Spirituality | Cultural Glimpse

February 23, 2014

A Perfect Example of Diversity in a Little Town in Jordan

Once upon a time, it was not uncommon for Muslims, Christians and Jews to live together in peace and harmony. These days, such togetherness is rare – but maybe not. Maybe we don’t look for it long or hard enough to find it.

Evidently the filmmakers of “At the Intersection of Faith and Culture” knew where to look. This is part of a short documentary video series that reveals Arab communities where love is what drives peoples’ relationships. For instance, in the small town of Al Huson, Jordan, where there are 7 churches and 6 mosques, lives two lifelong friends of different religions who brought their town together by forming a cultural museum.

“I am a Christian and he is a Muslim, but you can’t tell the difference,” Mazin, who teaches at a university, says of his friend Samih, a local expert in tradition and culture. “By the end of the day, we make one person.”

“Traditionally, when a Muslim bride left her house, one of our Christian brothers would give her hand away, and vice versa,” said Samih. “We are following in our parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps.”

“Our message of love unites us,” said Mazin. “Honestly, we can’t live without each other.”

He is absolutely correct. We cannot live without each other.

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January 18, 2014

Conversations in Silence

I just finished reading the book Conversations in Silence, which is written by an old friend whom I have not seen in a long time. Narendra, the author, was born in India. In his book, he describes in diary form his journey with a spiritual master, Mother Meera. He meets her in the early 1990s when he is sent on a job project in Germany.

Mother Meera is an embodiment of the Divine Feminine, the Divine Mother on earth. She was born in India but today she lives in a tiny hamlet in the German countryside where she gives thousands of visitors her unique blessing of Darshan – in silence.

She teaches the unity of all religions. Everyone can go their own ways. It is only important to be connected with the light (the personal spiritual role model) every day by praying, reading or meditating.

Narendra’s accounts in this book, his determination to attain enlightenment, are inspiring. After work (he’s an engineer), he is anxious to drive for hours to sit – even if briefly – in front of Mother Meera. One wonders how this world would be if we gave as much attention to our spiritual growth as we did to the physical and mental aspects of our lives.

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January 14, 2014

How Are You Doing on Your Journey?

“Dreams are a big part of our everyday life,” said Pastor Aaron during Sunday’s sermon at Freedom Christian. “Looking at the history of the church, I see that wherever the biggest dreamers and most creative people were, who continue to have God’s dreams birthed in their hearts and live them out, that’s where God moved the most.”

The remainder of his sermon, which is part of a 12 week series titled The Mission, was just as powerful and inspiring as he noted, “I think one of the dangers of Christian faith is simply this in America: We stopped dreaming yet we serve the greatest Dreamer of all time.”

He said that we as Christians submit to God’s sovereignty and use it as an excuse for our apathy, adding, “In America, we might not be faithful to God but God is still faithful to us and then we take his faithfulness and say, see, God must be pleased with my unfaithfulness because He’s still faithful to me when I’m unfaithful to Him.”

He paused along the way and asked, “How are you doing on your journey? What might God be challenging you to change about your attitude, your heart, your nature, maybe those dark places?”

It is answering such questions that helps one grow spiritually and feel a special closeness to God, but only if we ask them of ourselves regularly, not forget them at the church altar.

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January 1, 2014

The Mystery School, My Little Secret

This February I’ll be starting the third year of the Mystery School (it’s a 4 year program). Very few people in my life know that for the last two years I’ve been enrolled in this school. Until now, I had kept it my little secret.

I stumbled upon this school in 2011 after reading Lynn Andrew’s Writing Spirit. Hugely influenced by this book, and because Lynn is an internationally bestselling author with 19 books under her belt, I called her up. I wanted advice on how to move ahead with my writing career. Little did I know then the journey I’d be embarking upon.

Like magic, the Mystery School began transforming my life as a writer, wife and mother. Its ancient Native American teachings were not strange to my ears. I come from a tribal nation that’s thousands of years old. My people are from Mesopotamia, where once upon a time long ago, similar types of teachings were the norm. Then people invented so many new things, that they forgot the value of anything older than 50 years.

Well, my little secret is no more. But what awaits me in the school are a lot of hidden rich secrets, which I cannot wait to unearth and discover.

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December 21, 2013

Visiting the Holy Land

My husband recently had the chance to visit the Holy Land, arriving to the Church of Holy Sepulcher just in time to begin the procession, with a candle in his hand. The daily procession passes through the places of the passion-death-resurrection of Christ, in a way of recalling to pilgrims the need to constantly meditate on the humanity of Jesus.

I visited this church many years ago. It’s an indescribable experience that leaves you in tears, regardless of whether you are a man or woman. One thing I did not get to do which my husband did is visit the famous Al Aqsa mosque and the Jewish temple that neighbor the church. Israel is a place of great diversity; Christians, Jews, and Muslims all consider it to be one of the holiest places in the world. To the Christians, this is where Jesus and His followers walked and where the great Biblical events were enacted. To Muslims, the Prophet Mohammad entered heaven from where the Dome of the Rock now stands in Jerusalem. For Jews, Jerusalem has always been a sacred city, gateway to the land of their ancestors.

Here’s my question: If these religions live so close together, where for centuries a Muslim family has held the key to the Church of Sepulcher, shouldn’t they act like family rather than rivals?

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August 24, 2013

The Bharatiya Temple

This evening the Bharatiya Temple presented a program entitled Nritya Aradhana. I attended with my children and watched a performer dressed in traditional white and blue Hindu attire entrance an audience of about a hundred people with her unique moves and beauty. The dancer was decorated with gold, her long braid tucked beneath her belt, and her bare feet and hands painted red. The group of musicians and vocals were wonderful as well. So was the light food that for a minimal fee was served afterwards in the cafeteria. A spicy chai followed.

Aside from the program, I was impressed by the amazing infrastructure of the temple. One of the rooms in the building was set up with chairs dressed in gold covers.

“Is this for a wedding tomorrow?” I asked.

“Yes,” said one of the many women working in the hall.

Another nearby room was being filled with fresh flowers. Oh, how I wish I could attend this wedding and witness first-hand how Indians celebrated such a sacred occasion! Movies and youtube were not quite adequate enough to quench my curiosity.

On my way out, I learned that the temple offers a lot of services, such as yoga and meditations. Will likely revisit this temple sometime soon.

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March 6, 2013

The Wailing Wall at Freedom Christian

The Wailing Wall or Western Wall is in Jerusalem and is believed by many people to be the remains of one wall of a great Jewish temple or the wall surrounding the temple’s courtyard. It is a stone wall that extends about 62 feet above the ground and is considered to be a sacred site by Jews. Thousands of people make pilgrimages there each year.

Many Muslims believe that the wall has no relation to ancient Judaism. They refer to the wall as the Al-Buraq Wall, a reference to Al-Buraq, the winged steed that Muhammad is said to have ridden. Muslims believe that Muhammad tied Al-Buraq to the wall while he ascended to heaven to speak with God. Many Muslims also believe that the wall was part of the ancient Al-Aqsa Mosque, and that Jews did not begin praying at the wall until at least the 16th century, if not much later.

Jews from all countries, and as well as tourists of other religious backgrounds, go to pray at the wall, where many people believe that one immediately has the “ear of God.” Prayers that are sent in are placed into the cracks of the walls and are called kvitelach.

For the past few weeks at Freedom Christian, we’ve had our own Wailing Wall, with attendees writing their prayers and sending them off to God.

I love this church.

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January 16, 2013

The Forbidden Yoga

Yoga at Manresa Jesuit Retreat Center

Last year, I asked my editor if I can write an article about a Chaldean American yoga instructor that held classes at my gym. She said okay, except she wanted it to address the belief that yoga is against our Catholic faith. I thought, oh my God, I may have been committing sin for over twelve years!

I interviewed several people: the yoga instructor at my gym; the yoga instructor at Manresa Jesuit Retreat Center; and a Jesuit priest. All talked about the positive health factors associated with yoga. I tried to get a quote from one of the half dozen Chaldean Catholic priests but they didn’t have an opinion on this matter, given it was a foreign subject for them. No wonder I never saw a Chaldean person in a yoga class.

After the article was published, a local non-Chaldean priest sent a letter to the editor stating that there are significant concerns about yoga’s compatibility with the Christianity/Catholic faith. The biggest problem with yoga, he wrote, is that one is going to a source other than Jesus for inner peace. There is no peace apart from Him “who is our peace” (Eph. 2:14). He also called its origin occult. This was all new information to me, especially since many of the postures we performed in yoga classes were common exercises we did in Iraq.

Well, sin or not, I ended up in a yoga class last night, and thank God for that. I have not been able to go for a while because lately the gym’s daycare is not my son’s most favorite place. My husband, seeing my frustrations, said he’d watch the kids and encouraged me to go out there and commit this “sin” – though he did not know that’s what it was. We’ll just keep that a little secret.

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January 14, 2013

Professional Runners

woman who knows all about patience

Today Pastor Aaron talked about impatience and how people tend to satisfy their immediate desires rather than wait for the fruition of what is important to them.

“We find ourselves waiting for the economy to change, waiting to have a baby, waiting to find the right job, and when it doesn’t happen when we want it to happen, we get sick of waiting and we come up with an alternative plan,” he said. “Big mistake!”

He gave the example of Abraham and Sarah. After ten years of not being able to get pregnant, Sarah suggested to Abraham that he sleep with her maidservant Hagar and build a family through her. This caused a whole lot of problems.

“Then when our alternative plan does not work, we run away from the problem we’ve created for ourselves,” he said. “We are great in America for being professional runners. We run away from our marriages, we run away from our parents, we run away from our responsibilities.”

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January 3, 2013

Freedom Christian

Christmas vacation is officially over. Schools were back in session today and I had a hard time putting my mind back into place, having lost it – in a good way – for the last few weeks. With no schedules intact, my children and I did pretty much what we wanted when we wanted, most of the time doing nothing but lounge around. I skipped church, the gym, the coffee shop.

Today I prepared to get back into our usual routine. Wednesday evenings is Bible study at Freedom Christian, a nondenominational church, which I started attending shortly after Halloween 2012. My sister-in-law first learned of this church some six years ago, after she got a tip that every Halloween they put up a huge tent and provide free donuts, coffee, popcorn, caramel apples, and candy for the kids. They also have free kids’ games, recently even a petting farm. Every year, we would take the kids trick or treating in the neighborhood and then meet up at the church. In the beginning, rarely any Chaldeans (Christian Iraqis) came to this tent. Then their numbers increased, to the point where it seemed they were the majority of attendees. I had a good vibe about the church and often wondered what it was like inside. Last Halloween, members of the church were passing flyers about a kids’ program and daycare center they had for all ages. I thought, “I’m in.” I had wanted to find a church where my children felt happy and welcome and hoped this would be it. It was.

I pulled to the back of the building and saw the parking lot empty. The church was closed. On the way home, I stopped at McDonald’s to pick up hot chocolate for the kids, as promised. At home, I parked the car, looked behind me and saw two children completely knocked out. I thought, how heavenly! They napped for two hours and I got to work on the book I’m currently writing.

Thanks, Freedom Christian.

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Category: Spirituality