My friend and I separated on a drizzly, windy corner of Howard St. in Baltimore. She boarded a bus back toward her house in Hampden, and I considered running back to Mariner Arena to find out what the printed program had meant by substituting the traditional Diwali fireworks with what the program called "virtual fireworks." They were scheduled to start at 9PM, but I was a long way from DC and dependent upon public transportation, so I bought my light-rail ticket and waited in the light rain.
The headlights of three different light-rail trains illuminated the mist and passed me by before the train I was waiting for squeaked to a halt and opened its doors for me.
Inside, I pulled the printed program out of my backpack and leafed through its pages, sounding out the names of the Indian oncologists, dentists, and real estate agents, whose business-card-sized ads sat stacked inside text reminding celebrants of the meaning of Diwali.
The days leading up to Diwali all have a special meaning. Five days before Diwali, it is a good day to go shopping. Four days before marks Krishna's slaying of Narakasura. Three days before is the day of Lakshmi Puja, and two days before is Govardhan Puja. Puja simply means "worship," roughly, and Govardhan is not a god or goddess, but a holy mountain. The day before Diwali is a holiday for celebrating the relationship between brothers and sisters.
Overall, the celebration of Diwali is meant as a celebration of good over evil, as symbolized by the lights.
Paging through the program, I lingered over a full-page ad for the temple I'd attended for Navaratri. Here I learned that all of the Deities in the temple are modeled after other existing Deities, so that, the temple claims, a walk through the worship space is "equivalent to visiting several temples in India."
Turning the page, I happened upon an essay about Vedanta written by Vijay Kumar, a self-described "disciple of Swami Chinmayananda," which was printed opposite an ad offering best wishes for the contestants of the 14th Annual Miss India-DC Pageant.
Swami Chinmayananda? That was the name printed on the banner at the Vedanta table. I skimmed the rest of Kumar's biography: organizer of Vedanta discussion groups, member of the Washington Interfaith Association, IT Engineer for the Pentagon.
Interesting. I began to read his essay.
Kumar: Vedanta affirms the oneness of existence, the divinity of the soul, and the harmony of religions.
The lights flickered inside the train car whenever the driver blew her horn for us to cross an intersection.
A few seats behind me, a group of young women gossiped loudly about another woman who was not present, mocking her weight and appearance. They used coarse language to speculate that the woman – who rarely dates men – is probably a lesbian, and a really slutty one too.
The noisy women carved up the missing woman's body and described each part to each other – her bad teeth, her damaged hair, her stretch marks, her skin.
Kumar: Vedanta asserts that you are essentially divine. God dwells within our own hearts as the Supreme Self.
In front of me, a man boasted on his cell phone about cheating on his girlfriend.
He laughed that the girlfriend has no idea what he's up to. He called her ugly names, pridefully describing how he fulfills her highest (and only) worth by using her body for sex.
He talked loudly about how much that sex might hurt, because of how aggressively he pursues what he wants. After he paused for a moment for other end of the line to speak, he said, "She better not cheat on me. I'd kill that fucking bitch."
Kumar: The Atman is never born, nor will it ever die. Pure, perfect, free from limitations, the Atman is the Brahman.
And what is the Brahman? Kumar describes it this way: "According to Vedanta, God is infinite existence, infinite consciousness, and infinite bliss. The term for this impersonal, transcendent reality is Brahman. … Who is God? Consciousness. What is Consciousness? You can go on and on."
The conductor blew the horn and the lights dimmed. We had arrived at the end of the line, and I boarded my bus for the next leg of my journey. I had thought I would pass the time by reading an article on "untouchables" in the 21st century that was featured in a copy of the Indian American that I had picked up, but my bus had no overhead lighting. It also had no cruel and noisy passengers, so I sank into my seat in the silence, as if at a Quaker meeting, and reflected on the day.
Diwali celebrates the Atman as the inner light. The victory of good over evil is the victory of Krishna over Narakasura, is the victory of light over darkness, is the victory of the Atman over… what? I do not know a Hindu term for inner darkness.
I do know this: I know that while English-speakers may tend to translate Atman as Self or Soul or Inner Light, the root meaning of Atman in Sanskrit is actually "breath."
And I know that in Sanskrit, Atman is not the only kind of breath. There is also prana, as every student of yoga learns. ("Breathe in, breathe out.") Atman is spiritual, prana is physical.
I thought about how the word for "breath" in Koheleth (“hebel”) has come to mean something hopeless, while the breath of the Atman is deeply hopeful.
I thought about the difference between "breath" and "a breath." I wondered how true scholars of Sanskrit and Hebrew might negotiate the difference between hebel and Atman.
A breath...
a gasp...
a moment…
an eyeblink...
a flash before darkness.
Breath...
inspiration...
animation...
illumination…
light.
Add a character to the short play: The guru says that life is Atman. Now add a character locked in struggle with the new addition. The guru says that life is prana.
Now ask each of the characters: What happens to us when we die?
In my reading, Koheleth says we are finished. My sense is that the teacher, the philosopher, the quester, and especially the preacher would hedge about this, though. They would insist that by viewing the text of Ecclesiastes through the lens of the other 65 books of the Bible, we can find hope for eternal life. The preacher (and others?) would insist that we can only find this hope if we allow ourselves to be born again through Jesus Christ.
The gurus, of course, would say we are born again and again and again.
The Atman never dies. We struggle to break the cycle.
And Jesus has nothing to do with it.
Showing posts with label Quaker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quaker. Show all posts
Friday, October 31, 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 19, 2008
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)