The Five Pillars: Shahada (No god but Allah...)

When I came up the stairs in the Hindu temple from Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam's concert, I was running a bit late to return my rented car, but I wanted to see inside the worship space. I hadn't even peeked in before, while I was asking the man in the lobby shop where to buy my concert ticket, so after reading a couple of posted signs to try to ensure I wouldn't be breaking any rules by entering, I stepped from the lobby into the worship space.

The Muslim worship spaces I have experienced are empty, with rugs on the floor for praying. The Jewish worship spaces I have experienced have tended to be furnished with rows of chairs with arms, like a theater, with great variation in the style of ark situated in the front. Christian spaces, of course, have pews, with or without a baptismal pool or font in the front. The Hindu worship space surprised me in its difference.

Whether rugs, chairs, or pews, the monotheistic spaces are designed to arrange the worshippers in rows, facing forward, toward one thing: the ark, the East, the cross, whatever. The Hindu space (as perhaps I should have predicted, but did not) had no single focal point. Rather, the space contained shrines to 16 different named gods. The space was not quiet. People were talking and children were running around. Some people stood or bowed before particular shrines, others were simply sitting on the floor in lotus position, not apparently focused on any shrine in particular.

My instinct was to walk through the space and investigate each shrine one at a time. I walked up to Vishnu's space, because his was one of the largest, and because the depiction of the figure inside was different. Whereas many other shrines depicted a seated, standing, or dancing figure, the object inside the Vishnu shrine looked more like a corpse, or more specifically like a sarcophagus. There were flowers and bananas left on the stairs up into Vishnu's space and a sign at the top of the stairs reserving the inside of the shrine for priests only.

Next to me, a woman fell to her knees before the shrine of Hanuman (a god who symbolizes devotion to selfless service and humility), and pressed her forehead to the floor. This shrine also bore a sign reserving its inner space for priests, and the figure of Hanuman sat in a recess behind a curtain that could be closed. Next to the woman on the floor, another shrine, to I know not which god, had its curtain closed, and a living figure -- presumably a priest -- was moving around inside.

The rebuke from the woman at my last iftar rang in my head: "You can't be a religious tourist. Those people are there to pray."

I questioned my instinct to walk from shrine to shrine, wondering if treating the worship space like a museum might be unkind. Then I thought the better comparison might be to a Catholic, walking the stations of the cross -- something I have never done. I let the pressure of the car reservation make my decision for me, and after admiring only about a quarter of the shrines, I went back outside to collect my shoes from the cubby.

What would even the progressive Muslims of the suburban iftar have made of this temple, I wondered.

I have heard Christian sermons condemn Hindus for praying to "idols," and at the suburban iftar, I heard Richard (the convert from Christianity) criticize their polytheism as well. He mentioned it in the context of criticizing Christians for being "like the Hindus" in their worship of a three-part god.

"How is that monotheism?" Richard was asking a small group that had formed around him. "You've got Jesus, and you've got God, but Jesus is also God, and then there's this other thing, a ghost, and then you've got the Catholics, and they've got Mary all up in it too. And what's up with Mary always looking like some white woman from the Middle Ages? It's like, when somebody go all crazy and see Mary pop up her face on a piece-a toast or something, it always look like some white woman. And she’s a part of God too? What's up with that?"

The Trinity made sense to me as a child, but as an adult, I do feel like Richard has a point. I don't agree that the Hindus and Christians necessarily have it wrong somehow because their theism isn't as absolutely mono as Richard's, but I do see how being able to conceptualize God in three parts should put Christians in a bind to explain how they reject others who see even more parts to God, whether Catholics who add on Mary or the Saints, or Hindus who split the concept of God -- by some reckonings -- into millions of parts.

At the Kol Nidre service, we prayed to the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Rebekah, the God of Jacob, the God of Rachel, and the God of Leah. I had done this before, but this year, for the first time, I heard the cantor explain her understanding of why we repeat the words "God of" each time.

"It's because each generation -- each person, really -- encounters God in his or her own way," the cantor explained. "We're not praying to this God of... a whole big group of people who always agreed on everything. We're praying to a God who was real to Isaac, and real to Rebekah, and to the rest, and we're honoring each of their encounters with the Eternal, as well as our own encounter."

So, by my count, that was seven gods at Kol Nidre. Or maybe a few hundred, if I'm counting the God of Jim, the God of Suzi, and the rest of the congregation celebrating High Holidays in the United Church.

When I went back to the United Church (aka Die Vereinigte Kirche) the following Sunday for Christian services, I wondered which God would be there. The God who just closed the gates in that same space on Thursday night? The God of the soprano cantor? The God of the woman who looked into my eyes and blessed me? The God of the Rev. Peter DeGroote, who would be preaching that morning? All of the above?

The giant banner depicting the Torah scroll had been removed from the cross at the front of the sanctuary, and on Sunday, the crowd was much smaller. Maybe 40 or 50 people attended services, most of them senior citizens and most of them women, including a returning pastor named Rita Horstmann, who was visiting from her home church in Cologne, having served as Die Vereinigte Kirche's German pastor in 2003 and 2004.

Rev. DeGroote was welcoming and kind, greeting me as an obvious visitor amongst the sparse crowd, since I was both male and off the average age by about thirty years. He and a younger pastor (who was about my age) wore black suits and clerical collars and no wedding rings. The younger man led us in song and prayer; the older man delivered a sermon based on the book of James (or Jakobus, as it was called in Der Bibel from the pew in front of me). The older reverend led us in some prayers as well.

We prayed to God, and we addressed one recited-in-unison prayer to "the Holy One," and we also prayed to Jesus, sometimes calling him Jesus Christ. We sang a song addressed to the "Spirit of the living God," which I had sung before at the Unitarian Church near my house. The song calls for the living God's spirit to "fall afresh on me ... melt me, mold me, fill me, use me" -- a very similar message to the "thou art the potter" hymn from my upbringing, and the God-as-potter song from Kol Nidre.

We also prayed pointedly to a Creator God (Brahma?), and we finished with the Lord's Prayer.

I know the Lord's Prayer. I have sung it and recited it hundreds if not thousands of times, sometimes with the language of “you“ and “your,” sometimes with the language of “thou” and “thine”… sometimes with "debts" and sometimes with "transgressions."

When I glanced at the upcoming text, printed on my church bulletin, I saw that Die Vereinigte Kirche addresses the Lord directly on the debts/transgressions line, using the phrasing "forgive us for wronging you” (no capital Y).

But that wasn't the only fresh aspect of their translation.

When Rev. DeGroote, and Rita Horstmann, and the senior citizens, and I, and the young, unmarried pastor all raised our voices to recite the Lord's Prayer to God, we said:

"Our Father and Mother in heaven, holy is your name."

Navaratri (Thank you, India.)

Navaratri, a nine-day Hindu celebration of various manifestations of the Divine Mother, began last Tuesday, triggered by the same new moon that ended Ramadan and began the Jewish New Year. There's no way I can deny that I felt my heart leap when I first discovered that this holiday is meant to honor the goddesses.

I grew up with a Father God. This Father God has a Son, who lived and walked upon the Earth inside a male body. I have even met Christians who will insist that the Holy Ghost is male, meaning that the entire Trinity can be considered -- apparently -- as just a big all-male three-way, with the unmistakable understanding that THERE IS NOTHING FEMALE ABOUT THE CHRISTIAN GOD. Period.

So, after a month of focus on the Father God of Islam... and his male prophet... and the male-dominated worship spaces at the mosques, the sense of relief and balance that Navaratri might bring felt exciting to me.

Navaratri spends nine days and nights honoring the sacred embodiment of creative and feminine energy -- Shakti.

The holiday is divided into three parts, with three nights apiece devoted to a different goddess, each of whom represents a different facet of Shakti’s divine feminine power. The three first days and nights go to Durga, a fierce warrior goddess, consort of Shiva, and the mother of Ganesha. She rides a tiger and slays demons. The second three go to Lakshmi, consort of Vishnu, and giver of physical wealth. She is also closely associated with the upcoming holiday of Diwali. The final three nights belong to Saraswati, consort of Brahma, supreme goddess of wisdom and the arts. She is often depicted as a river, or as connected to rivers or water.

When I set about finding a Navaratri celebration in my area, I quickly learned that all of the Hindu temples are in the suburbs. I found two temples from which to choose, as well as one Hindu organization planning Navaratri celebrations for various school and university auditoriums in Maryland and Virginia. I was leaning toward a Saturday night celebration at a university, when I discovered an afternoon concert planned for 1PM at the Sri Siva Vishnu Temple in suburban Maryland.

The flyer I found announced that Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam would be providing vocals, with Avaneeswaram Vinu on violin and Shertalai Ananthakrishnanan on mridangam, a type of South Indian drum.

Perfect, I thought. If gay men know how to do anything worshipful, it's how to revere female vocalists as the incarnation of goddesses. So, I will go listen to Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam sing. It will be a good excuse for me to show up at the Hindu temple for the first time, and it will connect to the theme of the holiday. Perhaps I will consider attendance at the concert to be my worship of Saraswati, and her connection to music and the arts.

Instead of biking, I chose to rent a Zipcar for the 17-mile trip.

The Sri Siva Vishnu Temple is located on a winding two-lane road accessed from a much larger suburban artery lined with strip malls, fast food, and gas stations. It is tucked away on this largely residential street behind some trees, much less obvious from the road than the houses behind their flat lawns. A sign in the full parking lot directed overflow traffic to park at the nearby Greek Orthodox church.

I did this, and then walked back to the temple on the shoulder of the road.

The temple is all white, with red doors. The basement of the temple isn't visible at the first approach, but can be accessed via a descent to the parking lot behind the building. From the front, a pedestrian can walk directly on top of this basement, onto a wide walkway with stone railings that encircles the main floor. On top of this, five tall, white, tapered peaks, inlaid with figures and carvings, set the building apart as a special kind of gathering place.

As I walked up to the walkway by the temple, I saw a sign that stated: "NO smoking, NO alcohol, and NO non-veg on premises. This includes parking lot."

The main entrance to the temple was in the rear, up a set of tall stairs from the parking lot, with the already elevated walkway around the temple leading directly to the main door. Outdoor cubbies clearly meant for shoes lined the walkway, so I shed my shoes and socks before going inside, though I missed the foot-washing station just inside the door.

The lobby just inside the front vestibule spanned the width of the temple. To the right, the walls were lined with shrines. In front of me, archways opened into the primary worship space. To the left was a small store with books and DVDs and incense, and next to the racks of retail goods stood a man behind a counter with a money box. I asked if I should buy concert tickets through him, and he directed me down a staircase to the basement.

The smell of curry grew stronger as I descended, and downstairs I found a tableau not that different from the basement of the church I grew up in. A lower-level lobby sat beneath the upstairs lobby, with doors opening into classrooms, restrooms, and a fellowship area connected via a serving window to a kitchen. Here, families sat together eating lunch from styrofoam plates.

Next to the fellowship area, doors opened into an auditorium filled with plastic blue chairs facing a stage draped with rust- and saffron-colored cloths. A chest-high goddess statue with four arms and a raised leg stood to the side of the stage.

It was here that I paid my $15 for the concert and took a seat.

When the musicians entered, they took their places on a low platform at the center of the stage set with three microphones. Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam sat cross-legged at the central microphone and faced the audience. She wore an orange and green sari, a large, bright red bindi, and a gold necklace, with her hair pulled into a loose knot behind her neck. Her male accompanists, both in kurtas, one grey, and one rust-colored, sat on either side of her and faced each other.

Without comment to the audience, Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam then proceeded to sing ragas for three hours without a break. She acknowledged applause with a namaste, but otherwise did not appear to respond to the crowd. Often, I found myself with my eyes closed, transported by the music to a place where blanking out my mind was easy. Sometimes, the more upbeat songs made me want to dance, though I noticed the audience remained mostly motionless, and I noticed that Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam herself limited her movements to keeping the beat with one hand slapping against her thigh. Less often, but frequently enough to notice it, I grew bored, with the unfamiliar words to the songs blending together and starting to sound "all the same" to my ignorant ears. At the two-and-a-half hour mark, I had to step out to phone the car company to extend my reservation.

At 4PM, a barefoot, bald man in a blue shirt and grey slacks took to the stage to announce that the concert must end, because some women needed to prepare the basement auditorium for another use later in the evening.

The man heaped praise upon Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam, three times calling her voice "melifluous." He was right. She was beautiful and entrancing. (If we have art, why do we need religion?)

"I hope you noticed how our musician today chose her ragas based on our season of Navaratri," the man said, though his thick accent and frequent use of long proper names made his speech difficult for me to follow. "Especially, I noticed her focus on Lakshmi, since today is one of her days."

The man took a few moments to praise the three goddesses of Navaratri for their gifts, and reminded us all that the primary Trinity of Hinduism -- Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu -- are nothing without their female consorts. He focused especially on the relationship between Vishnu and Lakshmi, since it was Lakshmi's day, and gave an example pulled from contemporary headlines.

"Just look at what's happening in our country now, with the economy melting down to nothing," the man said. "But what can the Protector do… what can Vishnu do to protect us without money? And where do we turn when the problem is with money? To Lakshmi."

Then a male priest in traditional dress with a grey topknot of hair and a red bindi entered the stage with a giant silver platter of fruits. The man in the blue shirt explained that the priest would now offer a traditional blessing to the musicians to thank them for their appearance today.

The priest offered his blessing, while each of the musicians touched a finger to a substance apparently pooled on the platter and rubbed the finger along their skin, around their necks and behind their ears. Then, each member of the musical Trinity selected a fruit, and took a bite.

The audience was leaving, so I went upstairs to check out the main worship space, before the reservation on my car ran out.