Sunday was Laylat al Qadr, the night observed during Ramadan as the anniversary of Allah revealing the first verses of the Koran to Mohammed -- but I don't remember this being mentioned at the progressive Muslim group's iftar I attended.
The iftar was held in a suburban townhouse in Virginia, where I arrived with my potluck offering of steamed green beans and peppers, along with a fellow I'll call BD, who picked me up in his SUV at the Metro. We arrived a few minutes late, and the religious roundtable had already begun in the living room off the foyer. I put my bags down and quickly shook hands with a couple of men who were watching the Redskins game off the other side of the foyer on the largest television I have ever seen in my life, before pulling a chair into the circle in the living room.
The group was in the midst of going around the circle explaining what Ramadan had meant to each of them this year. As I sat down, a woman who had converted to Islam four years ago was explaining how she often brings food to her colleagues in her office, and that this year, during Ramadan, she asked for donations for the food, and would be applying those donations toward feeding the poor.
Others talked about working harder this year to make it a priority to pray with their family, about feeling closer to God during Ramadan, or about their realizations about certain aspects of their faith -- such as how Allah has planned the Fajr well, making it the shortest prayer of the daily five, so it's easy to get up and do it quickly, and go back to bed, if you want to. One man shared that his new workplace is closer to a mosque than he’s ever before, so he's been able to pray with a community more often during the week. One woman shared that her work to coordinate holiday events for others had distracted from her own observance of Ramadan.
On my turn, I shared versions of thoughts that I've already written in this blog, including the note that -- while it might seem more pagan than Muslim -- Ramadan had connected me to the rhythms of the natural world, through paying attention to each day's sun-up and sunset, and through my initial sighting of the moon that had set the holiday in motion. The leader of the group, a convert from Christianity whom I'll call Richard, piped up to say that Islam is a "natural religion" and that noticing the sun and moon is part of it, "as long as you don't start to worship the sun – worshipping created things, instead of the Creator!"
I noted that this statement echoes almost word-for-word some instructions given by Paul to Christians in the book of Romans, and that led to a short discussion of Islamic/Christian overlaps. Richard then reminded the group that he had converted to Islam shortly after September 11, 2001, while he was a Christian Marine researching Islam in order to debunk it. A gregarious man with a loud voice, big smile and a lot to say, Richard delivered his punchline: "I picked up the Koran wanting to prove it wrong... And instead it proved ME wrong!"
Next, a woman spoke who had found her Ramadan to be difficult. She found that she couldn't eat after the fast, she said, because her "stomach shut down," so then she would be unable to fast the next day due to hunger. She would eat like normal that day, and then try fasting the day after that, and the cycle would begin again. She seemed somewhat ashamed of her failure to fast, and the group was instantly very supportive, offering Islam-sanctioned alternatives, such as feeding iftar to others who are fasting, or feeding the poor. There was lively discussion about what alternatives are acceptable, with group members deferring to an agreed-up on expert in the room, a woman I'll call Alia, who went on the Hajj last year.
Alia explained a complicated bartering system of equivalent actions that can cover for a day of breaking the fast, or multiply the days that you did fast, and so on, which I could not retain well enough to repeat. There was some laughter from the group about some of the barters, and Alia explained that "When you hear it explained in English it sounds like a point system, but in Arabic the word for it is 'reward.' It's a system for setting up your reward."
(This resonated with something I recently read regarding Islam. I read that once the Ramadan fast is over, if you fast for six days in the following month as well -- though there is debate about whether the days must be consecutive -- Allah will credit you with having fasted for an entire year. Knowing that the Yom Kippur fast is coming up next week, and that fasting can be appropriate for the Hindu holiday of Navaratri that starts tomorrow, I figure I will get some fasting in during October that may count for three different religions at once!)
Soon, it was sunset, and the dates were passed around before prayers were held in the basement. I volunteered to be on childcare duty upstairs with a couple of others who weren't praying, and once the group downstairs had returned, we all broke our fast, in the most convivial atmosphere I'd experienced yet for iftar.
Over dinner, people seemed more eager and willing to discuss religion than at the previous week's iftar, so I asked Alia about her trip to Mecca. She talked about what it was like to worship with millions of people at once, and how in Saudi Arabia, when the call to prayer is sounded, people stop in their tracks and pray. She found the experience very moving, and while telling about it, she made mention that men and women pray together when the masses have gathered for the Hajj. I wondered aloud if this practice might sometime spread and become normative, if worshippers see that it is okay to mix the genders during such an important occasion as the Hajj. "I hope so," said Alia, and then she asked me when I had converted to Islam.
This was the most common question that others asked me at the iftar, and though Tish -- the hostess who invited me – had been very supportive when I clearly communicated that I am not involved in a conversion process, but in an exploration process, I found that the reactions I received at the iftar were definitely mixed, with some people registering a sort of "what are you doing here" look. Alia was not one of those, and she proceeded to ask me more questions about what I have been reading and doing, and how Ramadan has affected me.
I mentioned visiting mosques, both the primary Islamic Cultural Center, and the Ahmadiyya mosque. Alia raised her eyebrows at the mention of the Ahmadis. She listed off some of the Ahmadi beliefs, and then, referring to herself as a traditional Muslim, stated: “The Ahmadis don't think we are real Muslims."
We talked more about what the Ahmadis believe, and Alia echoed some negative sentiments I had already heard from BD in the car. "They believe that there were more prophets after Mohammed," said Alia. "But Mohammed was the last one. How can you believe there are more?"
Not having the same perspective on this issue as Alia, I mostly just nodded and asked her questions to learn more. When she got up to retrieve some more food, the woman who had been sitting next to her -- and whose name I did not catch -- leaned in to comment on my visits to mosques.
She was young and pretty and wearing a low-cut blue tunic with black leggings. She reminded me in appearance of a friend of mine with whom I waited tables years ago. She started out smiling.
"Are you going to get serious about becoming Muslim?” she asked me, her smile fading quickly into a scolding face. “Because you can't just go to any mosque you want to like some kind of religious tourist. Those people are there to pray."
She took issue with the beard I’m currently wearing, but I didn’t follow her implications of why it is offensive. She got up and walked away without giving me a chance for questions or a response, which both interested me and troubled me. I am sad that I somehow gave this woman the impression that I do not have good intentions. She avoided me for the rest of the night, so I had no further chance to ask about her thoughts. If I assume good intentions on her part, then I must accept that she felt a responsibility to protect the sanctity of other Muslims' houses of worship.
The evening went on, and I alternated between non-religious conversations and conversations beginning with the ubiquitous "When did you convert?" question. Eventually, I ended up deep in conversation with a man I'll call Basim on the topic of renewable energy and climate change. It was the friendliest and best conversation of the evening. We covered energy efficiency, solar gadgets, phytoplankton blooms as carbon sinks, tidal power, and more. Inevitably, Basim also found his way to the question: "When did you convert?"
He seemed unbothered by my explanation of exploration, and was eager to tell me teach me things he assumed I would not know – such as the existence of splinter sects with divergent beliefs.
"For example,” he said, “I belong to one of those other groups. I am Ahmadi.”
"Oh, yes, I know about Ahmadis," I replied. "I've been to an Ahmadiyya mosque. It was an accident; it's just the closest mosque to my work. I didn't even know Ahmadis existed until a few weeks ago."
Basim was smiling and delighted and twittering in that way people do when they want to tell you everything about a new topic.
He started in on explaining that Ahmadis “… believe that Jesus survived the cross and ..."
"... went on to die of old age in Punjab," I finished.
"Yeah!" said Basim. "And we also believe that Jesus' second coming was fulfilled by ... "
" ... Mizra Ghulam Ahmad, who was also the Mahdi," I finished.
"Oh my!" Basim exclaimed.
I was worried that I was being snotty by showing that I had done my homework on the Ahmadis, but Basim seemed clearly pleased that a random non-Muslim white boy would know something about his religion. He was familiar, of course, with the mosque I'd attended near my work, and the two of us talked for awhile about the book the imam had given me there. Basim's wife was getting ready to go, so eventually we had to cut our conversation short, but not before he explained why he was so happy to meet somebody who had been to an Ahmadiyya mosque.
"You see, there are all kinds of Muslims in the world," he said. "But mainstream Muslims, they reject us. They say we are not real Muslims."
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Ramadan, part nine (Fajr)
On Friday night, after Dhuhur with the Ahmadis, and an afternoon and evening finishing work in my office, I gobbled some leftovers out of Tupperware to break the fast, and then headed off to a wine bar for a drink with kind of a blind date. We had a pleasant enough time, like so many first dates, but also no chemistry. He seemed too posh for me, too workaholic, and too hobby-free – a really friendly and sweet-tempered fellow, but probably better for somebody else.
As always with a new date, I inevitably quizzed him on religion, which I swear I don't do on purpose; it just always seems to come up. He had been raised in London by his London-born father and Portuguese mother as a Catholic, he said, though he no longer practices a religion. "I believe in doing good things," he said at one point. At another point, when he made a reference to "my faith," I said, "You mean your faith in doing good things," and he said, "Yes. I mean, no. I mean my faith in myself. In my own discipline."
On Saturday morning, I finally had the discipline to leave home for Fajr, early-early in the morning, and go pray in the huge, mainstream mosque on Embassy Row. I set my alarm for 4:15AM (noting that I was not yet in bed yet the previous weekend of the Equinamadan party...) and awoke to the sounds of both clock-radio-NPR and a pouring thunderstorm. I got up anyway and took a shower, ate a few spoonfuls of fruity tofu mix from the fridge, and dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. I chose my Tevas for footwear, thinking they would be easy-off at the mosque, and that even if my jeans were sticking to me, I wouldn't have to deal with wet socks. The Koran in my backpack I wrapped in a plastic bag along with my cellphone. I put a bandanna in my pocket in case I might need a head-covering, and I pulled on my rain jacket before wheeling my bicycle out through the lobby of my building.
I've lived in DC for seven years, and it struck me that I have never gone biking around the city at 5AM. It seemed like another small, um, hmmm... the word I seem to want to use here is "blessing," but that seems so loaded, and so not like a word I would use... I'll just call it another "pleasant experience" you can derive from stepping out of your typical perspective to see how the mechanics of another religion might work in other people's lives -- or in a different version of your own life.
There were other bikers on the mostly car-free streets, but not many. I wondered if they were up early, going to work perhaps, or coming home after a long night. Most lights in the big, expensive houses between my apartment building and the mosque were off; those that were on made me curious. In one house a man sat in an easy chair in his living room reading a book under a bright lamp, with the curtains of his picture window fully open to the dark morning.
When I turned the corner onto Belmont St., I could see the gold-glassed cut-outs glowing on the side of the mosque from the light inside. Through a gap in two stone walls, I could see men chatting on the rain-slick but mostly covered front courtyard. The tableau made me feel warm and less miserable from the rain and excited to go inside. I locked my bike to a stop sign and walked in through the front gate.
Past the courtyard, but before the entrance to the mosque itself, sits a bank of cubbyholes for shoes. I put my Tevas in a cubby and my backpack and helmet on top. Walking in, I saw maybe 30 men and a few boys. Most were bareheaded, so I left my bandanna where it was, poking out of my pocket.
Low bookshelves partially lined the side walls of the large, cavernous room. Square marble columns supported the domes of the roof, and the walls and roof were inlaid with intricate mostly blue and black and gold Middle-Eastern designs. On the floor sat many overlapping woven carpets. Several men lay on the floor sleeping, and several others sat reading Arabic copies of the Koran from the bookshelves. Taking note, I started back toward the door to retrieve my English copy from my backpack (I tend to read it with a red pen in hand -- making notes -- but decided I should forego that for now), when I noticed the large, rectangular digital clock at the front of the mosque. It read 5:23. The Islamic Center's Web site had told me that prayers would begin at 5:24 (the times change everyday based on a formula I don't yet understand), so I decided to do without the Koran, and sat down next to a square column.
A stout, bearded, bareheaded imam in a floor-length, banded-collar white tunic stepped up to a microphone with his back to us and said a few words in Arabic, before allowing the group to proceed with prayers, each man at his own pace, much like the beginning of Dhuhur on Friday with the Ahmadis. The pacing is different for each prayer of the day, so I followed the movements of a good-looking, barefoot young Arab guy in a grey T-shirt and black jeans who stood in front of me and to my right.
Afterward, he sat back on his heels, looking up something on his Blackberry. He showed whatever he had found to the man next to him, and then went back to reading the printed Koran. For several minutes, the room was very quiet, reminiscent of Quaker meeting. I might even successfully have blanked my mind for a couple of seconds. But men continued to enter the mosque, and many of them began to talk with each other, some in English, some in Arabic, some in other languages. I found the continual increasing of the low murmuring to be very distracting and I began to wish I had brought my Koran in after all, so I'd have something on which to focus my mind. Growing impatient and peevish and bored, I just let my eyeballs roam, and watched the men as they entered and prayed and then sat and waited -- or started running their mouths. I kept one eye on the big red numbers of the digital clock. Around 5:50, the imam approached the microphone again, and all the men -- who had been spread randomly around the entire room -- rushed to the front to form three tight rows. We were maybe 150 men altogether.
I had been to this mosque once before. It was in the afternoon, four years ago, and the mosque had been very, very crowded. I thought we had been praying so close together because of the crowding, but after the Ahmadis had pulled me toward them into a tight row of three on my first visit, and after joining the rush to form the three cramped rows on Saturday, I understood that this is how it's done.
Nobody bothered to wake a sleeping boy in the middle of it all, and I almost ended up standing right next to him, which flustered me, so I hopped out of formation and went to the end of my line on the far left. There, a young black man stepped directly to my left -- the new end of the line -- and he squashed his muscular bicep into mine and slid his bare right foot flush against my left. Instinctively, like a subway passenger, I pulled my foot away. He pushed his closer, touching me again, and turned to give me an ever-so-slightly irritated look. I left us positioned as we were, and an imam led us through our Fajr prayers.
When we were finished, several men, including the good-looking guy in the grey T-shirt, continued with a few more cycles on their own, so I did too, before grabbing my sandals and backpack, and pedaling back to my neighborhood for a nice breakfast at the all-night diner around the corner.
As I cycled back past the front of the mosque through the slackened rain, my headlamp illuminated the mist and shone upon the headscarf of a woman who was walking out the front gate with a man. Of course, I had seen no women while I was inside.
As always with a new date, I inevitably quizzed him on religion, which I swear I don't do on purpose; it just always seems to come up. He had been raised in London by his London-born father and Portuguese mother as a Catholic, he said, though he no longer practices a religion. "I believe in doing good things," he said at one point. At another point, when he made a reference to "my faith," I said, "You mean your faith in doing good things," and he said, "Yes. I mean, no. I mean my faith in myself. In my own discipline."
On Saturday morning, I finally had the discipline to leave home for Fajr, early-early in the morning, and go pray in the huge, mainstream mosque on Embassy Row. I set my alarm for 4:15AM (noting that I was not yet in bed yet the previous weekend of the Equinamadan party...) and awoke to the sounds of both clock-radio-NPR and a pouring thunderstorm. I got up anyway and took a shower, ate a few spoonfuls of fruity tofu mix from the fridge, and dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. I chose my Tevas for footwear, thinking they would be easy-off at the mosque, and that even if my jeans were sticking to me, I wouldn't have to deal with wet socks. The Koran in my backpack I wrapped in a plastic bag along with my cellphone. I put a bandanna in my pocket in case I might need a head-covering, and I pulled on my rain jacket before wheeling my bicycle out through the lobby of my building.
I've lived in DC for seven years, and it struck me that I have never gone biking around the city at 5AM. It seemed like another small, um, hmmm... the word I seem to want to use here is "blessing," but that seems so loaded, and so not like a word I would use... I'll just call it another "pleasant experience" you can derive from stepping out of your typical perspective to see how the mechanics of another religion might work in other people's lives -- or in a different version of your own life.
There were other bikers on the mostly car-free streets, but not many. I wondered if they were up early, going to work perhaps, or coming home after a long night. Most lights in the big, expensive houses between my apartment building and the mosque were off; those that were on made me curious. In one house a man sat in an easy chair in his living room reading a book under a bright lamp, with the curtains of his picture window fully open to the dark morning.
When I turned the corner onto Belmont St., I could see the gold-glassed cut-outs glowing on the side of the mosque from the light inside. Through a gap in two stone walls, I could see men chatting on the rain-slick but mostly covered front courtyard. The tableau made me feel warm and less miserable from the rain and excited to go inside. I locked my bike to a stop sign and walked in through the front gate.
Past the courtyard, but before the entrance to the mosque itself, sits a bank of cubbyholes for shoes. I put my Tevas in a cubby and my backpack and helmet on top. Walking in, I saw maybe 30 men and a few boys. Most were bareheaded, so I left my bandanna where it was, poking out of my pocket.
Low bookshelves partially lined the side walls of the large, cavernous room. Square marble columns supported the domes of the roof, and the walls and roof were inlaid with intricate mostly blue and black and gold Middle-Eastern designs. On the floor sat many overlapping woven carpets. Several men lay on the floor sleeping, and several others sat reading Arabic copies of the Koran from the bookshelves. Taking note, I started back toward the door to retrieve my English copy from my backpack (I tend to read it with a red pen in hand -- making notes -- but decided I should forego that for now), when I noticed the large, rectangular digital clock at the front of the mosque. It read 5:23. The Islamic Center's Web site had told me that prayers would begin at 5:24 (the times change everyday based on a formula I don't yet understand), so I decided to do without the Koran, and sat down next to a square column.
A stout, bearded, bareheaded imam in a floor-length, banded-collar white tunic stepped up to a microphone with his back to us and said a few words in Arabic, before allowing the group to proceed with prayers, each man at his own pace, much like the beginning of Dhuhur on Friday with the Ahmadis. The pacing is different for each prayer of the day, so I followed the movements of a good-looking, barefoot young Arab guy in a grey T-shirt and black jeans who stood in front of me and to my right.
Afterward, he sat back on his heels, looking up something on his Blackberry. He showed whatever he had found to the man next to him, and then went back to reading the printed Koran. For several minutes, the room was very quiet, reminiscent of Quaker meeting. I might even successfully have blanked my mind for a couple of seconds. But men continued to enter the mosque, and many of them began to talk with each other, some in English, some in Arabic, some in other languages. I found the continual increasing of the low murmuring to be very distracting and I began to wish I had brought my Koran in after all, so I'd have something on which to focus my mind. Growing impatient and peevish and bored, I just let my eyeballs roam, and watched the men as they entered and prayed and then sat and waited -- or started running their mouths. I kept one eye on the big red numbers of the digital clock. Around 5:50, the imam approached the microphone again, and all the men -- who had been spread randomly around the entire room -- rushed to the front to form three tight rows. We were maybe 150 men altogether.
I had been to this mosque once before. It was in the afternoon, four years ago, and the mosque had been very, very crowded. I thought we had been praying so close together because of the crowding, but after the Ahmadis had pulled me toward them into a tight row of three on my first visit, and after joining the rush to form the three cramped rows on Saturday, I understood that this is how it's done.
Nobody bothered to wake a sleeping boy in the middle of it all, and I almost ended up standing right next to him, which flustered me, so I hopped out of formation and went to the end of my line on the far left. There, a young black man stepped directly to my left -- the new end of the line -- and he squashed his muscular bicep into mine and slid his bare right foot flush against my left. Instinctively, like a subway passenger, I pulled my foot away. He pushed his closer, touching me again, and turned to give me an ever-so-slightly irritated look. I left us positioned as we were, and an imam led us through our Fajr prayers.
When we were finished, several men, including the good-looking guy in the grey T-shirt, continued with a few more cycles on their own, so I did too, before grabbing my sandals and backpack, and pedaling back to my neighborhood for a nice breakfast at the all-night diner around the corner.
As I cycled back past the front of the mosque through the slackened rain, my headlamp illuminated the mist and shone upon the headscarf of a woman who was walking out the front gate with a man. Of course, I had seen no women while I was inside.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Ramadan, part eight (Thank you, Alanis)
So, it's Friday again, and this week I slipped away for the Dhuhur prayer at the Ahmadiyya mosque that is walking distance to my office. Dhuhur is the midday prayer, held around 1:15, and I got there early, so I walked around the block listening to my iPod before going inside.
I can't say I've been doing such a good job at the prayer portion of Ramadan. I've often substituted yoga, of course, but only for the Fajr -- not for any of the other of the five prayers. I started washing at prayer time, based on my friend's suggestion, but I have not followed through every single time. Even at the prayer-times when I have washed, I do not have a specific focus other than my own body, in combination with the random thoughts that are in my head.
Having read through various versions of appropriate prayers for the five times of day, I haven't found any that inspired me so much as to memorize them. I do not know the phonetics of any Arabic prayers, and the English translations I have read seem -- to my mind -- to be repeating very similar praises to Allah ("glory to my nourisher," "praise to the most affectionate," "you deserve all veneration," etc.) again and again.
If I'm not wrong, most of the prayers can be boiled down to: 1) thanks and praise to Allah (with some nods to Mohammed and Abraham) , and 2) a request for guidance along the right path. The positive thoughts about guidance I understand, or can translate into something that I understand; the praise of Allah seems far too vague. If I have not felt a personal relationship with a god-figure since I was a teenager, then who is Allah to me?
Today, as I walked toward the mosque, I dialed my iPod toward a playlist of songs that seemed appropriate for walking toward worship. The first that played was a version of "Amazing Grace" by Tori Amos, followed by "World Falls" by the Indigo Girls, followed by "Thank You" by Alanis Morissette. It was this third song that caught my attention. The chorus of this song goes like this:
I rounded the corner to the mosque while winding my iPod cord around itself, and fell into step behind three women in traditional Muslim dress -- full headscarves and flowing dresses. One of them pushed a baby in a stroller. They walked slower than me, but took up the entire sidewalk, so I slowed down, rather than rush pass them. A few paces before what I knew to be the steps up to the mosque, they turned abruptly and walked up a much narrower set of cracked and broken steps, one of them lifting the baby stroller up onto the top. They were walking toward a back entrance to the same house where I would enter by the front. I continued down the main sidewalk, and then I -- an atheist and a homosexual and no kind of Muslim at all, but a man nonetheless -- walked up the main steps and in through the front door.
Whereas last week when I came for Asr prayers there were only four of us, this week the front rooms of the house were already nearly full. Prayer mats sat rolled out on the floor of the foyer, a room toward the back of the foyer that had been dark on my previous visit was full of men, and there was red tape on the floor of the front room (the one I'd been in before) delineating the rows where the men should stand to pray.
I removed my shoes by the door and took a place on one of the red lines in the front room.
The prayers began shortly, and I was surprised to discover that nobody was leading them. Each man went at his own pace. Since I am unskilled at performing salat, I followed the movements of the man in front of me. Stand up, "Thank you, India." Hands on knees, "Thank you, terror." Forehead to ground, "Thank you, disillusionment." Sit back on heels, "Thank you, frailty." Stand up again, "Thank you, consequence." And so on.
Partway through, I thought of discarding India from the list and focusing on the abstractions, since I have never been to India, and can't really relate. And yet, I had to smile at the coincidence that occurred to me: Ahmadiyya Muslims are a splinter group. Their movement originated in Punjab, India, at the end of the 19th century. Not all mainstream Muslims consider Ahmadis true Muslims because of their beliefs about what happened to Jesus (he survived the cross and traveled to India), the existence of prophets beyond Mohammed, and other differences. So, yes, I thought, I will thank India for this afternoon's worship experience.
After the prayers were over, a man (not Zaki -- this man was older, with a gray beard and Hamid-Karzai-style hat) stood to deliver a short sermon. (Most men did wear prayer hats, by the way. Many wore pillbox-shaped hats, which I find attractive and fashionable, though I do not know their correct name. Others wore smaller, flatter hats resembling kippot, but larger. One man wore a large scarf, and some of the younger men wore baseball caps, do-rags, or went bare-headed. One very old man, who had been offered a chair, but elected to move slowly through the prayer poses, was also bare-headed.)
The sermon was bland and simple and fairly sweet. I could have easily translated it into "Christian" by substituting a few key words in the speaker's text ("Sunday" for "Friday," "God" for "Allah," etc.), and by eliminating the references to Mohammed, peace be upon him (as well as to the "Messiah of our age," a reference to the founder of the Ahmadi movement).
The speaker encouraged us all to change our lives for the better during Ramadan and to make the change stick. We were encouraged to pray and to give alms to the poor. We were reminded that the focus on Allah in the mosque should extend throughout the week, and that we should be good representatives of our faith at all times, not just on Fridays. "Love for all, hatred for none," should be our guiding principle, the speaker said. The end of the sermon was followed by a prayer request for someone's elderly aunt, who had recently arrived from Pakistan to receive medical care for a grave illness. It was all so reminiscent of a church service in my youth that I felt moved by what for a moment felt like a universality of religious practice.
After this, we prayed again in Muslim style (back to specificity of religious practice), only this time the prayers were led in unison by the gray-bearded speaker who stepped into the foyer and spoke into a clip-on microphone connected to speakers in the other two rooms.
When the service was over, we each greeted those around us, and the gray-bearded leader singled me out as a visitor, stepping over to greet me and invite me to the mosque's Saturday and Sunday iftars. I have iftar plans in the suburbs again on Sunday, and social plans with non-observers on Saturday, though I am tempted to break them to attend the Ahmadiyya iftar.
The gray-bearded leader's welcome felt very sincere, and after I stepped out onto the porch, and sat on the railing to tie my shoes, each of the men who walked out of the mosque past me paused to introduce himself and thank me for coming.
As I walked back down the steps, I put my iPod buds into my ears, and dialed around for one of Alanis Morissette's other songs: "You Learn" from her first album. I'm not a fan of hers, per se, but she has some songs that I like, and her lyrical structure for some songs seems to mimic a style of repetitive prayer. "Thank You" is one of those songs, "You Learn" is one of those songs, and "Excuses," from her fourth album, is one of those songs as well.
It occurred to me that if I were compiling my own modern-day holy book that I might collect these three particular songs together under one heading -- Prayers from the Book of Alanis. Is Alanis Morissette inspired by God? Who am I to say that she is not?
I can't say I've been doing such a good job at the prayer portion of Ramadan. I've often substituted yoga, of course, but only for the Fajr -- not for any of the other of the five prayers. I started washing at prayer time, based on my friend's suggestion, but I have not followed through every single time. Even at the prayer-times when I have washed, I do not have a specific focus other than my own body, in combination with the random thoughts that are in my head.
Having read through various versions of appropriate prayers for the five times of day, I haven't found any that inspired me so much as to memorize them. I do not know the phonetics of any Arabic prayers, and the English translations I have read seem -- to my mind -- to be repeating very similar praises to Allah ("glory to my nourisher," "praise to the most affectionate," "you deserve all veneration," etc.) again and again.
If I'm not wrong, most of the prayers can be boiled down to: 1) thanks and praise to Allah (with some nods to Mohammed and Abraham) , and 2) a request for guidance along the right path. The positive thoughts about guidance I understand, or can translate into something that I understand; the praise of Allah seems far too vague. If I have not felt a personal relationship with a god-figure since I was a teenager, then who is Allah to me?
Today, as I walked toward the mosque, I dialed my iPod toward a playlist of songs that seemed appropriate for walking toward worship. The first that played was a version of "Amazing Grace" by Tori Amos, followed by "World Falls" by the Indigo Girls, followed by "Thank You" by Alanis Morissette. It was this third song that caught my attention. The chorus of this song goes like this:
Thank you, India.All right, I thought. I have a list of five abstractions and one geographical location, and for today, they will be my substitute mental focal points for "Allah."
Thank you, terror.
Thank you, disillusionment.
Thank you, frailty.
Thank you, consequence.
Thank you, thank you, silence.
I rounded the corner to the mosque while winding my iPod cord around itself, and fell into step behind three women in traditional Muslim dress -- full headscarves and flowing dresses. One of them pushed a baby in a stroller. They walked slower than me, but took up the entire sidewalk, so I slowed down, rather than rush pass them. A few paces before what I knew to be the steps up to the mosque, they turned abruptly and walked up a much narrower set of cracked and broken steps, one of them lifting the baby stroller up onto the top. They were walking toward a back entrance to the same house where I would enter by the front. I continued down the main sidewalk, and then I -- an atheist and a homosexual and no kind of Muslim at all, but a man nonetheless -- walked up the main steps and in through the front door.
Whereas last week when I came for Asr prayers there were only four of us, this week the front rooms of the house were already nearly full. Prayer mats sat rolled out on the floor of the foyer, a room toward the back of the foyer that had been dark on my previous visit was full of men, and there was red tape on the floor of the front room (the one I'd been in before) delineating the rows where the men should stand to pray.
I removed my shoes by the door and took a place on one of the red lines in the front room.
The prayers began shortly, and I was surprised to discover that nobody was leading them. Each man went at his own pace. Since I am unskilled at performing salat, I followed the movements of the man in front of me. Stand up, "Thank you, India." Hands on knees, "Thank you, terror." Forehead to ground, "Thank you, disillusionment." Sit back on heels, "Thank you, frailty." Stand up again, "Thank you, consequence." And so on.
Partway through, I thought of discarding India from the list and focusing on the abstractions, since I have never been to India, and can't really relate. And yet, I had to smile at the coincidence that occurred to me: Ahmadiyya Muslims are a splinter group. Their movement originated in Punjab, India, at the end of the 19th century. Not all mainstream Muslims consider Ahmadis true Muslims because of their beliefs about what happened to Jesus (he survived the cross and traveled to India), the existence of prophets beyond Mohammed, and other differences. So, yes, I thought, I will thank India for this afternoon's worship experience.
After the prayers were over, a man (not Zaki -- this man was older, with a gray beard and Hamid-Karzai-style hat) stood to deliver a short sermon. (Most men did wear prayer hats, by the way. Many wore pillbox-shaped hats, which I find attractive and fashionable, though I do not know their correct name. Others wore smaller, flatter hats resembling kippot, but larger. One man wore a large scarf, and some of the younger men wore baseball caps, do-rags, or went bare-headed. One very old man, who had been offered a chair, but elected to move slowly through the prayer poses, was also bare-headed.)
The sermon was bland and simple and fairly sweet. I could have easily translated it into "Christian" by substituting a few key words in the speaker's text ("Sunday" for "Friday," "God" for "Allah," etc.), and by eliminating the references to Mohammed, peace be upon him (as well as to the "Messiah of our age," a reference to the founder of the Ahmadi movement).
The speaker encouraged us all to change our lives for the better during Ramadan and to make the change stick. We were encouraged to pray and to give alms to the poor. We were reminded that the focus on Allah in the mosque should extend throughout the week, and that we should be good representatives of our faith at all times, not just on Fridays. "Love for all, hatred for none," should be our guiding principle, the speaker said. The end of the sermon was followed by a prayer request for someone's elderly aunt, who had recently arrived from Pakistan to receive medical care for a grave illness. It was all so reminiscent of a church service in my youth that I felt moved by what for a moment felt like a universality of religious practice.
After this, we prayed again in Muslim style (back to specificity of religious practice), only this time the prayers were led in unison by the gray-bearded speaker who stepped into the foyer and spoke into a clip-on microphone connected to speakers in the other two rooms.
When the service was over, we each greeted those around us, and the gray-bearded leader singled me out as a visitor, stepping over to greet me and invite me to the mosque's Saturday and Sunday iftars. I have iftar plans in the suburbs again on Sunday, and social plans with non-observers on Saturday, though I am tempted to break them to attend the Ahmadiyya iftar.
The gray-bearded leader's welcome felt very sincere, and after I stepped out onto the porch, and sat on the railing to tie my shoes, each of the men who walked out of the mosque past me paused to introduce himself and thank me for coming.
As I walked back down the steps, I put my iPod buds into my ears, and dialed around for one of Alanis Morissette's other songs: "You Learn" from her first album. I'm not a fan of hers, per se, but she has some songs that I like, and her lyrical structure for some songs seems to mimic a style of repetitive prayer. "Thank You" is one of those songs, "You Learn" is one of those songs, and "Excuses," from her fourth album, is one of those songs as well.
It occurred to me that if I were compiling my own modern-day holy book that I might collect these three particular songs together under one heading -- Prayers from the Book of Alanis. Is Alanis Morissette inspired by God? Who am I to say that she is not?
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Ramadan, part seven (iftar)
By the middle of the afternoon on Sunday, I was feeling recovered from the Equinox party, though hungry for dinner.
I'd planned to make a vegetable side dish for the self-described progressive iftar in the suburbs, but there were enough dates and tabouli leftover from the night before that I decided to take them instead. Around 5:30, I slung the same bag over my shoulder that I'd carried to the Shabbat potluck, with the same big, blue Tupperware bowl inside, and headed for the Metro.
I'd found this group of progressive Muslims online, and I'd been invited to the iftar by a woman I'll call Tish. I arrived early to the apartment building in Fairfax where the iftar was to be held in the community room, so I sat on a bench and scribbled in my journal for a few minutes while the sun was sinking. A few minutes before 7, I walked into the building, and found the room I was looking for labeled with a small sign by the door, just past the front-desk of the building. The doors into the community room were glass, with glass panels on either side, so I could see into the room, and saw that maybe 30 to 40 people had congregated.
Entering, I approached a waist-high bar by the small kitchenette, where the others had deposited their potluck offerings. I placed my food amongst the rest of the bowls, and introduced myself to the Arab woman behind the bar, and to the white woman standing by my side. After a short conversation with the white woman, who was busy getting things ready, I surveyed the room. A long dining table with seating for 25 or so sat to one side of the room, with sofas and padded chairs, in a sort of generic hotel or airport style, sitting in a circle off to the side with a low, blocky table in the center. The group appeared to be mostly Arab or black or multi-racial; only one or two other obviously white people joined the group. Of the 15 to 20 women in the room, perhaps four of them wore headscarves.
One man sat on the padded furniture apart from the sparsely populated table, while others stood in groups around he room. I joined the man and introduced myself and we began to chat about the fast. His wife joined a few moments later and greeted me in Arabic, which confounded me. I felt silly having to ask her to repeat herself, and then stumbled over my apology for not understanding. She instructed me on the appropriate Arabic response to her greeting, which I repeated to her and promptly forgot, and soon others joined our small group. The conversation spun away from me and my ignorance, moving on to topics like the upcoming progressive Muslim paintball outing, and who had lost or gained weight during Ramadan.
When the sun was down, someone announced with little fanfare that we should all get something to eat, and a woman in a headscarf circulated with a tray of dates as we queued up with our small paper plates. I lingered toward the back of the room, not wanting to be one of the first to eat. Making small talk with those around me in line, I asked a man if he could point out Tish to me, so I could thank her for inviting me. The man gestured toward a white woman in a flowered skirt, who was holding a child with bright eyes and bronze skin, and talking to a darker-looking woman in a black blouse and black pants. The woman in black was Tish.
After filling my plate, I returned to the circle of furniture and sat near where I had before, though the other seats filled in with a different collection of people. My interest here, of course, was religious and theological, but I quickly realized that the focus of the dinner was social, so I felt bad wanting to quiz everyone I met about their beliefs in God, or what they do at prayer time, or how their interpretation of the Koran informs their outlook on life. "What makes you progressive," I wanted to ask everyone, "and what do you find in Islam that conflicts with your values? What do you do when you find conflicts? What makes you want to be Muslim in the first place?"
I overheard the first white woman I had met by the food counter say to someone next to her the phrase "when I converted," and I also overheard that she is a vegetarian. Quickly, I formulated a plan to bond with her over the vegetarianism and then quiz her on her religious conversion, but I wasn't close enough to strike up a conversation. I limited myself to the conversation around me: a discussion about a photography class, for example, and someone confessing to breaking the fast to go on a hike.
Eventually bored, and sitting there sipping water with an empty plate in my lap, I got up to throw my plate away, and when I did, someone moved in to take my seat. I thought I would go find Tish to introduce myself, but she was deep in conversation and surrounded, so I floated back against the wall and observed. Feeling self-conscious, I decided I had to go the bathroom. And I did have to go... just enough to justify stepping out of the room for a moment. "Maybe Tish will be less busy when I get back," I thought. "Or maybe my chair will be free again."
I was in my stall, buckling my pants and about to flush, when the door to the restroom opened, and someone came in to wash his hands. I'm shy about running into people or talking to them in public restrooms, so I decided to linger in the stall a moment longer. Suddenly, the bathroom door opened, and I heard many more footsteps come in, with dozens of voices rising in a mixture of English and Arabic, until I could tell the restroom was full of men, and I realized that ritual washing was happening -- and quickly. There was barely enough time for a rinse of the hands -- nevermind a full cleansing of face and feet -- before the stampede was gone as quickly as it came, and I snuck out of the stall to wash my hands myself.
By the time I got back to the community room, prayers had begun. I couldn't see who was leading, and the first thing I noticed was that not everybody was praying. A group of men who were not praying had stepped out onto the patio. A group of women who were not praying sat chatting (chatting!) on the padded furniture. One man sat silently next to them. Those who were praying were arranged in rows, on mats, facing east. The men had all lined up in the front, and the women lined up behind them -- all now wearing headscarves. A pile of shoes sat by the door.
I slipped in and sat next to the only man in the room. He did not speak to me, and despite the example set by the women, I felt uncomfortable speaking during the prayers, so I kept silent as well. When the prayers were over, Tish pulled off her lavender headscarf and wrapped it around her neck. The iftar was winding down, and I slipped over to introduce myself. In addition to Sunday's iftar, she has invited me to her own home for study of the Koran as well as an iftar in one week, so we chatted briefly about the logistics of how to get there, and then I grabbed the rest of my tabouli and headed back to the Metro.
I'd planned to make a vegetable side dish for the self-described progressive iftar in the suburbs, but there were enough dates and tabouli leftover from the night before that I decided to take them instead. Around 5:30, I slung the same bag over my shoulder that I'd carried to the Shabbat potluck, with the same big, blue Tupperware bowl inside, and headed for the Metro.
I'd found this group of progressive Muslims online, and I'd been invited to the iftar by a woman I'll call Tish. I arrived early to the apartment building in Fairfax where the iftar was to be held in the community room, so I sat on a bench and scribbled in my journal for a few minutes while the sun was sinking. A few minutes before 7, I walked into the building, and found the room I was looking for labeled with a small sign by the door, just past the front-desk of the building. The doors into the community room were glass, with glass panels on either side, so I could see into the room, and saw that maybe 30 to 40 people had congregated.
Entering, I approached a waist-high bar by the small kitchenette, where the others had deposited their potluck offerings. I placed my food amongst the rest of the bowls, and introduced myself to the Arab woman behind the bar, and to the white woman standing by my side. After a short conversation with the white woman, who was busy getting things ready, I surveyed the room. A long dining table with seating for 25 or so sat to one side of the room, with sofas and padded chairs, in a sort of generic hotel or airport style, sitting in a circle off to the side with a low, blocky table in the center. The group appeared to be mostly Arab or black or multi-racial; only one or two other obviously white people joined the group. Of the 15 to 20 women in the room, perhaps four of them wore headscarves.
One man sat on the padded furniture apart from the sparsely populated table, while others stood in groups around he room. I joined the man and introduced myself and we began to chat about the fast. His wife joined a few moments later and greeted me in Arabic, which confounded me. I felt silly having to ask her to repeat herself, and then stumbled over my apology for not understanding. She instructed me on the appropriate Arabic response to her greeting, which I repeated to her and promptly forgot, and soon others joined our small group. The conversation spun away from me and my ignorance, moving on to topics like the upcoming progressive Muslim paintball outing, and who had lost or gained weight during Ramadan.
When the sun was down, someone announced with little fanfare that we should all get something to eat, and a woman in a headscarf circulated with a tray of dates as we queued up with our small paper plates. I lingered toward the back of the room, not wanting to be one of the first to eat. Making small talk with those around me in line, I asked a man if he could point out Tish to me, so I could thank her for inviting me. The man gestured toward a white woman in a flowered skirt, who was holding a child with bright eyes and bronze skin, and talking to a darker-looking woman in a black blouse and black pants. The woman in black was Tish.
After filling my plate, I returned to the circle of furniture and sat near where I had before, though the other seats filled in with a different collection of people. My interest here, of course, was religious and theological, but I quickly realized that the focus of the dinner was social, so I felt bad wanting to quiz everyone I met about their beliefs in God, or what they do at prayer time, or how their interpretation of the Koran informs their outlook on life. "What makes you progressive," I wanted to ask everyone, "and what do you find in Islam that conflicts with your values? What do you do when you find conflicts? What makes you want to be Muslim in the first place?"
I overheard the first white woman I had met by the food counter say to someone next to her the phrase "when I converted," and I also overheard that she is a vegetarian. Quickly, I formulated a plan to bond with her over the vegetarianism and then quiz her on her religious conversion, but I wasn't close enough to strike up a conversation. I limited myself to the conversation around me: a discussion about a photography class, for example, and someone confessing to breaking the fast to go on a hike.
Eventually bored, and sitting there sipping water with an empty plate in my lap, I got up to throw my plate away, and when I did, someone moved in to take my seat. I thought I would go find Tish to introduce myself, but she was deep in conversation and surrounded, so I floated back against the wall and observed. Feeling self-conscious, I decided I had to go the bathroom. And I did have to go... just enough to justify stepping out of the room for a moment. "Maybe Tish will be less busy when I get back," I thought. "Or maybe my chair will be free again."
I was in my stall, buckling my pants and about to flush, when the door to the restroom opened, and someone came in to wash his hands. I'm shy about running into people or talking to them in public restrooms, so I decided to linger in the stall a moment longer. Suddenly, the bathroom door opened, and I heard many more footsteps come in, with dozens of voices rising in a mixture of English and Arabic, until I could tell the restroom was full of men, and I realized that ritual washing was happening -- and quickly. There was barely enough time for a rinse of the hands -- nevermind a full cleansing of face and feet -- before the stampede was gone as quickly as it came, and I snuck out of the stall to wash my hands myself.
By the time I got back to the community room, prayers had begun. I couldn't see who was leading, and the first thing I noticed was that not everybody was praying. A group of men who were not praying had stepped out onto the patio. A group of women who were not praying sat chatting (chatting!) on the padded furniture. One man sat silently next to them. Those who were praying were arranged in rows, on mats, facing east. The men had all lined up in the front, and the women lined up behind them -- all now wearing headscarves. A pile of shoes sat by the door.
I slipped in and sat next to the only man in the room. He did not speak to me, and despite the example set by the women, I felt uncomfortable speaking during the prayers, so I kept silent as well. When the prayers were over, Tish pulled off her lavender headscarf and wrapped it around her neck. The iftar was winding down, and I slipped over to introduce myself. In addition to Sunday's iftar, she has invited me to her own home for study of the Koran as well as an iftar in one week, so we chatted briefly about the logistics of how to get there, and then I grabbed the rest of my tabouli and headed back to the Metro.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Ramadan/Equinox (Mabon)
Timing my meals to sun-up and sundown these past few weeks, I had been especially mindful that we were heading toward the Fall Equinox, as both suhoor in the morning and iftar in the evening have been creeping toward 7 o'clock.
I understand that Equinox goes by the name Mabon for many Wiccans who celebrate eight sabbats (or solar holidays) per year, but I did not manage to find a Wiccan celebration in my area. I will, however, put some energy into finding one for Samhain, the sabbat holiday that falls on Halloween/All Souls' Day, in between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice.
Even without a Wiccan or other religious connection, I have been interested for some time in celebrating the turning of the seasons. My interest began with the Winter Solstice, which I have celebrated for the past six years by hosting a brunch at my house.
At first, it just seemed a pleasant way to strip away the in-your-face cultural trappings of Christmas (and respect the religious traditions of my non-Christian friends) while opening my home for a gathering around the "holidays." I have tended to prepare a large bowl of eggnog, and occasionally to hang mistletoe, but otherwise to avoid seasonal references at the Solstice brunch. It's nice simply to celebrate the lengthening of the light in a secular way before boarding a plane to go back home and celebrate Christmas with my family.
Once I had started with the Solstice brunch, I had always thought I should stretch the tradition throughout the year, and this past spring I discovered a very good reason to do so. At the Spring Equinox, it turned out we were facing a truly amazing religious pile-up, so I convinced one of my housemates that a pan-religious springfest would be in order.
Six months ago, Friday, March 21, 2008 represented the convergence of six different religious occurrences. It was: a full moon, the Equinox (Ostara for Wiccans), the Jewish holiday of Purim, the Hindu festival of Holi, the Zoroastrian New Year (Norouz), and Good Friday. I was observing Lent at the time by not drinking, so I decided to break my Lent with the Equinox party – specifically with the Purim part of that party, since Purim actually requires celebrants to drink.
I was out of town during the Summer Solstice this year, but my housemates were on board when I suggested an Equinox/Ramadan occasion in our house this fall to continue marking the seasons with a display of hospitality and conviviality.
Guests were invited to arrive at sundown for iftar, and invited to stay as late as they liked to celebrate Equinox.
We prepared and served a mix of mostly traditional Middle Eastern food (tabouli, dolmas, falafel, baba ganouj, and so on), and I purchased some organic dates from the market, because I had read that dates are a traditional break-the-fast food for Ramadan.
Because I find the Equinox parties to be a good excuse for some sort of festive dress or change in appearance, I found myself thinking of what to wear as the sun was going down. At the Spring party, I had strung together a couple dozen tiny roses on a thread and tied it around my neck as a festive spring garland. For the Fall party, I selected an orange shirt from my closet to represent the changing colors of the leaves, and I wore it with jeans. I was lacing my sneakers when I was inspired by a memory of the cherry red toenail polish I saw one of my housemates wearing a day or two earlier.
I wandered down the hall to check what other colors my housemate might have, hoping I could match my toes to my bright orange shirt. She handed over a couple of colors that she thought might blend well together to become orange, and in fact they did. I ditched the sneakers for flip flops, and my toes were a shiny orange by the time our first guests arrived.
We had a gathering of eight for iftar, with most guests arriving much later; none of the other early guests had fasted. An Iranian friend (who is not Muslim, and who is more interested in pagan spirituality) arrived late for the iftar, having chosen to fast for one day in honor of the party. Mohammed arrived even later in the evening, having broken his fast at an iftar in the suburbs.
By midnight the apartment was full, and dancing had broken out in the living room. Mohammed had brought a bottle of fine scotch, which was shared amongst many guests who had already imbibed two bowls my housemate's rum punch -- as well as the various varieties of wine and beer on offer.
We closed up shop around 4:30 in the morning, less than an hour before devout Muslims would be showing up at the mosque for Fajr. One housemate had gone to bed hours before, and after cleaning up the house a bit with my other awake housemate, I stumbled intoxicated to my bedroom and slept until noon.
The next day was the first time I'd missed my early meal since Ramadan began, and the first time I'd missed my Fajr yoga session since I started it a few weeks ago. Though I had resolved to myself to wash at each prayer time on Saturday, after accepting the challenge from my friend, the former Muslim wife, I realized that I had missed both Maghrib and Isha on Saturday, as well as the Sunday Fajr.
I got out of bed at midday and did some more cleaning, feeling a slight hangover, and wishing I had remembered to eat a fortifying helping of leftover party food while I was putting it away in the wee hours. I wouldn't be eating again until iftar (at which point I planned to meet up with a group of progressive Muslims I met through Facebook).
An hour later I went into my bathroom to wash for Dhuhur. I soaped up my face and hands while standing before my sink and mirror, focusing on making myself come back to life after somewhat overdoing it the night before.
Then I stepped into my shower to wash my feet and surprised myself when I looked down and remembered my orange-painted toes. There are Muslim men the world over performing this exact same ritual today, I thought to myself. Are there any others who are chipping colored paint off their nails as they wash?
I understand that Equinox goes by the name Mabon for many Wiccans who celebrate eight sabbats (or solar holidays) per year, but I did not manage to find a Wiccan celebration in my area. I will, however, put some energy into finding one for Samhain, the sabbat holiday that falls on Halloween/All Souls' Day, in between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice.
Even without a Wiccan or other religious connection, I have been interested for some time in celebrating the turning of the seasons. My interest began with the Winter Solstice, which I have celebrated for the past six years by hosting a brunch at my house.
At first, it just seemed a pleasant way to strip away the in-your-face cultural trappings of Christmas (and respect the religious traditions of my non-Christian friends) while opening my home for a gathering around the "holidays." I have tended to prepare a large bowl of eggnog, and occasionally to hang mistletoe, but otherwise to avoid seasonal references at the Solstice brunch. It's nice simply to celebrate the lengthening of the light in a secular way before boarding a plane to go back home and celebrate Christmas with my family.
Once I had started with the Solstice brunch, I had always thought I should stretch the tradition throughout the year, and this past spring I discovered a very good reason to do so. At the Spring Equinox, it turned out we were facing a truly amazing religious pile-up, so I convinced one of my housemates that a pan-religious springfest would be in order.
Six months ago, Friday, March 21, 2008 represented the convergence of six different religious occurrences. It was: a full moon, the Equinox (Ostara for Wiccans), the Jewish holiday of Purim, the Hindu festival of Holi, the Zoroastrian New Year (Norouz), and Good Friday. I was observing Lent at the time by not drinking, so I decided to break my Lent with the Equinox party – specifically with the Purim part of that party, since Purim actually requires celebrants to drink.
I was out of town during the Summer Solstice this year, but my housemates were on board when I suggested an Equinox/Ramadan occasion in our house this fall to continue marking the seasons with a display of hospitality and conviviality.
Guests were invited to arrive at sundown for iftar, and invited to stay as late as they liked to celebrate Equinox.
We prepared and served a mix of mostly traditional Middle Eastern food (tabouli, dolmas, falafel, baba ganouj, and so on), and I purchased some organic dates from the market, because I had read that dates are a traditional break-the-fast food for Ramadan.
Because I find the Equinox parties to be a good excuse for some sort of festive dress or change in appearance, I found myself thinking of what to wear as the sun was going down. At the Spring party, I had strung together a couple dozen tiny roses on a thread and tied it around my neck as a festive spring garland. For the Fall party, I selected an orange shirt from my closet to represent the changing colors of the leaves, and I wore it with jeans. I was lacing my sneakers when I was inspired by a memory of the cherry red toenail polish I saw one of my housemates wearing a day or two earlier.
I wandered down the hall to check what other colors my housemate might have, hoping I could match my toes to my bright orange shirt. She handed over a couple of colors that she thought might blend well together to become orange, and in fact they did. I ditched the sneakers for flip flops, and my toes were a shiny orange by the time our first guests arrived.
We had a gathering of eight for iftar, with most guests arriving much later; none of the other early guests had fasted. An Iranian friend (who is not Muslim, and who is more interested in pagan spirituality) arrived late for the iftar, having chosen to fast for one day in honor of the party. Mohammed arrived even later in the evening, having broken his fast at an iftar in the suburbs.
By midnight the apartment was full, and dancing had broken out in the living room. Mohammed had brought a bottle of fine scotch, which was shared amongst many guests who had already imbibed two bowls my housemate's rum punch -- as well as the various varieties of wine and beer on offer.
We closed up shop around 4:30 in the morning, less than an hour before devout Muslims would be showing up at the mosque for Fajr. One housemate had gone to bed hours before, and after cleaning up the house a bit with my other awake housemate, I stumbled intoxicated to my bedroom and slept until noon.
The next day was the first time I'd missed my early meal since Ramadan began, and the first time I'd missed my Fajr yoga session since I started it a few weeks ago. Though I had resolved to myself to wash at each prayer time on Saturday, after accepting the challenge from my friend, the former Muslim wife, I realized that I had missed both Maghrib and Isha on Saturday, as well as the Sunday Fajr.
I got out of bed at midday and did some more cleaning, feeling a slight hangover, and wishing I had remembered to eat a fortifying helping of leftover party food while I was putting it away in the wee hours. I wouldn't be eating again until iftar (at which point I planned to meet up with a group of progressive Muslims I met through Facebook).
An hour later I went into my bathroom to wash for Dhuhur. I soaped up my face and hands while standing before my sink and mirror, focusing on making myself come back to life after somewhat overdoing it the night before.
Then I stepped into my shower to wash my feet and surprised myself when I looked down and remembered my orange-painted toes. There are Muslim men the world over performing this exact same ritual today, I thought to myself. Are there any others who are chipping colored paint off their nails as they wash?
Friday, September 19, 2008
Ramadan, part six (a gay man in a mosque.)
Around four o'clock today, someone from the Ahmadiyya mosque called me back. It turns out I had gone too early for the Dhuhur prayer, which occurs around 1:30PM. The caller invited me to the Mahgrib prayers (around 7:30), but I had evening plans, so I asked when the afternoon prayers -- the Asr prayers -- would be. He said they would be starting in about fifteen minutes, and then asked how far away I was. When I said I could be there in 30 minutes, he said he would wait for me.
I thanked him, and was about to hang up when he referenced something I had said in the voicemail message I had left.
"Why do you have to ask if visitors are allowed at a mosque?" he asked me. "All are welcome here."
I thanked him again and apologized for asking. I quickly finished up some work that was in front of me, and then hoofed it back over to the mosque. When I got there, two men stood in the open doorway, accepting a package from a delivery man. The older of the two men identified himself as the man who spoke to me on the phone. He wore a long yellow tunic and had white hair. I do not remember if he gave his name, but he introduced me to Zaki, the younger of the two men as the imam of the mosque. Another older man sat in a front room (Zaki's cousin from London, I later learned) waiting for the prayers to begin.
Once I had removed my shoes in the foyer and joined the three of them in the front room, the prayers could begin. The room's blinds were still drawn as they had been earlier, so no light entered. The floor was covered in off-white carpet, and the walls were white and lined with chairs. The center of the room was empty, though a podium displaying a paper sign written in Arabic stood next to the opening back into the foyer. Zaki turned his back on us and faced the podium (or, more accurately, he faced east). The three of us faced east also, with the cousin and the white-haired man standing very close together, and me a few paces away. The cousin gestured me to come closer until our arms were touching and the three of us formed a very close straight row directly behind the imam.
As the imam led the prayers, I followed the movements of the other two men: hands clasped across the middle, then bending at the waist with hands on knees, then supplicant on the floor with forehead to ground, then sitting back on heels, then doing it all over again. We repeated the movements several times, with the other two men occasionally joining in to speak. At one point a telephone rang elsewhere in the house, and I heard a woman's voice answer it. A couple of moments later, a cell phone rang in the imam's pocket, and he silenced it mid-prayer.
Toward the end of the sequence, while we were sitting on our heels, we turned to the right and then to the left, and when the cousin and the white haired man relaxed back onto their bottoms, so did I.
Zaki turned around to face us, and we shifted into sitting in a loose circle.
"So, how was it?" he asked me.
"Good, fine," I said.
"So you are observing Ramadan?"
"Yes."
"How are you fasting?"
The question didn't make sense to me exactly. "Well, I am eating before the sun comes up, and not eating again until the sun goes down. Is that what you mean?"
"Good. Good," said the imam. "You are fasting the Muslim way. Sometimes when Christians say they are fasting, they mean only that they have given up meat or bread."
"I don't eat meat anyway," I said. "And besides just giving up one thing sounds more like a diet than a fast to me."
"So, you have been fasting since the beginning of Ramadan?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Here I explained my interest in better understanding the religions of the world. I told the three of them that about six years ago I observed Lent for the first time, and found it worthwhile, and that about four years ago, I observed Yom Kippur for the first time, and found it worthwhile, and so I wanted to see what else worthwhile I might find in faith traditions aside from the one I was raised in.
They asked me if the fasting was hard for me as a novice, and I replied honestly that it is not. I mentioned that the Yom Kippur fast goes on for longer, though of course it is only one day, rather than a month, and the three of them seemed unfamiliar with the tradition. I explained that a Yom Kippur fast begins before sundown on one day, and ends after sundown on the next day, resulting in a longer-than-24-hour fast.
"And what is Lent?" one of them asked. "What do you do then?"
"You give up something," I said. "But it's different for each person."
"What do you give up?" Zaki asked me.
"Drinking," I said.
"Water?"
"No, alcohol."
Zaki and his cousin exchanged a look.
"That would not be difficult for us," he said. "We do not drink alcohol."
"Oh, I understand." I said. "Some people give up meat for Lent, and that would not be difficult for me, because I do not eat meat."
The imam moved on to a question about my personal life: "So, do you have a wife?" he asked me, glancing at my ring finger. "Or are you single, or what is the deal..." he paused "... with, uh,with that?"
"I am single," I said, pausing in my mind to wonder how I might have responded if I had a boyfriend or husband, settling quickly on the unprovocative: "I do not have a wife."
"I see." said Zaki, "Well, I have a wife and I thought if you had a wife maybe the four of us could get together. Anyway, let me get you a book, and I'll give you my card."
He gave me a book entitled Introduction to the Study of the Holy Qur'an, handed me his card, and asked me for my phone number, and then I left, saying that I will probably return for a prayer or two sometime next week. I took note of how my mind did not wander during the prayers, both because I was listening to something (Zaki's voice) and watching something (the movements of the other two men).
I did not wash at the Asr prayer because none of the others did, and nobody asked me to. Tomorrow, I will be close to home most of the day, food shopping at the farmer's market in the morning, then cleaning house and cooking for the party, so I will make a point of marking each prayer time and washing when I do so. Then, I will be able to tell my friend -- who was once herself the answer to the "Do you have a wife?" question for a Muslim man in Egypt -- that I took her advice, and added washing to my observance of Ramadan.
I thanked him, and was about to hang up when he referenced something I had said in the voicemail message I had left.
"Why do you have to ask if visitors are allowed at a mosque?" he asked me. "All are welcome here."
I thanked him again and apologized for asking. I quickly finished up some work that was in front of me, and then hoofed it back over to the mosque. When I got there, two men stood in the open doorway, accepting a package from a delivery man. The older of the two men identified himself as the man who spoke to me on the phone. He wore a long yellow tunic and had white hair. I do not remember if he gave his name, but he introduced me to Zaki, the younger of the two men as the imam of the mosque. Another older man sat in a front room (Zaki's cousin from London, I later learned) waiting for the prayers to begin.
Once I had removed my shoes in the foyer and joined the three of them in the front room, the prayers could begin. The room's blinds were still drawn as they had been earlier, so no light entered. The floor was covered in off-white carpet, and the walls were white and lined with chairs. The center of the room was empty, though a podium displaying a paper sign written in Arabic stood next to the opening back into the foyer. Zaki turned his back on us and faced the podium (or, more accurately, he faced east). The three of us faced east also, with the cousin and the white-haired man standing very close together, and me a few paces away. The cousin gestured me to come closer until our arms were touching and the three of us formed a very close straight row directly behind the imam.
As the imam led the prayers, I followed the movements of the other two men: hands clasped across the middle, then bending at the waist with hands on knees, then supplicant on the floor with forehead to ground, then sitting back on heels, then doing it all over again. We repeated the movements several times, with the other two men occasionally joining in to speak. At one point a telephone rang elsewhere in the house, and I heard a woman's voice answer it. A couple of moments later, a cell phone rang in the imam's pocket, and he silenced it mid-prayer.
Toward the end of the sequence, while we were sitting on our heels, we turned to the right and then to the left, and when the cousin and the white haired man relaxed back onto their bottoms, so did I.
Zaki turned around to face us, and we shifted into sitting in a loose circle.
"So, how was it?" he asked me.
"Good, fine," I said.
"So you are observing Ramadan?"
"Yes."
"How are you fasting?"
The question didn't make sense to me exactly. "Well, I am eating before the sun comes up, and not eating again until the sun goes down. Is that what you mean?"
"Good. Good," said the imam. "You are fasting the Muslim way. Sometimes when Christians say they are fasting, they mean only that they have given up meat or bread."
"I don't eat meat anyway," I said. "And besides just giving up one thing sounds more like a diet than a fast to me."
"So, you have been fasting since the beginning of Ramadan?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Here I explained my interest in better understanding the religions of the world. I told the three of them that about six years ago I observed Lent for the first time, and found it worthwhile, and that about four years ago, I observed Yom Kippur for the first time, and found it worthwhile, and so I wanted to see what else worthwhile I might find in faith traditions aside from the one I was raised in.
They asked me if the fasting was hard for me as a novice, and I replied honestly that it is not. I mentioned that the Yom Kippur fast goes on for longer, though of course it is only one day, rather than a month, and the three of them seemed unfamiliar with the tradition. I explained that a Yom Kippur fast begins before sundown on one day, and ends after sundown on the next day, resulting in a longer-than-24-hour fast.
"And what is Lent?" one of them asked. "What do you do then?"
"You give up something," I said. "But it's different for each person."
"What do you give up?" Zaki asked me.
"Drinking," I said.
"Water?"
"No, alcohol."
Zaki and his cousin exchanged a look.
"That would not be difficult for us," he said. "We do not drink alcohol."
"Oh, I understand." I said. "Some people give up meat for Lent, and that would not be difficult for me, because I do not eat meat."
The imam moved on to a question about my personal life: "So, do you have a wife?" he asked me, glancing at my ring finger. "Or are you single, or what is the deal..." he paused "... with, uh,with that?"
"I am single," I said, pausing in my mind to wonder how I might have responded if I had a boyfriend or husband, settling quickly on the unprovocative: "I do not have a wife."
"I see." said Zaki, "Well, I have a wife and I thought if you had a wife maybe the four of us could get together. Anyway, let me get you a book, and I'll give you my card."
He gave me a book entitled Introduction to the Study of the Holy Qur'an, handed me his card, and asked me for my phone number, and then I left, saying that I will probably return for a prayer or two sometime next week. I took note of how my mind did not wander during the prayers, both because I was listening to something (Zaki's voice) and watching something (the movements of the other two men).
I did not wash at the Asr prayer because none of the others did, and nobody asked me to. Tomorrow, I will be close to home most of the day, food shopping at the farmer's market in the morning, then cleaning house and cooking for the party, so I will make a point of marking each prayer time and washing when I do so. Then, I will be able to tell my friend -- who was once herself the answer to the "Do you have a wife?" question for a Muslim man in Egypt -- that I took her advice, and added washing to my observance of Ramadan.
Ramadan, part five (a gay man in a mosque?!)
I am more familiar with the Unitarian church near my house than I am with probably any other house of worship in town. I have attended Sunday services maybe 10 times over my seven years here, I have shown up for plays and concerts there, and I have staffed a table with a friend who once participated in a responsible gift fair held at the church. A few friends of mine used to attend somewhat regularly, though they have all since moved away from DC -- to Portland, Oregon; to Chapel Hill; and to Sudan.
I remember going to the Unitarian Church on a Sunday afternoon four and a half years ago, after hosting a party with my housemates in my shared apartment the night before.
It was a Sunday in February, and the party had been meant to celebrate Mardi Gras, though it was a few days too early. (It was the third year I had hosted a Mardi Gras party, and the second year I had observed Lent.) One of my housemates at the time was a beautiful Jewish boy, with whom I had unwittingly fallen in love, though his identity as a heterosexual made such a love impossible. He and I were cleaning the house the day after the party, but we put down our brooms and sponges and walked over to the church at mid-day to watch two of my friends perform in a production of the musical "Free to Be You and Me."
My housemate looked adorable walking to church with me in his long-sleeved yellow T-shirt under blue-jean overalls, sandals with socks on his feet. The auditorium was full of families with young children when we arrived. I looked for other friends in the crowd, but, seeing none, my housemate and I took two seats by ourselves toward the back, leaving empty seats toward the front for the children. The row in front of us was completely empty, though shortly a man with two sons came and sat directly in front of us.
They settled in, and the man, perhaps identifying us as visitors, turned around to flash us a big smile and say hello. He extended his right hand in greeting, and I noticed his wedding ring on his left. He identified himself as Alex, and he and I started a conversation that meandered toward the divulging of our religious backgrounds. I confessed to being a refugee from evangelical Fundamentalist Christianity who does not worship, but who has a continued interest in religion. Alex told me that he grew up Presbyterian, but found the Unitarians more welcoming. When my housemate identified himself as a secular Jew, Alex's smile grew even wider.
"My partner's Jewish too," he told us, enthusiastically. "I think you'll find this church is a very embracing environment for mixed couples. He can be Jewish, and I can be Christian, and we can teach our kids about both our traditions. It's nice."
Alex's partner didn't arrive until after the play had started, but Alex introduced us all to each other after it was over, and it was clear he viewed me and my housemate as a sweet young couple -- which felt so charming and so sad all at the same time. Neither my housemate nor I provided a correction.
It's true that the Unitarian church is very embracing of gay men and lesbians. In fact, this particular Unitarian church is led by a gay senior pastor and a lesbian associate pastor. And on a separate visit to the church for morning worship, I once, by chance, encountered a sermon by the associate pastor that focused on nothing but the need for churches to bring gay men and lesbians (and couples and families) into the fold. It was terribly moving for me to hear such a viewpoint articulated from a pulpit -- a viewpoint so very different from that of the church in which I grew up. And yet... that sermon bothered me that day, and bothers me still.
I felt a bit pandered to and singled out at the same time. I didn't feel like I was sitting in a sanctuary with a unified group of Unitarians, but rather in a group separated into straight and gay, with the gay people being counseled how to get over their childhoods, and the straight people being informed about the special needs of gay people. I don't feel like I have demographically based special needs. I have my own personal version of universal human needs -- just like everybody else -- and I hadn't come to church for special gay counseling that morning. I feel kind of the same way about discovering that the Quakers offer a "special welcome" for gays and lesbians, though in the future I do intend to visit that version of the Quaker meeting.
In the meantime, I need to get myself to a mosque before Ramadan is over. Today is Friday, the day of the week that my workplace offers a flexible schedule, so I came in to the office early this morning, and then left a while later to walk to an Ahmadiyya Muslim mosque for the second prayer of the day, the Dhuhur. I had not been to this particular mosque before, and when I got there I discovered it is basically a large house on a very nice street, three stories tall with a small porch. There was a plaque on the front of the house with the words "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammed is his prophet," along with the name of the mosque.
The windows of the house all had their blinds drawn, and it seemed dark, but I walked up onto the porch and tried the door anyway, only to find it locked. Perhaps I got the prayer time wrong. I had the phone number for the mosque in my pocket, so I dialed it on my cellphone and got voicemail. I left a message asking if the mosque is holding prayers during Ramadan, and asking if visitors are allowed. I asked for someone to call me back and let me know before Asr, the afternoon prayer, and then I walked back to my office.
I have only informed a few friends that I am working on this blog, and I don't intend to share this with everyone. However, yesterday, I got some feedback from one friend of mine whose opinion I respect. My friend is Jewish (though not observant, I do not believe), and she has been married, at various points in her life, to Muslim men. My friend got the vapors about the idea of me, as an atheist gay man, going to mosques, which is something that does not trouble me at all -- I have been to a mosque once before -- and she also asked me if I am washing ritually at the five prayer times. I have not been ritually washing, and in fact I never followed through with my intention to add the prayers sequentially to my day (though I've kept up with the Fajr/yoga).
So, today, denied the opportunity to add Dhuhur within a community at the mosque, I returned to my office and ritually washed my face, hands, and feet in the shower room my office provides for bike commuters. If I don't get a phonecall back inviting me to Asr at the Ahmadiyya mosque, I'll do the washing again this afternoon. I won't be sharing iftar or Maghrib (the evening prayer) with anyone today, but tomorrow my current housemates and I will be hosting a combination Equinox/Ramadan party beginning at sundown, and on Sunday I have plans to travel to the suburbs and share iftar with a local Muslim group that self-describes as progressive -- the first time during Ramadan that I'll be breaking the fast with an actual community of observant Muslims.
I remember going to the Unitarian Church on a Sunday afternoon four and a half years ago, after hosting a party with my housemates in my shared apartment the night before.
It was a Sunday in February, and the party had been meant to celebrate Mardi Gras, though it was a few days too early. (It was the third year I had hosted a Mardi Gras party, and the second year I had observed Lent.) One of my housemates at the time was a beautiful Jewish boy, with whom I had unwittingly fallen in love, though his identity as a heterosexual made such a love impossible. He and I were cleaning the house the day after the party, but we put down our brooms and sponges and walked over to the church at mid-day to watch two of my friends perform in a production of the musical "Free to Be You and Me."
My housemate looked adorable walking to church with me in his long-sleeved yellow T-shirt under blue-jean overalls, sandals with socks on his feet. The auditorium was full of families with young children when we arrived. I looked for other friends in the crowd, but, seeing none, my housemate and I took two seats by ourselves toward the back, leaving empty seats toward the front for the children. The row in front of us was completely empty, though shortly a man with two sons came and sat directly in front of us.
They settled in, and the man, perhaps identifying us as visitors, turned around to flash us a big smile and say hello. He extended his right hand in greeting, and I noticed his wedding ring on his left. He identified himself as Alex, and he and I started a conversation that meandered toward the divulging of our religious backgrounds. I confessed to being a refugee from evangelical Fundamentalist Christianity who does not worship, but who has a continued interest in religion. Alex told me that he grew up Presbyterian, but found the Unitarians more welcoming. When my housemate identified himself as a secular Jew, Alex's smile grew even wider.
"My partner's Jewish too," he told us, enthusiastically. "I think you'll find this church is a very embracing environment for mixed couples. He can be Jewish, and I can be Christian, and we can teach our kids about both our traditions. It's nice."
Alex's partner didn't arrive until after the play had started, but Alex introduced us all to each other after it was over, and it was clear he viewed me and my housemate as a sweet young couple -- which felt so charming and so sad all at the same time. Neither my housemate nor I provided a correction.
It's true that the Unitarian church is very embracing of gay men and lesbians. In fact, this particular Unitarian church is led by a gay senior pastor and a lesbian associate pastor. And on a separate visit to the church for morning worship, I once, by chance, encountered a sermon by the associate pastor that focused on nothing but the need for churches to bring gay men and lesbians (and couples and families) into the fold. It was terribly moving for me to hear such a viewpoint articulated from a pulpit -- a viewpoint so very different from that of the church in which I grew up. And yet... that sermon bothered me that day, and bothers me still.
I felt a bit pandered to and singled out at the same time. I didn't feel like I was sitting in a sanctuary with a unified group of Unitarians, but rather in a group separated into straight and gay, with the gay people being counseled how to get over their childhoods, and the straight people being informed about the special needs of gay people. I don't feel like I have demographically based special needs. I have my own personal version of universal human needs -- just like everybody else -- and I hadn't come to church for special gay counseling that morning. I feel kind of the same way about discovering that the Quakers offer a "special welcome" for gays and lesbians, though in the future I do intend to visit that version of the Quaker meeting.
In the meantime, I need to get myself to a mosque before Ramadan is over. Today is Friday, the day of the week that my workplace offers a flexible schedule, so I came in to the office early this morning, and then left a while later to walk to an Ahmadiyya Muslim mosque for the second prayer of the day, the Dhuhur. I had not been to this particular mosque before, and when I got there I discovered it is basically a large house on a very nice street, three stories tall with a small porch. There was a plaque on the front of the house with the words "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammed is his prophet," along with the name of the mosque.
The windows of the house all had their blinds drawn, and it seemed dark, but I walked up onto the porch and tried the door anyway, only to find it locked. Perhaps I got the prayer time wrong. I had the phone number for the mosque in my pocket, so I dialed it on my cellphone and got voicemail. I left a message asking if the mosque is holding prayers during Ramadan, and asking if visitors are allowed. I asked for someone to call me back and let me know before Asr, the afternoon prayer, and then I walked back to my office.
I have only informed a few friends that I am working on this blog, and I don't intend to share this with everyone. However, yesterday, I got some feedback from one friend of mine whose opinion I respect. My friend is Jewish (though not observant, I do not believe), and she has been married, at various points in her life, to Muslim men. My friend got the vapors about the idea of me, as an atheist gay man, going to mosques, which is something that does not trouble me at all -- I have been to a mosque once before -- and she also asked me if I am washing ritually at the five prayer times. I have not been ritually washing, and in fact I never followed through with my intention to add the prayers sequentially to my day (though I've kept up with the Fajr/yoga).
So, today, denied the opportunity to add Dhuhur within a community at the mosque, I returned to my office and ritually washed my face, hands, and feet in the shower room my office provides for bike commuters. If I don't get a phonecall back inviting me to Asr at the Ahmadiyya mosque, I'll do the washing again this afternoon. I won't be sharing iftar or Maghrib (the evening prayer) with anyone today, but tomorrow my current housemates and I will be hosting a combination Equinox/Ramadan party beginning at sundown, and on Sunday I have plans to travel to the suburbs and share iftar with a local Muslim group that self-describes as progressive -- the first time during Ramadan that I'll be breaking the fast with an actual community of observant Muslims.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Ramadan, part four (Jews and Unitarians)
I walked to Shabbat services on Friday, carrying the vegetarian dish I had prepared for the potluck in a canvas bag slung over my shoulder, while listening to a sermon from my sister's non-denominational Christian church on my iPod. It occurred to me that I had heard about groups of Orthodox Jews who would forbid carrying my shoulder bag to services, and I made a mental note to investigate later what the deal is with carrying things on Shabbat.
The group I was joining for the evening is a gathering of mostly twentysomethings and early-thirtysomethings who have formed their own self-led congreation. There is no rabbi, no cantor, no ark, no giant Torah scroll. Members of the congregation take turns leading the service, or introducing the guest speaker, or leading the clean-up effort after the potluck. There is no synagogue; the congregation meets in another organization's space, which it has over time outgrown, and is now looking for a larger venue, perhaps the basement of a local Unitarian church.
I had accompanied my friend to services once before, on a night when the congregation sat in a circle, and the songs were accompanied by a guitarist. Last Friday was different; it was an a cappella service, with the chairs arranged in rows facing east. I own a kippah, acquired on a previous visit to a more traditional synagogue that required one, but I do not tend to wear it to my friend's congregation, because they are not required. A quick survey of the room revealed that about 10 percent of the men and maybe 50 percent of the women were without kippot.
The kippot issue is a good one to illustrate the spirit of my friend's congregation. They welcome all, and they also want to respect tradition. The group therefore offers a basket of kippot for attendees who have arrived without one, and who prefer to wear one. Originally, this basket was placed on the table next to the prayer books. However, my friend informs me that there were those who felt this placement might mistakenly imply an enforced pro-kippot stance on the part of the congregation, and so the basket was moved to the floor. This placement struck other congregants as disrespectful, and now the kippot basket resides on a chair next to the prayer book table.
Bare-headed, I selected a seat at the very back of the room, and my friend sat with me through the musical portion of the service, until she needed to step forward to introduce the guest speaker (a representative from a local nonprofit organization that provides low-income women of color with free child-care). My friend introduced the speaker by reading a poem written from the perspective of a woman who was present when Moses descended from Sinai. The woman had not written down her story, said the voice of the poem, because her hands were always full of children. Her voice, said the poem, is like the vowels of the Torah -- missing but implied. It is up to us to fill in her voice.
The guest speaker provided background on her organization and offered congregants the chance to sign up to provide child-care for those in need. She connected her organization’s mission to the poem, describing the child-care opportunity as a way to take children out of their mothers’ hands long enough for them to participate fully in public life in a way denied to the women at Sinai and beyond.
By chance, on Sunday, two days later, I heard another stirring sermon on themes of gender and race, delivered by a professor of Politics and African-American studies from Princeton University. I had decided to attend services alone at a Unitarian church about three blocks from my apartment, and it turned out that day that the Unitarians were also welcoming a guest speaker.
The guest preacher/professor began her sermon with these words: "I am a cradle Unitarian. My mother was a white woman who was raised as a Mormon, and my father was a black man who shared a room at Howard with Stokely Carmichael, so for our family, in the 1970s, in northern Virginia, there was no other place for us to worship, but in a Unitarian church."
She went on to preach from a children's book (Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct), after noting that one of the things she loves about being a Unitarian is "You can preach on whatever text you want!"
Her message was what I have come to expect from a Unitarian service -- a blend of social justice exhortations, encouragements toward optimism in the face of despair, a reminder of the Unitarian commitment to embrace everyone, and a few somewhat understated liberal political messages, including jabs at current conservative leaders and candidates, and props for the current hope of the Democratic party.
I know that I have heard Unitarian ministers talk about God before, but I do not recall the guest professor invoking a deity in her sermon. The core of her message, it struck me, was deeply humanist in its outlook, and this message was underscored by her sermon's structure. Periodically throughout the first 2/3 of the sermon, after describing a human-caused tragedy that reflects negatively on our nature as people (the public whipping of an innocent black woman in turn-of-the-century Ohio, the failure of government response after Hurricane Katrina, etc.), the professor would utter a string of negative pronouncements, such as "Democracy is dead" or "There is no benevolent spirit of love and life to answer our prayers."
When her sermon turned a corner toward a more hopeful outlook, she modified those negative pronouncements from earlier, making them more positive. "What if democracy is only bruised," she asked, for example.
When it came time to reverse the assertion that there is no benevolent spirit to answer our prayers, she phrased her modification like this: "We are the ones who are here to answer each others' prayers."
I enjoyed her sermon immensely but was feeling shy when services were over, so although the professor and the church's minister both stood together on the outside steps to shake hands with the congregants as they exited -- he in his black robe and sash, and she in her sleeveless hot-pink shift dress and three-inch pink heels -- I slipped out a side door and avoided them.
The group I was joining for the evening is a gathering of mostly twentysomethings and early-thirtysomethings who have formed their own self-led congreation. There is no rabbi, no cantor, no ark, no giant Torah scroll. Members of the congregation take turns leading the service, or introducing the guest speaker, or leading the clean-up effort after the potluck. There is no synagogue; the congregation meets in another organization's space, which it has over time outgrown, and is now looking for a larger venue, perhaps the basement of a local Unitarian church.
I had accompanied my friend to services once before, on a night when the congregation sat in a circle, and the songs were accompanied by a guitarist. Last Friday was different; it was an a cappella service, with the chairs arranged in rows facing east. I own a kippah, acquired on a previous visit to a more traditional synagogue that required one, but I do not tend to wear it to my friend's congregation, because they are not required. A quick survey of the room revealed that about 10 percent of the men and maybe 50 percent of the women were without kippot.
The kippot issue is a good one to illustrate the spirit of my friend's congregation. They welcome all, and they also want to respect tradition. The group therefore offers a basket of kippot for attendees who have arrived without one, and who prefer to wear one. Originally, this basket was placed on the table next to the prayer books. However, my friend informs me that there were those who felt this placement might mistakenly imply an enforced pro-kippot stance on the part of the congregation, and so the basket was moved to the floor. This placement struck other congregants as disrespectful, and now the kippot basket resides on a chair next to the prayer book table.
Bare-headed, I selected a seat at the very back of the room, and my friend sat with me through the musical portion of the service, until she needed to step forward to introduce the guest speaker (a representative from a local nonprofit organization that provides low-income women of color with free child-care). My friend introduced the speaker by reading a poem written from the perspective of a woman who was present when Moses descended from Sinai. The woman had not written down her story, said the voice of the poem, because her hands were always full of children. Her voice, said the poem, is like the vowels of the Torah -- missing but implied. It is up to us to fill in her voice.
The guest speaker provided background on her organization and offered congregants the chance to sign up to provide child-care for those in need. She connected her organization’s mission to the poem, describing the child-care opportunity as a way to take children out of their mothers’ hands long enough for them to participate fully in public life in a way denied to the women at Sinai and beyond.
By chance, on Sunday, two days later, I heard another stirring sermon on themes of gender and race, delivered by a professor of Politics and African-American studies from Princeton University. I had decided to attend services alone at a Unitarian church about three blocks from my apartment, and it turned out that day that the Unitarians were also welcoming a guest speaker.
The guest preacher/professor began her sermon with these words: "I am a cradle Unitarian. My mother was a white woman who was raised as a Mormon, and my father was a black man who shared a room at Howard with Stokely Carmichael, so for our family, in the 1970s, in northern Virginia, there was no other place for us to worship, but in a Unitarian church."
She went on to preach from a children's book (Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct), after noting that one of the things she loves about being a Unitarian is "You can preach on whatever text you want!"
Her message was what I have come to expect from a Unitarian service -- a blend of social justice exhortations, encouragements toward optimism in the face of despair, a reminder of the Unitarian commitment to embrace everyone, and a few somewhat understated liberal political messages, including jabs at current conservative leaders and candidates, and props for the current hope of the Democratic party.
I know that I have heard Unitarian ministers talk about God before, but I do not recall the guest professor invoking a deity in her sermon. The core of her message, it struck me, was deeply humanist in its outlook, and this message was underscored by her sermon's structure. Periodically throughout the first 2/3 of the sermon, after describing a human-caused tragedy that reflects negatively on our nature as people (the public whipping of an innocent black woman in turn-of-the-century Ohio, the failure of government response after Hurricane Katrina, etc.), the professor would utter a string of negative pronouncements, such as "Democracy is dead" or "There is no benevolent spirit of love and life to answer our prayers."
When her sermon turned a corner toward a more hopeful outlook, she modified those negative pronouncements from earlier, making them more positive. "What if democracy is only bruised," she asked, for example.
When it came time to reverse the assertion that there is no benevolent spirit to answer our prayers, she phrased her modification like this: "We are the ones who are here to answer each others' prayers."
I enjoyed her sermon immensely but was feeling shy when services were over, so although the professor and the church's minister both stood together on the outside steps to shake hands with the congregants as they exited -- he in his black robe and sash, and she in her sleeveless hot-pink shift dress and three-inch pink heels -- I slipped out a side door and avoided them.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Ramadan, part three (community)
As the ten of us sat in our silent Quaker-meeting circle in the Agatha-Christie-style parlor on Sunday, I did not find it difficult to sit still, but I did find it difficult, in my mind, to tamp down my desire to interact with the others. This was quite the surprise because I consider myself far more naturally introverted than extroverted.
And yet, there I was, scanning the room, feeling a bit amused and frustrated by the lack of connection I felt between the ten adult humans sharing this space together. Most of the others in the room had their eyes closed, and as I scanned the room, and met each face, I realized that I would probably feel a twinge of shame for my lack of inwardness, if I should meet another pair of eyes. But I did not meet another pair of eyes. All eyes were closed or downcast.
At points, I closed mine too, but they would not stay that way.
I wanted to ask the man sitting across from me if it was hard to hold his hands they way he did, curved upward in front of him, knuckles facing each other and almost touching, hands elevated off his lap. I wondered whether the older woman in the red armchair would appreciate a nudge when she fell asleep and began softly to snore. I felt moved to bond over a love of the nearby farmers' market with the two women who came late and tucked their vegetable-filled shopping bags underneath their chairs.
After about thirty minutes of silent thought, I was surprised that more than anything I found myself wanting to treat the meeting room as a space for performance art. I've been taking some acting workshops over the past nine months or so, and have found the rehearsal space to be space of (for lack of a better word) magic. I began to feel as if gathering ten people into a rehearsal space might make for a more transcendent Sunday morning than this hour of shared silence, and I felt a wholly inappropriate desire to burst out and confront the Quakers with a bold gesture or advance, just to see what reaction they might give, to which I might then react myself.
I was reminded of a question that emerged with an actor/director friend of mine once over a late-night bottle of vodka: "If we have art, why do we need religion?" Neither of us could provide an answer.
As I left the meeting, somewhat disappointed that my old housemate was too busy to go have a chat and reflect on the morning, I wondered how it might have been a different experience if I already had a sense of community with the others in the room. If some of us had been serving soup to homeless people together the Saturday before, or served together on the finance committee for the meetinghouse, or something, would silent "worship" (as my housemate pointedly called it) in the parlor have felt different?
Similarly, I realized that a sense of community is the dominant lack in my experience of Ramadan right now.
So far, I have broken each of my fasts alone, or with friends who were not fasting and did not know that I was. Each night this week was a repetition of that theme, until Thursday night -- last night -- when I broke the fast with my friend Mohammed.
A refugee from a religious Islamic upbringing, Mohammed had decided to observe Ramadan this month again for the first time in many years. Earlier this week, we discovered that we are both observing, and so decided to take iftar together at a West African restaurant located midway between our two apartments.
I asked Mohammed if he had a take on how I might make the five prayers meaningful, and he did not, but seemed approving of the yoga-substitution for the Fajr. I asked him to tell me about celebrating Ramadan growing up in Saudi Arabia, and he told me he did not always participate growing up, because children are not always expected to fast. He compared the first Ramadan fast for a Muslim child to a bar mitzvah or a First Communion, and told me about how children at his school would compete to be the most holy -- and tear each other down for their lack of piety.
"Other kids would make you stick out your tongue," he said, reflecting on the beginning of a schoolyard challenge, which would be followed by a bogus claim that the tongue showed proof of sneaking food on the fast. Then the instigator would run to a teacher or other grown-up shrieking: "Mohammed ate! Mohammed ate! Mohammed ate!"
"Was there that same type of competition to be most holy in your Christian upbringing?" he asked me.
It was a good question that I had not been asked before, and I gave an honest answer.
"There was not, at my church," I said. "Maybe sometimes at church camp there was, when everybody was new and jockeying for position. But in my own church, I have to admit to feeling piously confident that I WAS the most holy child there, and I probably just felt that I did not have competition. I knew my Bible, could quote it from memory, and followed all the rules. I knew how much I loved Jesus, and as a child, it was probably inconceivable that anyone could love Jesus more than me. So, no competition."
I smiled, a little embarrassed at the answer that had tumbled out.
"I mean, I suppose I was insufferable," I said. "If I had grown up to be the logical outcome of my childhood, we would not be having dinner right now, and you'd probably hate my guts."
Mohammed laughed, and we moved on to comparing the Koran and the Bible, talking about the role of money in religion, and pondering what a fractured Islam would look like if it had been split into as many different brands as American Christianity has in the 21st century.
I continue to search for more observers with whom to break fast over the next 19 days of the holiday, but in the meantime, tonight, I am invited to Shabbat services with a friend, where I will break fast at the vegetarian potluck afterward -- the largest community I will have been amongst at mealtime since the start of Ramadan.
And yet, there I was, scanning the room, feeling a bit amused and frustrated by the lack of connection I felt between the ten adult humans sharing this space together. Most of the others in the room had their eyes closed, and as I scanned the room, and met each face, I realized that I would probably feel a twinge of shame for my lack of inwardness, if I should meet another pair of eyes. But I did not meet another pair of eyes. All eyes were closed or downcast.
At points, I closed mine too, but they would not stay that way.
I wanted to ask the man sitting across from me if it was hard to hold his hands they way he did, curved upward in front of him, knuckles facing each other and almost touching, hands elevated off his lap. I wondered whether the older woman in the red armchair would appreciate a nudge when she fell asleep and began softly to snore. I felt moved to bond over a love of the nearby farmers' market with the two women who came late and tucked their vegetable-filled shopping bags underneath their chairs.
After about thirty minutes of silent thought, I was surprised that more than anything I found myself wanting to treat the meeting room as a space for performance art. I've been taking some acting workshops over the past nine months or so, and have found the rehearsal space to be space of (for lack of a better word) magic. I began to feel as if gathering ten people into a rehearsal space might make for a more transcendent Sunday morning than this hour of shared silence, and I felt a wholly inappropriate desire to burst out and confront the Quakers with a bold gesture or advance, just to see what reaction they might give, to which I might then react myself.
I was reminded of a question that emerged with an actor/director friend of mine once over a late-night bottle of vodka: "If we have art, why do we need religion?" Neither of us could provide an answer.
As I left the meeting, somewhat disappointed that my old housemate was too busy to go have a chat and reflect on the morning, I wondered how it might have been a different experience if I already had a sense of community with the others in the room. If some of us had been serving soup to homeless people together the Saturday before, or served together on the finance committee for the meetinghouse, or something, would silent "worship" (as my housemate pointedly called it) in the parlor have felt different?
Similarly, I realized that a sense of community is the dominant lack in my experience of Ramadan right now.
So far, I have broken each of my fasts alone, or with friends who were not fasting and did not know that I was. Each night this week was a repetition of that theme, until Thursday night -- last night -- when I broke the fast with my friend Mohammed.
A refugee from a religious Islamic upbringing, Mohammed had decided to observe Ramadan this month again for the first time in many years. Earlier this week, we discovered that we are both observing, and so decided to take iftar together at a West African restaurant located midway between our two apartments.
I asked Mohammed if he had a take on how I might make the five prayers meaningful, and he did not, but seemed approving of the yoga-substitution for the Fajr. I asked him to tell me about celebrating Ramadan growing up in Saudi Arabia, and he told me he did not always participate growing up, because children are not always expected to fast. He compared the first Ramadan fast for a Muslim child to a bar mitzvah or a First Communion, and told me about how children at his school would compete to be the most holy -- and tear each other down for their lack of piety.
"Other kids would make you stick out your tongue," he said, reflecting on the beginning of a schoolyard challenge, which would be followed by a bogus claim that the tongue showed proof of sneaking food on the fast. Then the instigator would run to a teacher or other grown-up shrieking: "Mohammed ate! Mohammed ate! Mohammed ate!"
"Was there that same type of competition to be most holy in your Christian upbringing?" he asked me.
It was a good question that I had not been asked before, and I gave an honest answer.
"There was not, at my church," I said. "Maybe sometimes at church camp there was, when everybody was new and jockeying for position. But in my own church, I have to admit to feeling piously confident that I WAS the most holy child there, and I probably just felt that I did not have competition. I knew my Bible, could quote it from memory, and followed all the rules. I knew how much I loved Jesus, and as a child, it was probably inconceivable that anyone could love Jesus more than me. So, no competition."
I smiled, a little embarrassed at the answer that had tumbled out.
"I mean, I suppose I was insufferable," I said. "If I had grown up to be the logical outcome of my childhood, we would not be having dinner right now, and you'd probably hate my guts."
Mohammed laughed, and we moved on to comparing the Koran and the Bible, talking about the role of money in religion, and pondering what a fractured Islam would look like if it had been split into as many different brands as American Christianity has in the 21st century.
I continue to search for more observers with whom to break fast over the next 19 days of the holiday, but in the meantime, tonight, I am invited to Shabbat services with a friend, where I will break fast at the vegetarian potluck afterward -- the largest community I will have been amongst at mealtime since the start of Ramadan.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Ramadan, part two (prayer and meditation)
I do not pray.
I had not taken this into account when deciding to observe Ramadan this year. I'm nearly a week into the month, and I have continued to put off adding the five daily prayers of Islam into my practice.
So, on Saturday, I set out to learn what kind of prayer should be said in the following morning. I decided I would start slowly, and on Sunday I would say only the salat al-Fajr, as accompaniment to my morning meal. Then, I thought, I might add one prayer per day until complete.
I did of course assume that any prayer I might find would be addressed to God.
While this conflicts with my atheism, long association with my religious family has taught me to translate prayers into a language that makes more sense to me, which is what I assumed I would do with the Fajr. I speculated that as a morning prayer, it might likely take the form of thanking God for the day, which I would translate into generalized gratitude for the start of the morning. Or it might ask God for strength and courage to go out into the world, which I would translate into a rumination on the strength and courage I might find within.
However, what I found while looking for sample Fajr prayers is that the subject of the Fajr prayer is largely God himself. Allahu akbar, and so on. "Glory be to You, O Allah!" "Yours is the praise and blessed is Your name." "I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan." Etc. Etc.
I do feel somewhat like I am being untrue to the spirit of my intention to explore the world's religions when I reject elements that don't ring true with my worldview, but that's exactly what I did.
I came across a drawing of a man saying his Fajr on a prayer rug and noticed that his pose looked very similar the “child's pose” in yoga. Because yoga is as disciplined a practice as prayer, I felt I had found a compromise, and that yoga would be a suitable substitute. I told myself that if I were to find, while doing yoga, some sort of desire to "pray" or "meditate," then I would, but I would not force myself.
So, on Sunday, I rose early, consumed the early meal, and did fifteen minutes of yogic stretching while listening to "Speaking of Faith" on NPR.
The guest was Dr. Esther Sternberg, a scientist of Jewish heritage who studies the connection between stress and disease, as well as the opposite of that -- the connection between belief and healing.
When the host asked Dr. Sternberg, "What do you mean by belief?," my ears perked up. “Good question,“ I thought. “Belief in what, Dr. Sternberg?"
But Sternberg punted and rambled and did not answer the question.
I finished my yoga without praying or meditating, and dressed for Quaker meeting.
I was to meet my friend, an old housemate of mine, in the garden next to the Friends meetinghouse, about a 25 minute walk from my apartment. I arrived early, so I could read a sura from the Koran while I waited.
When my old housemate arrived, she showed me around the building, and explained that there are three services held there: the early, smaller, silent meeting that we would be attending; a larger meeting that is also largely silent but punctuated by "spoken messages;" and a "special welcome" meeting for gays and lesbians, which my friend had never been to.
She showed me into a small room called "the parlor" where the small, silent meeting would take place.
The room was furnished with antiques, and the walls were lined with bookshelves. Two windows showed tall hedges outside and did not let in light. A mantelpiece was topped with a small ticking clock. An older woman in a sweatsuit and sneakers sat on a crimson chair with wooden arms. An older gentleman in a suit with a T-shirt and shiny, polished black shoes sat at one end of a narrow sofa. I said hello to them, and felt very loud when I did. They nodded their greetings back.
My friend took one end of another narrow sofa, and I sat in a matching crimson armchair. It was 8:59. Another older woman entered and sat next to me just before 9AM, and five more Friends trickled in during the first five minutes of Meeting, bringing our number to a gender-balanced ten. The last to arrive was an old man with restless legs who shook the books on the shelves when he trotted his knees up and down.
Other than the fidgety old man and occasional crossing and uncrossing of legs by others, there was no movement. The sounds were of the ticking clock and the birds outside.
What is everybody thinking about, I wondered.
Are they ... praying? Meditating?
I find it difficult to clear my mind of thoughts, and so my mind ranged widely across topics, most of which were no doubt improper for the Friends' meeting: my schedule for the week, my schedule for the day, the physical appearances of the others in the room, speculations on the others’ thoughts, speculations on the schedule for their days, questions for Dr. Esther Sternberg, yoga, sex, Ramadan, food, imagined conversations with friends and family, imagined instructions to myself to still my mind, reflections upon the furnishings and mood of the room.
In the church I belonged to growing up, time for silent meditation was brief and targeted. It occurred immediately following the taking of communion, and lasted for the length of one hymn on the organ. At Meeting, I let my mind recall the feeling of taking communion as a child, and how surprised I had been, around age ten, when my Sunday School teacher informed me it is a sin not to think about Jesus and his sacrifice during the organ music after consuming the wafer and the grape juice.
I had been baptized at age nine, and not all of my peers were baptized yet (meaning they could not take communion, and therefore did not have to worry about this sin), and I remember taking note that I had a potential sin in front of me that they did not. I remember being a child whose mind would wander after communion, only to be yanked back to Jesus as soon as I realized it, along with a quick and fervent prayer for forgiveness from Him of my wandering-mind sin.
Is there any particulary topic toward which I should yank my mind right now, I wondered to myself in Quaker meeting.
At around the forty-five-minute mark, a happy random thought about my sister and my childhood caused me to break out in a smile, which I instantly wiped away, feeling excessively emotional. I'd perceived no other signs of feeling in the room. Ten minutes later or so, some sad thoughts about lovelessness and betrayal caused two fat tears to well up and then to fall, one from each eye. Sitting silent in the peacefulness of the Friends' parlor, I felt like maybe a manic-depressive for such outbursts of emotion.
Moments later, my friend called the meeting to a close. At 10AM sharp, she spoke: "Good morning, Friends," and we all rose to shake hands with one another, me with two wet spots on my shirt that appeared to go unnoticed. My friend made a few small announcements, and we were dismissed.
I wanted to talk to her about what Quaker meeting means to her, but she had a brunch to go to right away, and besides I am fasting, so I hope to attend one (or probably both) of the other meetings, and corner my friend (who was reared without religion at all) about her choice to throw in with the Quakers.
I had not taken this into account when deciding to observe Ramadan this year. I'm nearly a week into the month, and I have continued to put off adding the five daily prayers of Islam into my practice.
So, on Saturday, I set out to learn what kind of prayer should be said in the following morning. I decided I would start slowly, and on Sunday I would say only the salat al-Fajr, as accompaniment to my morning meal. Then, I thought, I might add one prayer per day until complete.
I did of course assume that any prayer I might find would be addressed to God.
While this conflicts with my atheism, long association with my religious family has taught me to translate prayers into a language that makes more sense to me, which is what I assumed I would do with the Fajr. I speculated that as a morning prayer, it might likely take the form of thanking God for the day, which I would translate into generalized gratitude for the start of the morning. Or it might ask God for strength and courage to go out into the world, which I would translate into a rumination on the strength and courage I might find within.
However, what I found while looking for sample Fajr prayers is that the subject of the Fajr prayer is largely God himself. Allahu akbar, and so on. "Glory be to You, O Allah!" "Yours is the praise and blessed is Your name." "I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan." Etc. Etc.
I do feel somewhat like I am being untrue to the spirit of my intention to explore the world's religions when I reject elements that don't ring true with my worldview, but that's exactly what I did.
I came across a drawing of a man saying his Fajr on a prayer rug and noticed that his pose looked very similar the “child's pose” in yoga. Because yoga is as disciplined a practice as prayer, I felt I had found a compromise, and that yoga would be a suitable substitute. I told myself that if I were to find, while doing yoga, some sort of desire to "pray" or "meditate," then I would, but I would not force myself.
So, on Sunday, I rose early, consumed the early meal, and did fifteen minutes of yogic stretching while listening to "Speaking of Faith" on NPR.
The guest was Dr. Esther Sternberg, a scientist of Jewish heritage who studies the connection between stress and disease, as well as the opposite of that -- the connection between belief and healing.
When the host asked Dr. Sternberg, "What do you mean by belief?," my ears perked up. “Good question,“ I thought. “Belief in what, Dr. Sternberg?"
But Sternberg punted and rambled and did not answer the question.
I finished my yoga without praying or meditating, and dressed for Quaker meeting.
I was to meet my friend, an old housemate of mine, in the garden next to the Friends meetinghouse, about a 25 minute walk from my apartment. I arrived early, so I could read a sura from the Koran while I waited.
When my old housemate arrived, she showed me around the building, and explained that there are three services held there: the early, smaller, silent meeting that we would be attending; a larger meeting that is also largely silent but punctuated by "spoken messages;" and a "special welcome" meeting for gays and lesbians, which my friend had never been to.
She showed me into a small room called "the parlor" where the small, silent meeting would take place.
The room was furnished with antiques, and the walls were lined with bookshelves. Two windows showed tall hedges outside and did not let in light. A mantelpiece was topped with a small ticking clock. An older woman in a sweatsuit and sneakers sat on a crimson chair with wooden arms. An older gentleman in a suit with a T-shirt and shiny, polished black shoes sat at one end of a narrow sofa. I said hello to them, and felt very loud when I did. They nodded their greetings back.
My friend took one end of another narrow sofa, and I sat in a matching crimson armchair. It was 8:59. Another older woman entered and sat next to me just before 9AM, and five more Friends trickled in during the first five minutes of Meeting, bringing our number to a gender-balanced ten. The last to arrive was an old man with restless legs who shook the books on the shelves when he trotted his knees up and down.
Other than the fidgety old man and occasional crossing and uncrossing of legs by others, there was no movement. The sounds were of the ticking clock and the birds outside.
What is everybody thinking about, I wondered.
Are they ... praying? Meditating?
I find it difficult to clear my mind of thoughts, and so my mind ranged widely across topics, most of which were no doubt improper for the Friends' meeting: my schedule for the week, my schedule for the day, the physical appearances of the others in the room, speculations on the others’ thoughts, speculations on the schedule for their days, questions for Dr. Esther Sternberg, yoga, sex, Ramadan, food, imagined conversations with friends and family, imagined instructions to myself to still my mind, reflections upon the furnishings and mood of the room.
In the church I belonged to growing up, time for silent meditation was brief and targeted. It occurred immediately following the taking of communion, and lasted for the length of one hymn on the organ. At Meeting, I let my mind recall the feeling of taking communion as a child, and how surprised I had been, around age ten, when my Sunday School teacher informed me it is a sin not to think about Jesus and his sacrifice during the organ music after consuming the wafer and the grape juice.
I had been baptized at age nine, and not all of my peers were baptized yet (meaning they could not take communion, and therefore did not have to worry about this sin), and I remember taking note that I had a potential sin in front of me that they did not. I remember being a child whose mind would wander after communion, only to be yanked back to Jesus as soon as I realized it, along with a quick and fervent prayer for forgiveness from Him of my wandering-mind sin.
Is there any particulary topic toward which I should yank my mind right now, I wondered to myself in Quaker meeting.
At around the forty-five-minute mark, a happy random thought about my sister and my childhood caused me to break out in a smile, which I instantly wiped away, feeling excessively emotional. I'd perceived no other signs of feeling in the room. Ten minutes later or so, some sad thoughts about lovelessness and betrayal caused two fat tears to well up and then to fall, one from each eye. Sitting silent in the peacefulness of the Friends' parlor, I felt like maybe a manic-depressive for such outbursts of emotion.
Moments later, my friend called the meeting to a close. At 10AM sharp, she spoke: "Good morning, Friends," and we all rose to shake hands with one another, me with two wet spots on my shirt that appeared to go unnoticed. My friend made a few small announcements, and we were dismissed.
I wanted to talk to her about what Quaker meeting means to her, but she had a brunch to go to right away, and besides I am fasting, so I hope to attend one (or probably both) of the other meetings, and corner my friend (who was reared without religion at all) about her choice to throw in with the Quakers.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Ramadan, part one (my first post)
Welcome to my blog.
I intended to start this blog one week ago, on my 34th birthday, but it was not to be. I went to the beach for my birthday instead, and delayed the launch of the blog until I got back.
I'll keep this project going for at least one year, and if I don't get lazy on my intentions for the blog, I'll be updating it semi-regularly with thoughts and reflections about religion, and short narratives about experiences with religious communities. Over the next year, I will seek to:
1. accompany friends, acquaintances, and others to their various houses of worship,
2. visit various houses of worship alone, when no companion can be found,
3. read more about the religions of the world,
4. observe as many religious holidays as I can over the course of the calendar year, birthday to birthday.
It's Ramadan right now.
Observance of Ramadan began during the most recent new moon, at sundown last Monday, September 1. Leading up to the beginning of the holiday, I knew only one primary fact about Ramadan: that the observance centers around a daylong fast, broken at sunset by a meal called iftar.
So, on Tuesday, September 2, I rose early to beat the sunrise, and to eat a somewhat larger breakfast than normal in preparation for the fast. I toasted a bagel, scrambled some eggs with cheese and tomato, and cooked some veggie sausage patties. I brewed what I realized would be my only coffee of the day, and read the newspaper over breakfast while the neighborhood outside my dining room window began its day in the dark.
It was around 6AM, and I'm rarely awake at that hour. I listened to even more NPR than normal that day as I prepared (unrushed!) for work, and eventually strolled leisurely to my downtown office, arriving by 8AM, the first one there. I normally arrive between 9 and 9:30, and yet I realized how much I really like the the slower-paced early-morning hour alone to organize my day, and to accomplish several tasks uninterrupted.
Already, on Day One, I found myself crediting Ramadan with the positives that came from forcing me to experiment with a new perspective, which seemed valid, if a bit premature or excessive.
At some point during the day, I began to wonder about the big breakfast I had eaten.
I knew a daylong fast is required for Ramadan, but I suddenly wondered if scrambling out of bed to beat the dawn was cheating. I wondered if, like a Yom Kippur fast, the abstinence is meant to extend from sundown to sundown.
The concern emerged sometime after midday, at a point when I was feeling good about the fast, but it troubled me because I know what a sundown to sundown fast feels like, and I was feeling nervous about sustaining that challenge for an entire month. So, I took a break in my day to look up the answer, and was relieved to learn that the early meal in Ramadan is absolutely permitted, and even has its own name -- the suhoor.
As I write, I am four days into Ramadan, and I see that I can definitely do this. Abstaining from food from sun-up to sun-down is entirely doable, and actually feels kind of good.
I have read that part of Ramadan is to practice patience and humility, and to identify with the poor, who may not have enough to eat.
This resonates with my four-day experience, in fact. "I'm a little hungry," I will think, "but I can wait." Hence the patience.
The humility bit feels as much like a recognition of mortality as anything -- not a morbid fascination or death-obsession, but simply a different kind of presence in the body, a presence that is a bit more constantly aware of the body's external needs, and therefore its frailty and limitations. Hence the humility.
And finally, yes, it's true (though it may seem hokey to some, including me) that only four days in to the observance I do feel a kind of newly and differently realized gratitude that I have always had enough to eat. I have never -- not as a child, and not ever as an adult -- had to know hunger, or to worry about the source of my next meal, or to figure out how to stretch a small amount of food to cover an entire day.
There again, I credit Ramadan with forcing a new experience upon me. During this month, I have been and will be thinking about how get maximum advantage out of a minimum amount of food, consumed at times not exactly of my choosing.
So, that's my experience of Ramadan so far. I am also attempting to read the Koran this month (but I'll save that for another post), and I have not yet connected the five daily Muslim prayers to the experience (though I understand that suhoor and iftar should cooincide with the first and fourth prayers of the day). The most glaring missing piece so far, however, is that I have not yet connected with a Muslim community, or community of other celebrants.
I hope to share iftar with other celebrants before the end of the month, and I've posted a message to a local Facebook group of progressive Muslims, so we'll see what comes of that, if anything. I would also like to share iftar with conservative Muslims or in-between Muslims or non-Muslims like myself who are experimenting with Ramadan, and I'm not sure how to do that.
If the Facebook group doesn't work out, perhaps I'll resort to Craig's List, or possibly, without community, perhaps I'll just have to make plans to go visit a mosque (or two) this month by myself.
In the meantime, I have been invited to Quaker meeting by a friend this coming Sunday, and I'm looking forward to adding an austere, silent, early-morning Friends meeting to the asceticism of the fast.
I intended to start this blog one week ago, on my 34th birthday, but it was not to be. I went to the beach for my birthday instead, and delayed the launch of the blog until I got back.
I'll keep this project going for at least one year, and if I don't get lazy on my intentions for the blog, I'll be updating it semi-regularly with thoughts and reflections about religion, and short narratives about experiences with religious communities. Over the next year, I will seek to:
1. accompany friends, acquaintances, and others to their various houses of worship,
2. visit various houses of worship alone, when no companion can be found,
3. read more about the religions of the world,
4. observe as many religious holidays as I can over the course of the calendar year, birthday to birthday.
It's Ramadan right now.
Observance of Ramadan began during the most recent new moon, at sundown last Monday, September 1. Leading up to the beginning of the holiday, I knew only one primary fact about Ramadan: that the observance centers around a daylong fast, broken at sunset by a meal called iftar.
So, on Tuesday, September 2, I rose early to beat the sunrise, and to eat a somewhat larger breakfast than normal in preparation for the fast. I toasted a bagel, scrambled some eggs with cheese and tomato, and cooked some veggie sausage patties. I brewed what I realized would be my only coffee of the day, and read the newspaper over breakfast while the neighborhood outside my dining room window began its day in the dark.
It was around 6AM, and I'm rarely awake at that hour. I listened to even more NPR than normal that day as I prepared (unrushed!) for work, and eventually strolled leisurely to my downtown office, arriving by 8AM, the first one there. I normally arrive between 9 and 9:30, and yet I realized how much I really like the the slower-paced early-morning hour alone to organize my day, and to accomplish several tasks uninterrupted.
Already, on Day One, I found myself crediting Ramadan with the positives that came from forcing me to experiment with a new perspective, which seemed valid, if a bit premature or excessive.
At some point during the day, I began to wonder about the big breakfast I had eaten.
I knew a daylong fast is required for Ramadan, but I suddenly wondered if scrambling out of bed to beat the dawn was cheating. I wondered if, like a Yom Kippur fast, the abstinence is meant to extend from sundown to sundown.
The concern emerged sometime after midday, at a point when I was feeling good about the fast, but it troubled me because I know what a sundown to sundown fast feels like, and I was feeling nervous about sustaining that challenge for an entire month. So, I took a break in my day to look up the answer, and was relieved to learn that the early meal in Ramadan is absolutely permitted, and even has its own name -- the suhoor.
As I write, I am four days into Ramadan, and I see that I can definitely do this. Abstaining from food from sun-up to sun-down is entirely doable, and actually feels kind of good.
I have read that part of Ramadan is to practice patience and humility, and to identify with the poor, who may not have enough to eat.
This resonates with my four-day experience, in fact. "I'm a little hungry," I will think, "but I can wait." Hence the patience.
The humility bit feels as much like a recognition of mortality as anything -- not a morbid fascination or death-obsession, but simply a different kind of presence in the body, a presence that is a bit more constantly aware of the body's external needs, and therefore its frailty and limitations. Hence the humility.
And finally, yes, it's true (though it may seem hokey to some, including me) that only four days in to the observance I do feel a kind of newly and differently realized gratitude that I have always had enough to eat. I have never -- not as a child, and not ever as an adult -- had to know hunger, or to worry about the source of my next meal, or to figure out how to stretch a small amount of food to cover an entire day.
There again, I credit Ramadan with forcing a new experience upon me. During this month, I have been and will be thinking about how get maximum advantage out of a minimum amount of food, consumed at times not exactly of my choosing.
So, that's my experience of Ramadan so far. I am also attempting to read the Koran this month (but I'll save that for another post), and I have not yet connected the five daily Muslim prayers to the experience (though I understand that suhoor and iftar should cooincide with the first and fourth prayers of the day). The most glaring missing piece so far, however, is that I have not yet connected with a Muslim community, or community of other celebrants.
I hope to share iftar with other celebrants before the end of the month, and I've posted a message to a local Facebook group of progressive Muslims, so we'll see what comes of that, if anything. I would also like to share iftar with conservative Muslims or in-between Muslims or non-Muslims like myself who are experimenting with Ramadan, and I'm not sure how to do that.
If the Facebook group doesn't work out, perhaps I'll resort to Craig's List, or possibly, without community, perhaps I'll just have to make plans to go visit a mosque (or two) this month by myself.
In the meantime, I have been invited to Quaker meeting by a friend this coming Sunday, and I'm looking forward to adding an austere, silent, early-morning Friends meeting to the asceticism of the fast.
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