joined in the Passover Seders and services last spring, High Holiday services this past fall, and has become a regular attendee of Handmaker’s Shabbat morning services, along with other residents from Handmaker’s Skilled Nursing, Assisted and Independent Living Neighborhoods. He says that he enjoys the readings, the explanations throughout the service, and the sense of community that he feels there. He thinks that his values and beliefs line up well with those of the Jewish faith, but he also still feels a strong connection to the Christian faith. In fact, most mornings he also joins a group in listening to the Bible read by fellow resident, Marylynn Layman.  

Marylynn is the head of the Resident Council in the Rich Neighborhood at Handmaker, and a former teacher, who began reading the Bible out loud with one of the other residents last spring, shortly after she moved into Handmaker. Soon other residents started listening in to their readings, including Garet. She has tried out the Shabbat morning services offered at Handmaker a few times but is more drawn to the teachings in the New Testament, and prefers to attend the Catholic Mass offered at Handmaker when she can. Her Bible reading group now meets every morning at 11am, and Garet often joins in. He says that he appreciates hearing many different ideas and perspectives, and discussing them with others. He believes that “we are all connected in a huge universe. Right now there is too much division, which makes no sense. Everyone has different ideas, none are right or wrong, and listening to others gives you a different way of looking at things.”   

Garet says that he enjoys “the mystery of finding out about” different faiths and beliefs. He thinks that there are many shared visions across religions; more similarities than differences. And he says that he really hopes that there is an intelligent design for what we are living through right now.  He is optimistic and plans to continue to learn and discuss life and faith from many different angles as long as he can. With the variety of options available at Handmaker, there is a lot of opportunity for him to do so.  

Perhaps we can gain insight from his open-minded attitude and belief that even those ideas that differ from our own may be worth listening to. And maybe, like Garet, we each have a thing or two that we can learn from one another.