Standing on this path that overlooks
the wind-rippled water's face
there's a ring slung round,
the pond's fringe where
people are running.
You want to console their sweaty brows
from up here where the branches
frame their exhausted faces
and you wonder.
What is it that they
are running from?
Frustrated relationships or finances?
What is it that they
are running to?
A body that won't fail them
this time?
Maybe they're not running
from or to anything
but maybe something
is running out
of them.
Maybe like a child learning to walk
they've decided to break their
small circled crawl from
a desk of messy papers
to a kitchen sink with dirty dishes.
Maybe they're getting up on those
two legs and walking out to
that which they don't know:
a street they haven't seen beyond,
the sun shining from a new angle,
the wind blowing in a new direction,
a direction they might follow.
Who knows but it is accepting the promise of more.
One more step, one more breath, one more ounce of sweat
than you are used to yielding.
All one knows is that no matter how difficult
the struggle in the stride,
the crunch and pinch of lungs locking,
or eyes wincing as sun and sweat pools in pupils
from up here,
you want to swoop down and like an angel
fly beside them and, with the wind, whisper
that all this pain is all so small.
Your problems are solved,
Your joys are simple.
You are a child learning to walk.
So last night I was walking down my street and I passed the mosque in my backyard right as their evening prayer was letting out. Considering it is in my backyard and I overhear the salat prayers several times a day through my kitchen window, I decided it was as good a time as any to greet the neighbors. I said good evening to a truly sweet guy named Ra'ed whose chin beard and hat would definitely get a raised eyebrow in an airport these days. We started having a very warm conversation in the cool evening on the sidewalk and then he took me inside the mosque and I was amazed by how normal it was. In a mosque there is a seat in the easternmost corner used on Fridays, but really it is a big living room.
First Seven Verses of the Qur'an
The prayers the community do, can be done anywhere and that was something that impressed me about Islam. They're kinda the Protestants of world religions. They have a book, which is the most sacred thing to them.
There is no tabernacle, no holy of holies, nor altars in a mosque. It's all about the word. The absence of any sacramentality in Islam, brings perhaps an even greater emphasis on the word than Protestantism, which still has Baptism and some form of Communion. The emphasis on the word and lack of any definitive school of interpretation (like the Magisterium in Catholicism) is unfortunately the source of many problems within Islamic communities, but despite the very real and debatable violent implementation of these texts, this is a conversation about the aesthetics and commonality that I found yesterday night with Islam.
The positive results of this emphasis on the word is a lot of beautiful writing (Arabic calligraphy is dizzingly beautiful) and because the word Qur'an means 'recitation,' also a lot of beautiful singing (which is also dizzingly beautiful). Arabic culture generally has a rich tradition of poetry and storytelling due to its attention to the words people live by as one can see in 1,001 Arabian Nights, Khalil Gibran (The Prophet), the Sufis (especially Rumi) and even C. S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy. I should say, the Qur'anic influence can sometimes get a bit repetitive to the point where it seem that every Middle Eastern story is about some guy showing up to bestow a lot of proverbs and wisdom, but whatever.
Umm, "non-representational" calligraphy?
It was a really refreshing conversation, where both Ra'ed and I had our working definitions of 'Muslim' and 'Christian' stretched. We were talking and Ra'ed was speaking about the reverence paid to Jesus (Isa) and Mary (Mariam) in Islam. He said that while Allah rebuked Mohammed for sinning, the Qur'an is very clear that Jesus did not sin and that Jesus was taken up into Heaven and will come at the end of time as Mess'ah (that'd be Messiah people) to enact Allah's judgment. He also said that Mary is the True Lady (Sayyida) and that she must be highly respected by all Muslims. He told me how they believe in what we Catholics call the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth. While he was saying that Jesus is a very holy prophet and whenever his name is pronounced, Muslims follow it with an epithet such as Jesus, blessed be God, or Jesus, blessed be his name and right around here I stopped him and said, "Ra'ed, what you are saying about Jesus and Mary; it's hard to get some Christians to admit this stuff." And he replied, "Oh, well they'd make terrible Muslims then."
As we kept chatting, we both realized that we are two guys trying to be men of prayer. Do I see a lot of problems with Islamic interpretations of Jesus that echo seemingly all the christological heresies of the Early Church? Yes. Is that the most important thing? No. Today we're very focused on results and details and many of us may think we'd feel more comfortable with a bunch of secular humanists than with a house full of Muslims who are trying to pray to the same God as us. Sincerely sharing our faith and supporting each other in the struggles to pray, is of first importance. If we really cultivate a community of prayer and support, having a proper christology and theology will follows, but until then our working definitions of 'Christian' and 'Muslim' will be too small.
Ra'ed gave me a translation of the Qur'an and said that they pray the first seven verses several times a day. I looked them over and so far, no heresy, and so I would gladly pray them with Ra'ed and thought I'd share them with you. Open a Qur'an or looking at Muslim prayers as a Catholic can be a bit odd, but I think we don't trust ourselves, nor the Holy Spirit. We think if we start reading we'll have the wool pulled over our eyes and in a state of hypnosis, we'll convert. This fear keeps people like Ra'ed and I from ever talking, much less talking about prayer, which is so important today. If I would just translate the Seven Verses with something like Thy Grace or the Lord, Christians would have no inkling that this is prayed every day by Muslims.
In addition, here's a Mass of Mozarabic chant. The Mozararbic Rite is a part of the Catholic Church that comes from Spain and Portugal and carried the aesthetic sense of Arabic chant into its liturgy and gives you a sense of Arabic/Muslim/Moorish culture even though it's Christian and in Latin. Even though the words are Latin, the quivering and lilting in the chant and reminds me of the shape of the cursive script of Arabic. Mozarabic chant, which I discovered first via the Antiochian Orthodox Church, is maybe my favorite form of vocal music. There is a paradoxical sense of ominous atmosphere and salvific joy in the words that moves me when ever I hear it. Enjoy.
In the name of God,
Most Gracious,
Most Merciful.
Praise be to God,
the Cherisher
and Sustainer
of all the world.
Most Gracious,
Most Merciful;
Master of the
Day of Judgment.
You do we worship
and your aid we seek.
Show us the straight way.
The way of those
on whom You
have bestowed Your Grace,
those whose portion is not wrath
and who do not go astray.
Amen.
For some interesting scattered info on the relationship between Islam and Christianity, check out Gabriel Said Reynold's article, Reading the Quran Through the Bible , from First Things. Also Peter Kreeft's book Between Allah and Jesus: What Christians Can Learn from Muslims is a great conversation between several Christians and a very astute Muslim set at Boston College. And if you have a free evening you're looking to fill, there is a debate/conversation between Robert Spencer and Peter Kreeft entitled Good Muslim/Bad Muslim that is a lively and fruitful introduction to the problems in contemporary culture between Secular people, Christians and Muslims.
"The heart has reasons of its own, of which reason knows nothing."
Kreeft's amazing Companion to the Pensées
Blaise Pascal is one of my favorite philosophers. His Pensées or Thoughts are beautiful pearls of wisdom that he never was able to string into a book. Yet after his death the thoughts were combined in a fashion echoing Wisdom literature (especially Proverbs and Sirach). I love the aphorisms, the little meditations, the thoughts we all let slip by day by day. These are seminal thoughts are small splatterings of ink that give away to oceans of insight or, if you will, ponds of ponderings. These are also great, because people don't remember treatises or essays, but they do remember proverbs, poems, aphorisms, etc. and because we think aphoristically (small insights > laid-out treatments) the Pensées hit humans how we naturally think.
Pascal's Pensées and the Book of Ecclesiastes are great reading partners and its incredible how much wisdom comes out of the thought that "all of life is vanities and chasing after wind" (Ecc 1:14). There is a definite poetic quality of Pascal's Pensées in their depth, brevity and construction, which is especially clear in his Memorial. Pascal was a deeply religious man and this obscure and intriguing fragment was found sewn in his jacket after his death. So enjoy and then go read Ecclesiastes and the Pensées . . .
+
The year of grace 1654,
Monday, 23 November, feast of St. Clement, pope and martyr, and others in the martyrology.
Vigil of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others.
From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight,
FIRE.
GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob
not of the philosophers and of the learned.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
GOD of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
Your GOD will be my God.
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.
He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Grandeur of the human soul.
Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.
I have departed from him:
They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.
My God, will you leave me?
Let me not be separated from him forever.
This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified.
Let me never be separated from him.
He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day's exercise on the earth.
May I not forget your words. Amen.
