A moment in a Muslim prayer room shattered the cartoon faith I inherited and taught me more about humility than any doctrine ever did. This is what actually happened when my piety met real devotion.
I find so much resonance with this. Holy ground. As healthcare chaplains we often find quiet, sincere worship in those cast aside, outside the frame, or misunderstood.
You know that holy ground shows up in the places religion forgets to look. The ones pushed to the margins often carry the sincerest worship because they never had the luxury of performing it.
Blessings on the work you do in those quiet rooms.
Humility is the moment you give yourself to ground properly, IMHO it is both modest and beautiful 😍 I can sure feel your entrance to that prayer room✌️
"Dharm aur vishwas do bahut lag bat hain| Aur ek dusre zaroor nahin|"
"Religion and faith are two very different things. And one does not require the other." (But you gotta admit, it sounds SO much cooler in Hindi. Especially if you hear it in that deep Amitabh Bacchanal baritone.)
It's not difficult to tribalize people, you just have to convince them that your way is the only way, and those who don't follow it are damned. We've been doing it since we developed settled agriculture and noticed that the benevolent being that lit up the day made our crops grow.
It's in moments like the one related here that we discover that we've been had, and that those they teach us to hate, those they tell us are damned, are far more *like* us than they are different. And that's the moment we discover -- or in some cases confirm -- the difference between religion and faith.
Thank you for your good lesson, that came from a memory!🙏 I like your phrase, “the kind of faith that lives in the bones.” 🕊️It’s beautiful when different religions can reach out to each other in understanding, instead of turning away.
This echoes with my own experience. Many years ago I was the Headteacher (Principal) of a Church of England school in London (England) where the majority of the children came from Muslim families (I can talk about why that was on another occasion). Anyway, my first year there, pretty green about Islam, and I gave an assembly on Lent and fasting and how it had become largely symbolic now but was still a special time of devotion. Later a parent came up to me and said that their child had told them about Lent and then she told me about Ramadan and how in the summer in England that can mean fasting every day for up to 18 hours a day for a whole month. I was humbled. It was like that almost every time I learnt something new about Islam and contrasted it to my Anglican Christianity.
That kind of humility is worth more than a dozen sermons.
Most people compare religions from a distance. You had to learn it from the kids who lived the devotion you were describing. That kind of collision stays with you. Lent as symbol. Ramadan as endurance shaped into love. Two different rhythms revealing the gap between what we talk about and what we actually embody.
I have never been in a Muslim prayer room but i could feel it when reading this. Not saying I felt what you felt but that experience….i won’t even try to put it into words, you did that beautifully enuf. Stirred some deep memories I’m still wading thru & digesting. Hit home deeply 💓
I find so much resonance with this. Holy ground. As healthcare chaplains we often find quiet, sincere worship in those cast aside, outside the frame, or misunderstood.
You know that holy ground shows up in the places religion forgets to look. The ones pushed to the margins often carry the sincerest worship because they never had the luxury of performing it.
Blessings on the work you do in those quiet rooms.
Humility is the moment you give yourself to ground properly, IMHO it is both modest and beautiful 😍 I can sure feel your entrance to that prayer room✌️
"Dharm aur vishwas do bahut lag bat hain| Aur ek dusre zaroor nahin|"
"Religion and faith are two very different things. And one does not require the other." (But you gotta admit, it sounds SO much cooler in Hindi. Especially if you hear it in that deep Amitabh Bacchanal baritone.)
It's not difficult to tribalize people, you just have to convince them that your way is the only way, and those who don't follow it are damned. We've been doing it since we developed settled agriculture and noticed that the benevolent being that lit up the day made our crops grow.
It's in moments like the one related here that we discover that we've been had, and that those they teach us to hate, those they tell us are damned, are far more *like* us than they are different. And that's the moment we discover -- or in some cases confirm -- the difference between religion and faith.
Thank you for your good lesson, that came from a memory!🙏 I like your phrase, “the kind of faith that lives in the bones.” 🕊️It’s beautiful when different religions can reach out to each other in understanding, instead of turning away.
This echoes with my own experience. Many years ago I was the Headteacher (Principal) of a Church of England school in London (England) where the majority of the children came from Muslim families (I can talk about why that was on another occasion). Anyway, my first year there, pretty green about Islam, and I gave an assembly on Lent and fasting and how it had become largely symbolic now but was still a special time of devotion. Later a parent came up to me and said that their child had told them about Lent and then she told me about Ramadan and how in the summer in England that can mean fasting every day for up to 18 hours a day for a whole month. I was humbled. It was like that almost every time I learnt something new about Islam and contrasted it to my Anglican Christianity.
That kind of humility is worth more than a dozen sermons.
Most people compare religions from a distance. You had to learn it from the kids who lived the devotion you were describing. That kind of collision stays with you. Lent as symbol. Ramadan as endurance shaped into love. Two different rhythms revealing the gap between what we talk about and what we actually embody.
I have never been in a Muslim prayer room but i could feel it when reading this. Not saying I felt what you felt but that experience….i won’t even try to put it into words, you did that beautifully enuf. Stirred some deep memories I’m still wading thru & digesting. Hit home deeply 💓
Some rooms don’t need your body to walk into them. The resonance gets there first.
If it stirred old memories, that means the ground under them is finally soft enough to move. No need to name it. Just let it keep opening.