Losing My Religion...Part 4, Introduction to Islam

Note: This blog entry took awhile to write because it is a hard subject for me to write about, but most of all organize into some sort of cohesive and easily followed story.

I attended a Catholic college that had very strong roots in Catholic social justice.  It was taught and lived, especially by the order of nuns that founded the school and still lived on campus.  I joined the choir as soon as I got to college and dived right into campus life including Campus Ministry. We were all required to take a freshman seminar, and mine was something to do with religion and social justice.  One of the things that we studied in that class was a feminist re-reading of the creation story.  I'd never really questioned the validity of the bible before that class.  I started wondering who had written the Bible, what their motivations were, and how veracious a book 2000 years ago was required to be.

Around the same time that I started questioning the validity of the bible, I met a Muslim women and her two sisters that were all students at my college.  They were all smart, outgoing and religion girls that were able to speak well about their faith.  While I had lived in a pretty diverse place when I was a kid, when we moved to the Midwest, we were in the middle of the great sea of white people.  There were mostly Protestants, some Mexican Catholics and Amish (who are definitely Christians)  so religious minorities were hard to find in my neck of the woods. When I was in high school I had to do a project on Islam, and I had a really difficult time gathering information outside of what I could find online.  I asked my youth group leaders about Islam, and Muhammad and was told that Muslims didn't worship the same God as Christians,  and a variety of other things that weren't true. They were basically the same unIslamic propaganda that has been floating around for years. How were they so sure in their knowledge?  One of them had taken a class on it at a conservative Christian college. Sorry, but I decided to research more on my own after that, realizing that sometimes adults aren't always right.

My new Muslim friends were perfectly happy to answer my questions, point me to great resources and talk to me about any aspects of the religion that I had questions on, and questions I had.  Since two of the sisters worked in the cafeteria, we would sit for hours chatting

I'd never really questioned the existence of God. I had spoken to God for years. I guess you could call it praying, but I would just drive in my car and have conversations with God. It helped me to think things out, to talk them out. Since I didn't, at the time question my monotheism I started seeking out, in my mind, the truest form of monotheism.  I was becoming disillusioned by the many things that I perceived as being between me and God in the Catholic church.  From the saints, to Jesus, I was confused why we didn't just pray to God.
Islam is the worship of one God (same God worshiped by Christians!). They believe that Judaism came about, people screwed it up so Jesus came (as a Prophet) and then when people screwed that up, Muhammed was sent as a messenger and Prophet to the people of the world.  Muslims believe that the Torah, Bible and Qur'an in their purest forms are the same, and that it was mankind's meddling that changed them.  Muslims believe that the Qur'an was revealed to Muhammed by the angel Gabriel and then written down, which was ordered into the Qur'an.  They believe that the Qur'an is the unadulterated revelation from God.

As someone that was constantly questioning the Bible, this resonated with me.  If this was truly revealed to Muhammed from God, could this be the purest form of monotheism?  To become a Muslim, one makes 'shahadah' or a profession of faith, which states "I bear Witness that there is no god, but God and I bear witness that Muhammed is the Prophet (messenger) of God.' I wrote down the shahadah was was carrying it around in my pocket for days, constantly questioning what I should do, constantly praying about it.

I already easily believed the first part, but growing up as a white girl in the US after 9/11, the second part was a little more difficult.  How did I reconcile my life, with that of a Muslim?  In short, I never managed to. My problem...I never found the happy medium. I knew I couldn't go all of the way to conservative and leave my friends and culture behind. It wasn't even fair to ask that of me. I wasn't willing to fundamentally change who I was, and I'm not sure I am even able to.  I just wanted to be a better person, a person closer to God. My story has a million threads and offshoots, and maybe I can examine some more of them in the future in more detail.  Now I think I am just trying to give a basic overview of how I learned about Islam.

There is a strong evangelizing movement in Islam.  This 'how to give shahadah in 10 minutes' movement's goal isn't to have people know as much about Islam as possible before conversion, but to convert first and learn later.  I could write an entire book on how wrong this is.  It becomes all about externalities, about how quickly a woman will don the hijab, stop eating pork, talking to men, and less about learning about the faith and Islamic jurisprudence and making informed decisions.  I feel that I while I freely made the choice to convert, I was so naive.  I was 19, impulsive and emotional. I wanted to belong somewhere and fill that void that I was searching to fill and I thought that this religion had all the answers.I think it was my expectations that led to my ultimate failure as a Muslim.  I was searching for faith, and what I found was religion. Human influence and fallible religion.  Another  factor that led to my inevitable 'failure' of sorts was the really conservative nature of the mosque that I was taken to.  It was very conservative, which I am not and too obsessed with outer signs of religiosity. I remember being in tears after hearing a lecture about how women that don't wear hijab 'are going to hell. I don't know how long but it is a certainty.' I think that was the day that I sort of just gave up.


Last night I finally got around to listening to the NPR's Lifting the veil (http://www.npr.org/2011/04/21/135413427/lifting-the-veil) about Muslim women that wore the hijab and their decisions to stop.  Many of those reasons were why I too stopped wearing hijab. I felt judged, and like I was judging those that didn't wear it.  I wore it for a month and a half, starting right before Ramadan and then stopping 6 weeks later. My hair looked AMAZING by the way afterwards. I never dressed ridiculously immodestly (okay, I probably showed too much cleavage when I was in Spain but it was 120 degrees out) so I didn't stop wearing it because I wanted to wear tank tops and shorts but I didn't want to be a walking representative of Islam.  I didn't live up to my own expectations in that regard.  I wish I was stronger, and had more faith, but when I wasn't good enough, I did nothing but beat up on myself.

This post seems negative, and maybe I needed to get the negative out before I can talk about the beauty. I loved, and still love, a lot of things about Islam.  I find comfort, and beauty in the prayer.  I find a simple joy in putting my head to the group and seeking my creator. I love the faith, the sufi poetry, listening to the Qur'an recited in the singsong Arabic, and learning Arabic.  Islam and learning about it fundamentally changed my life. I studied Arabic and Middle Eastern history in school (classes that normally wouldn't have been offered) and rather than going to clubs and drinking, spent many weekends at my friend's house learning about Islamic history, Qur'an and proper Arabic pronunciation.  I spent a ton of time at my Pakistani friends house learning about the culture, language and religion and how they all come together.

I don't regret the experiences that I had. I don't regret everything that I learned--how can I regret knowledge?   I am not a scholar, but try to learn in everything that I do.  If my experiences with Islam were different, perhaps my life would be completely different now.  Every experience that I have had has brought me to this point in my life, and since I am blissfully happy now, I can't regret any of them.

Losing my religion...part 1

Recently a friend on facebook asked my conclusions on religion and I realized that it was time to write this post.  I think that I have had difficulty writing this post as I don’t really feel like defending my lack of religiosity to people who are thoroughly entrenched in their own beliefs.  As you will learn, I love faith and religion and it’s role in humanity.  If you have questions, feel free to comment and ask them, but know that I’m not and will never pretend to be a theologian.


This caveat aside, let’s dive in.  


When I was 8 years old my parents decided to formally join the Roman Catholic Church.  We were, at the time, attending a lovely Catholic school, and my step-father had been brought up in a very Catholic influenced household (German AND Irish, need I say more?).  I once asked my dad about their decision to join the Church and he told me that they (he and my mother) wanted us to have some religious foundation in our lives.  My parents never forced us in any way in our religious upbringing.  We went to Church on Sunday’s and said Grace before meals, and that was about it.  If we wanted to explore, or question we were allowed to, as long and we still went to Mass with them.  By the time I was in high school, I was going to Mass by myself most of the time, which in the end, enabled me to go to other Churches as well.


I still remember the first time I went to Mass (this may have actually been before we were enrolled in the school....I was young and things get moved around in my head over the years).  Fr. Francis a lovely priest with a heavy Ghanan accent was leading Mass.  I did not have a clue as to what he said for the entire hour.  Not because the Mass is such a rich ritualistic prayer celebration, nope...it was because his accent was so thick.  If you’ve attended Mass many times, this isn’t a problem since it is pretty much always the same and you can follow along.  For an 8 year old...it was a little daunting.  I asked my dad if it would always be like that, and he explained to me about the whole accent thing. Like I said, I was young.

My brother and I were baptised together when I was in second grade.  My 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Ryan was my sponsor since  my aunt and grandfather that I had picked as Godparents weren’t able to come. Mrs. Ryan scared the crap out of me. I was too young to even know all of the stereotypical ‘Catholic school-teacher’ myths but she sort of...no, she did fit them.  I went from having a huge public school first grade teacher who was very soft spoken; I don’t remember her ever yelling at us, to this tiny class with a spitfire of a woman that could put anyone back in their place with a single glare.  She even scared my mother! She wasn’t all bad though,  she had a lot to teach us, plus I’m sure we were a rowdy bunch.  During my second grade year I was Baptized, received my First Reconciliation (confession) and had my First Communion.  I don’t remember the specifics but my brother was Baptized and received First Communion with my class.  


Attending Catholic school meant that we had catechism lessons during class, and attended Mass at least once a week.  During the period leading up to receiving First Communion we would hang out in the church a lot practicing. We got to eat popcorn instead of the ‘bread’ served during mass, and let’s just say, the popcorn tasted a lot better.  You’d be surprise at how long it takes 15 7-8 year old’s to hold their hands correctly and respond correctly when there is an entire church to look at.  We also got to go back into the sacristy and see where the Priest would get dressed, and all of the ceremonial garb and accouterments. One thing that struck me was this sink with a sieve.  Our teacher told us that it was in case someone were to throw up after receiving communion they could sift out the host.  I have no idea what they’d do with it then, but vomit was a taboo subject and I might have stopped listening.  


Another thing we learned was that the church was named after St. James, and that in the alter there was a box with a tiny fragment of bone from St. James. At the time I thought, and I still do, that this was a little morbid.  I have never felt the urge to keep the bones of a dead friend close to me for comfort.


After we moved to the great Midwest we still attended Sunday school weekly (at this point I’m not sure if my brother attended) and eventually I was confirmed in the church.  I was also, interestingly enough, an alter server. My dad was the one that trained us actually.  If you go to a church where they ring bells, did you know that this is because Mass was originally in Latin and it was to wake up the people that couldn’t understand Latin and alert them that something interesting (in this case the blessing of the host) was going on? I learned that that day!  


I loved being involved the church, the choir and the community, even if it was small.  I’m a social person, and I didn’t really fit in at school.  


I love the Catholic church and it’s devotion to social justice.  My Catholic university experience really emphasised that.  I love nun’s who devote their lives to service and helping others. I also adore my grandfather who, after my grandmother passed away, became a priest.  He is such an amazing and awesome man and I can’t thank him enough for all of the long email conversations about religion that we had through my college years, and beyond.  


Even if I don’t consider myself Catholic anymore, I have defended the Catholic Church and what it’s dogma stipulates. For many years after, I still felt like a warm blanket was thrown around me and I was held in my mother’s lap when I attended Mass. It was a comfort.  The familiar words and hymns washed over me.  


I just don’t believe it.  In something like religion that, in the end, comes fundamentally down to faith, I just didn’t have it anymore.  I have however always admired people that lived their faith, and had this light about them of belief.  This comfort in their own skin and assurance for what comes next.  This is the next part of my story....


It was during high school that I started studying other religions in earnest, starting with the hundreds of Protestant churches around me.  

An Easter Tradition...why I miss Christianity, or at least the holidays

Neither my husband nor I practice any religion.  While I love studying and learning about religions I'm generally a failure at practicing them.  I tried Catholicism, I tried Protestantism and then I went a little wild in college and tried Islam. I have studied dozens of other faiths.  Those are all really long stories of their own, but in the end I ended up back where I was in the beginning.  Constantly wondering about the origins of the universe, where I came from, what my purpose is and what happens after we die. I have no answers to any of those questions, aside from deciding that I was going to stop thinking about dying and start living.  I wasn't going just to survive anymore, getting through each day, I'm going to get up and go do something, go see something and go make a memory.
Tangent about the meaning of life aside, the reason that I miss Christianity is because I miss the holidays and the community around them. I miss Easter dinner, eating ham around the table. All the warm fuzzies.  Atheists/agnostics don't really get holidays.  My husband and I don't celebrate Easter, so unless we go out (as we did one year) and dye eggs with a friend's son, it isn't a Sunday any different than any other.
I never really liked Easter that much growing up.  The weather in the north east seemed to always be either cold, rainy or both cold and rainy. I had to dress up in 'pretty' clothing, keep my tights clean and go to a really long Mass first thing in the morning.  Umm...in a 10 year olds world, none of that is fun.  I did however like the candy. I love jelly beans, although I'm rather picky about which ones I like.  I like letting chocolate melt on my tongue, and I especially loved this tradition we had in our family.
In my family you had  to work to get your Easter basket.  You want that chocolate? You want those jelly beans? Then you had to play the game.  Every year we had a an Easter Basket hunt with clues written on little pieces of paper leading to other clues around the house. And somehow there was always an Easter basket at the end, even if you had surreptitiously looked in the pots and pans, or in the tub before the actual start of the hunt and there was nothing there, in the end there was always one pristine Easter basket.  My parents were sneaky like that! There were places that there were always clues such as the piano, our favorite Beatles record (Sgt. Peppers), the dictionary or our encyclopedias.  We always had fun, and I can't wait to teach this tradition to my children.
Another tradition that we had is that my mom gives us toothbrushes on Easter (and in our Christmas stocking).  It seems fitting to get a tooth brush right before the start of the sugar rush holidays.  Also, my mom would always break the ears off of our bunnies.  When we were kids she would steal them (don't deny it mom!) but now she just cracks them off before she send them to us.  It is funny, but tends to confuse friends that wonder why we have broken candy in our baskets.  It still cracks me up when she sends me candy bunnies in the mail with broken ears.

What is your favorite part of the holidays? The warm fuzzy memories? The traditions?