For the brand of Christianity I grew up with, fasting has been largely abandoned.
The only times I can remember fasting coming up in church was when the sermon or the Sunday School lesson would cover the section of Matthew's Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus teaches that those who are fasting should conceal the outward appearance of their hunger. Those who look somber while they are fasting are here termed “hypocrites,” and Jesus informs his audience that “your Father, who is unseen, and … who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
Growing up, I remember this fasting passage being used mostly as a metaphor. Though people fasted “in Bible times,” we don’t have to do that these days, it was implied, but we can learn how to keep our private struggles to ourselves and wait for our reward from God.
Reading through the book that Zaki the Ahmadi had given me, I learned that some Muslims take issue with a fasting-related edit that comes later in the book of Matthew. A story about the disciples trying and failing to cast a demon out of a boy ends with Jesus telling the disciples they have too little faith. Some manuscripts record that Jesus went on to say that such a demon will only come out “through prayer and fasting,” though this is relegated to a footnote in most current Bibles. According to The Introduction to the Study of the Holy Qu’ran, this is proof that even Jesus acknowledges that faith in Him alone is insufficient for salvation, absent prayer and fasting -- two of the Five Pillars of Islam.
“This criticism was so vital that Christians found themselves unable to give any reply,” states the Ahmadi text. “The only way of escape they found was in deleting the verse from the Gospel.”
I must admit that even in my well-marked copy of the Bible, I had never noticed this footnote before. My only margin-note on this passage was to write “faith in what?” next to where Jesus tells the disciples they haven’t enough “faith” within them to cast out demons. If I follow my scrawl correctly, my reasoning was that since Jesus wasn't dead yet, the disciples' faith couldn't mimic modern Christians' faith in the resurrection -- but if Jesus was in the process of bringing a new covenant to supersede Jewish law, would the disciples' Jewish faith in the God of Abraham be enough?
What were the requirements, exactly, of the nether-faith between the Covenants? (This question had troubled me early on, as a devoutly Christian child.)
In addition to the faith question, my scrawled Bible notes here include exclamation points and underlines of the quotes that reveal a sassy drama-queen Jesus who was fed up with His disciples.
"Oh, unbelieving and perverse generation," Jesus harrumphs. "How long shall I put up with you!"
You can almost see Him rolling his eyes, and hear the dramatic sigh. You can almost see the full sweep of his robe's sleeve as he gestures the next line.
"Bring the boy to me."
Then Jesus casts out the demon Himself, and then -- snap! -- he rips on the size of the disciples' faith in this well-known passage: “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Having not tried my hand at casting out demons or moving mountains during Ramadan, I can’t say if my fasting would have helped, though I’ve no doubt that the “faith” component in me is significantly smaller than a mustard seed. I've no more idea what "faith" should mean for me in the 21st century than I do for the disciples in the 1st.
And while the fasting of Ramadan felt like useful practice, it did nothing to increase anything I could call "faith."
In fact, partway through Ramadan, I read some news that, if anything, diminished my faith. I was astonished to read a newspaper article about how fasting is dealt with inside some Muslim-dominant societies of the world. The article focused on young Muslims in Saudi Arabia who are working to "reclaim" Ramadan, reinstituting a focus on fasting, God, and attention to the poor. I was surprised to learn that this is not the focus for Muslims everywhere on Ramadan already.
Though I have been separated from Christianity for 17 years now, I have long been appalled by the commercialization of the holiday of Christmas. I find it shocking that a religion could allow one of its holidays to be cheapened and hijacked the way Christmas has, with its plastic trees and plastic, plug-in baby Jesuses and the profligate spending of money on plastic junk for kids. No other serious religion, I once sniffed, would let such an important holiday slide into popular decline like this -- and I held onto that opinion as an indictment of Christianity itself.
Well, no longer. The way Ramadan is apparently celebrated by many means I have to admit Islam to this club, and it's a shame. It's a shame because perversions of Islam are already given quite a lot of attention by those of us in the West, as we react to the latest subway bomb in Madrid or London, or hear of homosexuals being beheaded in Saudi Arabia, or worry about the next terrorist attack emerging from the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The perversion of Ramadan is far less immediately grave in its consequences, than, say, the idea of a jihadic struggle motivating murder. But much like the birthday celebration for a charismatic leader who preached about caring for the poor has become a reason to go into debt indulging in over-consumption, so too, apparently, has a fasting holiday emphasizing self-discipline become a feasting holiday tending toward sloth.
According to the article I read, many in the Muslim world deal with the difficulty of the fast by essentially turning day into night and night into day during the month of Ramadan. Since the entire society is doing this, it causes no problems, and life can continue as normal. You can get a dental appointment in the middle of the night; your work will adjust to accommodate the shift in daily habits.
As one young Saudi put it in the Washington Post article: "We replaced the pain of hunger during Ramadan with the pain of overeating and indigestion. We've turned it into a month of soap operas and entertainment, a month of the supermarkets. ... Instead of saying hello to the month that purifies us of sin, we're saying hello to the month of samosas, entertainment, soap operas and shopping malls."
Sounds like the Saudi version of American Christmas to me.
The group of people with whom I shared my last communal iftar of the month seemed to agree. Many of them had spent time in Middle Eastern countries and talked about the vast differences between their fasting experiences there versus in the United States.
"I would get up at four o'clock in the afternoon. It did not feel like I was fasting," said one woman. "People who got up earlier than that would complain about having to go four or five hours without food."
"Over there, they think we aren't having the real Ramadan experience in the US, because not everyone is doing it," said Richard (the man who had cautioned against worshiping the sun). "They focus on how we're a minority, and the culture doesn't accommodate us. But for us, we think we're having the deeper experience, because we have to fit this focus on God into our regular lives. We have to make sacrifices to worship."
Others chimed in with their own strategies and thoughts on how to fit the holiday into their lives as unobtrusively as possible for the Christians and atheists and other non-celebrants around them.
Everyone seemed to agree that they preferred the private fast to the public feasting, and it struck me that the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount would highly approve of these American Muslims.
Showing posts with label Ahmadiyya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ahmadiyya. Show all posts
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Ramadan, part ten (Laylat al Qadr)
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."
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."
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?
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.
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