FAITH HOUSE Manhattan

Article in New York Times: Young Muslim Video Makers

When Ali Ardekani started fishing around on the Internet a couple of years ago for video blogs about Muslims, he did not like what he found: either the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims were depicted as bloodthirsty zealots, or they were offering defensive explanations as to why they were not.

Scenes from a variety of videos made by young Muslims. From top, “I Am a Muslim,” “Who Hijacked Islam?” and “A Land Called Paradise.”

“Arabic sounds foreign and scary — you don’t know what is going on,” Mr. Ardekani said in an interview at his small Sherman Oaks apartment, its walls decorated with Koranic verses. “Or they show a woman with the veil, who doesn’t speak, and it is assumed if she did speak she would say, ‘Help me!’ ”

So Mr. Ardekani, a 33-year-old Web designer, cast himself on his video blogs as Baba Ali, an outsize character with a serious religious message who both dissects and lampoons the lives of American Muslims.

Mr. Ardekani is among the most visible of a new wave of young American Muslim performers and filmmakers trying to change the public face of their religion. His most popular video posting — “Who Hijacked Islam?” — has garnered more than 350,000 hits on YouTube since July 2006. Of course the uphill battle such efforts face is reflected in the comments section. One viewer remarked darkly, “It’s Muslims that do the hijacking.”

These video pioneers’ arena of choice is mostly YouTube and similar Web sites, which young Muslims extol as a new way to take their arguments public. The role model is Bill Cosby, who young Muslim filmmakers believe changed the perception of African-Americans by depicting them as ordinary.

“They are deprived of any type of representation in the media which isn’t a terrorist or an extremely pious Muslim,” said Lena Khan, 23. So whenever an image to the contrary is seen “on YouTube or the Internet or on a TV show, it just spreads across the Muslim community like wildfire, because everyone wants to support it.”

Ms. Khan has placed several short videos on YouTube, among them “A Land Called Paradise,” which shows a variety of Muslims holding up signs. The sign held by a young boy says, “Broccoli is my personal jihad” — jihad meaning a personal, spiritual struggle rather than its more notorious translation as holy war.

To continue reading this article in New York Times click HERE.

Faith House has published a post where you can view A Land Called Paradise video. Click HERE. 

Friends Don't Let Friends Consume!

~Alvin Poblacion recently moved to New York City with his best friend, Rosemary Poblacion. He currently works in Manhattan as a physical therapist. Alvin is an avid cyclist, and a photography enthusiast. He thoroughly enjoys getting lost in the City with Rosemary.

I have been drifting away from religion. The question it asks and the answers it provides seem orchestrated. I am attracted to life instead.

Just recently, I had a refreshing chat with a client of mine, (lets call him Craig) as I was treating him for low back pain. As people lie sprawled out in precarious positions, often only partially clothed, thoughtful conversations come about.

As one might expect from “patient-therapist” small-talk, I started out by asking Craig some generic questions about how he planned to spend the upcoming holidays and if he had all his holiday shopping complete. Craig was happy to say that he would be in the company of good friends and family during Christmas. However, he was a bit conflicted about what he was actually going to do during the holidays, and how he felt about shopping for gifts this season.  He wished he had the time and skill to make gifts with his own hands this year. He felt most us in the US have enough junk than we know what to do with anyway. He said he could certainly live without another remote control cozy (I didn’t even know they had those). He went on to elaborate on his growing suspicion towards the “institution” shopping has become in America. We agreed that there must be better ways out there to express our love for our Kin than what BestBuy and DeBiers might suggest.

As we were wrapping up our PT session for the day, Craig was pulling his shirt back over his head. Just then he remembered to share one last thing with me. It was a website address. When I got home from work that day, I logged on and was pleasantly surprised to find a short but informative, video clip. For many people, most of the information here is nothing new. However, I feel it was put together in a way that is bite sized and digestible for people like me. That is, people just coming into the growing conversations about hyper-consumerism, climate change, equitable living, fair trade etc. While these issues may have some political implications, I feel they have a great deal to do with personal and corporate ethics and moral values. I feel that people of faith can and must have something to say and do about the global crisis we find all of God’s creation in. I have great hopes for Faith House and its commitment to use religion to help life and not the other way around.

I trust these will be twenty well spent minutes of your life. Enjoy and use in your work as clergy, educators, activists, or with your family members, friends, and enemies! We are in this together.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Extraction

What's in the House?

~ by Samir Selmanovic

When I came back from a trip couple of months ago, I found a sheet of paper, “a surprise for dad,” on my desk. My daughters Leta, who is 10, and Ena, 12, drew Faith House as an actual house, with rooms, an attic, a yard, and a basement. This is how they imagine the future. 

- for a larger image: click on the picture -

 
They latter asked me to give them the password for my computer. “What if you die?" they said.  "If something happens to you, we want to work on it."  I was startled. My wife Vesna and I have thought them to pursue a life of loving God and belonging to a real community, but I did not know they so quickly understood that these ideals are larger than any one of us.

If you want to read more about their relationship to Faith House, you can click at the following two posts:

Not a Believer Yet (April 3, 2007)

Her Prayer (July 10, 2007)

My Discovery of Islamic Renewal (Part 2)

In the Part 1, Dr Mark Carr shared the story of his visit to Turkey with a group sponsored by the Gülen movement.  As a most welcome guest in several Muslim homes, he saw the healing power of being open to dialogue with Others of differing faith. What are the goals of the Gülen movement? Read on.

If I read things correctly, there is a foundation in Islam for engaging the Other in fruitful dialogue. Fethullah Gülen is leading many sincere Muslim people into a renewed (not new) emphasis of interfaith dialogue and peaceful coexistence. It is difficult to say how many people would consider themselves significantly influenced by his interpretation of Islam for our time. Suffice to say, however, there are millions who have been positively influenced. When asked by his supporters, what he would like them to do, his consistent answer is two-fold: build schools and engage in dialogue with Others.

As a result, those influenced by him have built and operate the equivalent of our K-12 schools in at least one hundred countries. They are not parochial, sectarian, Qur’an only schools. They are schools that follow the secular educational guidelines of the countries in which they are located. Organizational structure and oversight is in the hands of local people dedicated to Islam and the Gülen movement.

While touring Turkey I visited the city of Antalya, and found our local guide had been touched by the Gülen movement. A Muslim, raised in Bosnia with a Turkish mother, Lachman Kurt told us how he came to support this movement. In his ’30s and in the military in and around Sarajevo, Lachman had the duty to protect and translate for a small group of people from Turkey who had simply shown up on the borders of the city during the war. As he described the personal impressions this group made, he told of his own descent into the barbarian ways of fighting that swept the city and its people. He broke into tears as he described this small group of Gülen supporters. These dedicated Muslims proposed to build a K-12 school that would teach peace in war-torn Sarajevo. The influence of this little group teaching peace in their school grew in Lachman’s heart and in the community in which they served. They continue their work to this day.

Ibrahim Barlas, the leader of our trip, is now president of Pacifica Institute  which works in Southern California in support of the Gülen movement. Pacifica Institute, formerly known as Global Cultural Connections was established in 2003 with the express purpose of helping to “establish a better society where individuals love, respect, and accept each other as they are.” They sponsor conferences, panel discussions, public forums, and art performances in an effort to bring people together. While they are particularly supportive of enhancing interfaith dialogue, their main goal is to “serve their communities,” strengthen “civil society,” and promote the “development of human values.”

It has been true joy getting to know Ibrahim. He is a Kurd by ethnicity and a Turk in national pride. He is an international businessman who lived for years in Singapore where he married a local woman and started a family. Now he lives in Los Angeles and has a vivacious passion for sharing the beauty of Islam with Others. We also enjoy sharing Baklava together!

The Pacifica Institute is one of some fifteen associations of Gülen supporters in the U.S. and around the world. Despite the international reach of this civic movement and the vast numbers of those affected, there is no structural connections among the various groups and schools. Our trip, as well as seven others this summer involving about one hundred people, was sponsored by these people. We each paid our airfares, but the rest of the trip was paid for from the generosity of those who believe in this effort.

The sponsors were incredibly hospitable. We enjoyed many delicious meals in their homes and stayed one night in their homes as well. In each home visit we were given gifts from our hosts in an effort to share their delight of our visit. On one beautiful morning in the city of Izmir, we were hosted for breakfast by a group of local businessmen, supporters of Gülen and these interfaith dialogue trips. We shared stories around the breakfast table. One of them told the fable of the ant trying to put out a fire. When asked by another creature just what the ant thought he would be able to do to the fire with one single drop of water, the ant replied, “I am at least able to proclaim what side I am on.” The man telling the story, like the ant, wanted to be known as firmly planted on the side that advocates peace and tolerance in a global society that seems bent on cataclysm.

~ by Mark F. Carr whose love of earth and its physical beauty is surpassed only by an unquenchable desire for intellectual and emotional exploration of ideas. He loves his job as a director of the MA program in biomedical and clinical ethics for the faculty of religion, and Theological Co-Director for the Loma Linda University Center for Christian Bioethics in California. Mark has PhD in Religious Ethics from Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia. He is married to Colette and has two children, Tyler (19), and Melissa (16).

My Discovery of Islamic Renewal (Part 1)

~ by Mark F. Carr whose love of earth and its physical beauty is surpassed only by an unquenchable desire for intellectual and emotional exploration of ideas. He loves his job as a director of the MA program in biomedical and clinical ethics for the faculty of religion, and Theological Co-Director for the Loma Linda University Center for Christian Bioethics in California. Mark has PhD in Religious Ethics from Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia. He is married to Colette and has two children, Tyler (19), and Melissa (16).

The apartment was modest for a family of such material wealth.  However, I saw something on the credenza that gave the impression they had traveled to Sydney, Australia. I asked if they had frequent opportunities to travel. Without hesitation the father spoke of seven of the world’s great cities where he had taken his family, in part because he felt they needed to learn of Others and the way they live.

Dinner was delightful, but at one point I embarrassed myself when I burst out laughing. In the middle of the conversation around the dinner table, his phone rang. Not uncommon these days, regardless of time or place, to be interrupted by a cell phone. What struck me was the ring tone, “Oh Susanna!” Here we were in Antalya, Turkey, having dinner with a Muslim family and the reach of another culture came right into the house and interrupted our dinner conversation.

During my visit to Turkey with a group sponsored by the Gülen movement I realized that no one, it seems, at any place on the globe today, can escape the reality of the interplay of culture and religion. Nor do we want to avoid it—at least most of us.  For bioethics as an academic discipline and clinical skill consulting in difficult decision making, we must pay attention to the radical new context in which we live. For those of us engaged in education and healthcare, our cloistered sectarian ways are a vestige of the past. But are we prepared for the new mix of faith and culture into which we step in our work?

In my experience of conversion to Christianity, I was taught, appropriately, an apologetic approach to all Others. While at the University of Virginia for my doctoral studies in religious ethics, I sat in the class of Abdulaziz Sachedina, professor of Islamic theology and ethics, a devout Shi’ite Muslim with whom I bonded, in part because of his belief and encouragement for the idea that God is involved in the lives of all human beings. While sitting in his class listening to his portrayal of Islamic theology, I found myself exhausted, tired of sifting all he said through the apologetic sieve of my interfaith training. Not that it wasn’t informative and enjoyable comparing and contrasting my faith with this Other. But I just couldn’t keep up the pace of this sifting process. While in class I decided to hear what my teacher felt was important to learn about Islamic theology and ethics. It was a turning point in my interaction with the Other. It was the end of an era for me; the end of the idea that the end goal of all interaction with Others was to convince them to join my Christian faith and community.

It was also the beginning of a time when I could find satisfaction in dialogue that simply brought understanding. I was finally able to discard the opinion of one of my Seminary instructors: “If the person you are visiting is not open and moving toward a positive decision to join our church, stop wasting your time and move on to someone that is.” I understand that mindset, and do not condemn it. But in the current mix of faith and culture in the global society, I had to find a place short of that in which to rest, a place where I felt sure of having made a positive contribution to the Other and our mutual society. Should the Other find joy in my belief in Jesus that would be wonderful!  But it is okay if they do not.

One of the realities for those of us who seek interfaith dialogue and cooperation is that we have little encouragement from the history of our church. Yet currently there are many positive examples of formerly opposed religions working together for the positive benefit of our global community.

One example is Centura Healthcare in Colorado. This faith-based offering of healthcare is a cooperative effort of Roman Catholic and Seventh-day Adventist hospitals and their professional care providers. As the stewards of some twenty facilities in Colorado, they looked across the gulf that separated them and realized that if they did not work together to find a positive financial way forward, they would fail and have to close their doors. They formed a central administrative office for all of their facilities. In this central office they named executive vice-presidents for “mission and ministry.” In each case, these vice-presidents cared for their side of things and continued working closely with each other. I’ve been privileged to work for them in educational sessions for their ethics committees and concerns.

Another fine example is Faith House Manhattan. I have little doubt that those of us encouraged by the mission of Faith House Manhattan will find ready reference with the supporters of Fethullah Gülen’s teachings. Although Gülen movement is just a small part of the emerging Islamic renewal movement rumbling in the background across the globe, it is an excellent place to start learning about the contours of what is to come. A good place to be introduced to Imam Gülen is a website that posts many of his essays and talks: www.fgulen.org. As I understand the nature of his work, he is focused less on writing books and more on prayer and teaching.

(to be continued, Part 2 next week)

Check out:

Books by Abdulaziz Sachedina
Books by Fethullah Gülen  

Binding In Jordan and Manhattan

~ by Lauralea Banks, a new Program Coordinator of Faith House Manhattan

After deciding my life in Washington, DC, was not fulfilling or taking me where I wanted to go, I decided to seize the moment and pursue my wildest dream. 

Three years ago, I moved to Jordan for nine months to study Arabic.  I had visited Jordan twice on archeology digs in a little village close to Amman. But moving there was something different. In part, I wanted to experience how deep Jordanian hospitality went.  My earlier visits had revealed the kindest, most giving people I had ever met.  But I wondered if the red-carpet treatment had been brought out just for a guest.  And if their hospitality was really as deep as it seemed, I wondered what driving force lay behind it?  Was it culture, religion, heritage?

After living in Jordan for a few months, I began to figure out how to navigate social interactions. I learned for example that people might offer things, but you only knew they were serious if you declined their offer three times and they still insisted.  Many times I found they meant what they said, but just as often they changed the subject after the first invitation.

Throughout my nine-month stay, one group of people inspired my passion for interfaith dialog and this prepared me to capture the vision of Faith House.

I felt fortunate to have friends in Jordan before I moved there.  They emailed advice prior to my arrival, and only later did I learn they had spent hours knocking on doors trying to find me an apartment.  Through their military connections, they obtained special passes so they could meet me at the gate of my plane.  At every turn, they were there to help me.  And yes, they found me an apartment, and then shared information about jobs in which I might be interested.  They took me shopping.  For my first week, they arranged for one of their cousins to meet me everyday after school to make sure I settled in OK.  It became a habit and for nine months I spent every afternoon surrounded by people eager to help who wanted only friendship in return. Over time I felt a degree of skepticism about such kindness and pressed a friend on the subject.  He responded that that they wouldn't be good Jordanians or Muslims if they didn't take good care of me.  Then he paused, looked at me and said it was partly my fault.  I had been so interested in them, and had been so non-judgmental of our differences that it had been hard for them not to reciprocate!

We spent hours talking about religion: each of us explaining why we belonged to our respective faiths.  It proved to be quite a challenge because there were irreconcilable differences between us that we could only begin to understand by seeing the world through each other's eyes.  A few months after I arrived, we had a long conversation about women in Islam.  They explained why women in the Middle East utilize a different “space” than women in America.  It took all nine months of my stay to begin to wrap my brain around the different ways Jordanians define female agency and empowerment.  I'm still trying to understand it.  But our friendship only deepened in these conversations and made me recognize the arrogance I brought with my worldview.  My friends began to feel the same way about their perspectives as well.

As we dismantled misunderstandings and arrogance, something else happened to our friendship: I spent more time in the village with my friends.  Invitations were always extended three times and after awhile, merely mentioning an event meant I was expected to show up.  And when some guys at school approached my friends and asked about me in a suggestive tone (implying the stereotypical assumption that all Americans are like Britney Spears) they were told I was a sister.  These young guys protested, but were firmly informed I was their sister and would be respected as such.  Their willingness to defend me as their own blood deeply affected me and proved to be a monumental step in our friendship.  They insisted I was not like other Americans, that the thoughtfulness I brought to my religion and spirituality made me more like them than if I had converted to Islam. It’s true they often expressed the wish that I would convert, but respected that I had a different path to walk.  As a result, our friendship created a strange new family of different religions but similar mandates for living.

When Samir approached me about Faith House Manhattan, it resonated with my experience in Jordan.  Imagine Muslims, Jews, Christians, Atheists, Buddhists, and other religions coming together, staying rooted in their faith but recognizing that their religious journey can be strengthened by learning about other religious traditions!  From my experience in Jordan I can say this process is powerful and binds people together in a unique way.  Imagine taking that powerful connection and using it to touch the lives of neighbors in your community.  I've already lived the dream of Faith House and the outcome is miraculous and beautiful.  For me it is the true and complete picture of God.

(read more about Lauralea soon on this website)

Christ or Christianity in China

~ for Faith House by Jim Teal (a pseudonym), an artist and a businessman, Portland, Oregon, USA

Over the last 10 years I have built relationships with many Christians in People’s Republic of China. Recently I returned from my fifth visit. I was attending a conference of business people from China and Southeast Asia. For two weeks 40 of us traveled from Beijing to Lhasa and back. The purpose of this journey was to retrace the beginning portions of the Silk Road in order to gain an accurate understanding of both the historical and the spiritual heritage of this great nation.  We were joined by leaders and pastors from the United States, Japan, Singapore, India, Korea, and Hong Kong.

Reflecting on the experience I have come to believe that the church in China, Europe and North America are at the same crossroads. One of the questions we face globally is:  Should we continue to pursue peace, justice, and compassion as Jesus Christ called us to do, or should we continue to spend most of our energies to preserve the institution of Christianity?  The two are not the same. 

In the beginning of the story of which all Christians are a part, it was not safe to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Many a lion dined on Christians day after day. Most of the disciples of Jesus were martyred. Discipleship carried a high price tag.  That changed in the fourth century when Emperor Constantine “graduated” the followers of Christ from the catacombs. The oppressed became oppressors.  Persecuted became persecutors.  Another line to divide humanity had been drawn.  Theology and structure followed.  For many of them, I’m sure it was a long awaited short-term relief, an answer to their prayers. 

But today we see more clearly the long-term effects.  For 1600 years of Christian history, there has been a waltz between the religion of Christ and the revolution of Christ. At times these two have walked the same path, at other times the two parted company, and occasionally the two faced off in a struggle.  But back to China . . .

From my experience in China I have learned that the Kingdom of God Jesus talked about does not need a Western-style church.  In fact some Chinese Christians will tell you that Western Christianity is a major stumbling block to the health of the Chinese Church. 

The leaders of unregistered churches are getting old, and many are tired of the battle and want rest.  They wonder if the solution is to imitate Western Christians with their nice buildings and TV ministries: a Cadillac kind of faith. Many are attracted by the safety, security, and comfort of the institutional Christian church they see across their “Wall.”  And it seems that the Chinese government is ready to institutionalize these believers—if they will sign on the dotted line. They can have all the bells and whistles they want.

So their choice is the same choice many others have faced in the past and will face in the future.   

An institutional religion seems to offer many blessings. But it is of no value if it fails to serve something larger than itself, which in case of Christianity is the revolution Jesus commissioned us to pursue.  All religions have to make this kind of choice, including Judaism and Islam.  Will they live (and die) for the causes of common good, justice, and compassion for all human beings, or will they choose safety and comfort only for those who comprise their religion? 

Chinese Christians can do much more for the Kingdom of God than be a great religion or a powerful institution.  I challenge my Chinese brothers and sisters, “Please be who God created you to be!”   

The day Western Christians have to make the same decision is rapidly approaching.  Around the world there is a growing number of people who want to follow the teachings of Jesus, but want nothing to do with the institutional church. I have heard of a growing group of Islamic believers in China who use the term "Messianic Muslims" to describe themselves.  But they remain dedicated Muslims.   We often use the term "Messianic Jews" to describe Jews who follow Jesus.  But these people are not “Christians in disguise.”  I am not sure whether their own religions accept them, but I am sure they don’t think of their faith as Christian at all.  They think of themselves as fully Jewish, and fully Muslim.  Christians can’t understand this. We have no concept of why a group would respect the teachings of Christ but not want anything to do with Christians or Christianity. 

Is God big enough for this diversity?  Absolutely!

I am done with trying to make other people follow God the way I do.  I am at peace with God who is larger than I.  Others don’t have to look, walk, talk, and believe like I.  It is time to learn to value everyone God created, along with their unique stories, experiences, and beliefs.  God is alive and well outside the boundaries of my religion.  If we fail to accept God’s magnanimity, we will add trouble and misery to the world.  I am a devoted follower of Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life for me, and at the same time I am fully open to find my God in the other.  And I can do both at the same time.

Imitating the West is not a solution for the Chinese church.  The economical world is flat.  The church of Christ is becoming flat as well.  Perhaps Western Christians should look over the wall, into China, and see how much beauty, strength, and courage can be found in God’s wonderful, unique creation there.

Let's keep the revolution going!

Her Prayer

~ by Samir Selmanovic

Those of you who have been in touch with the Faith House project through this website might recall the post Not A Believer Yet where I described how my younger daughter Leta (9) strenuously argued with her sister Ena (11) and me that the Faith House project cannot succeed.   

Grown ups in general have not given her much hope. Sometimes I have thought  of giving up too and walking up to them and surrendering to prevailing beliefs about humanity, “Yes, you fears are justified.  Humans are selfish and will exclude one another to the very end.  There is nothing we can do about it.” 

Then I realize how stupid it would be for a believer to do such a thing, let alone teach it to my children.  If we believe that humanity and God are actually incapable of imagining and bringing about a better world, why would the (or anyone) join us?

We have painted a picture of a Helpless God.  In contrast, looking back to the Bible, I see God full of hope in humanity, God with faith in us.  And while we may sometimes have given hope and faith, my daughters have not.  They are just entering the stage of life where they are becoming a part of a community greater than the enclosed world made of words and meanings from inherited religion. 

They are full of faith in what can and must be. 

If they are going to be believers at all, they will do it with high expectations of God and high expectations of God’s followers.  They fully expect us to get our faith act together and give up on our power struggles.

Most importantly, they have no interest in belonging to a religion that constantly strains to be on the top.  I used to believe that in order to belong to my religion, my religion must be on top; that only if my religion is supreme, is it worth being a part of.  To that end, I constructed what I thought to be an amazing arsenal of proof:  rational, emotional, biblical, scientific, philosophical, social, and personal. Most of us believers have been in a spiritual arms race.

The major output of the energies of my peers and me went to establish the supremacy of our religion or worldview.  The reality, for us, was not the “kingdom of God,” but a world that is competitive, dangerous, and treacherous place, where God needs to be defended by his followers.

Then I asked myself, “Would I follow Christ even if Christianity were not on top?” 

If I can’t live without that, then it is not Christ that I follow.  It is not faith that I live by, but fear.

What if Christ and Our Father in Heaven are perfectly content with not having Christianity on top?  What if Christ did not come to start a religion, but to teach a way of life?

Soon, very soon, the new generation will push back.  Religion that will not know how to take a back seat to something larger than itself and live for the common good of entire world will be abandoned by them.  And rightly so, I am beginning to think.

What if we are waiting for the fulfillment of a promise that has never been made?   What if love, instead (or in spite) of our religion, is going to take over?  What if the Spirit of Christ is alive and well outside the boundaries of our religion as the Bible affirms?

Recently as we were getting ready to move, my younger one, Leta, got her first email account.  And here is the email message that she sent to me (published with her permission).

_______   

From: Leta Selmanovic
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:25:54
To: Samir Selmanovic 
Subject: moving

Dad,

I love you!  I'm nervous and excited about moving to New York.

Here is a game for you.  Unscramble the words.  The words make a sentence together.  The words are about the faith house.  The answers are on the bottom.

1. Chrisanits   2. ewjs   3. mslimus  4. adn   5. ahteists   6. toeghtre.
_______

As I was reading it, tears welled up in my eyes.  She is not a believer—yet, but there’s a glimmer of hope in her that we can find a way to bless one another, rather than ignore, neglect, or abandon one another.  This little game was her prayer.

I want to follow Christ, regardless of whether any one can classify me as one of the Christians or “Chrisanits.”  Grace for every one, every where, and every time.  Unconditional love. And I believe that right now in some Jewish, Muslim, and atheistic homes some little girls are begging their fathers to give up on the supremacist fantasies of their religions or worldviews and to join the rest of humanity in humility, wonder, and appreciation of the mystery we all find ourselves in. 

We are called to begin the work of hope and faith in others, joining God who hopes and believes in us.  The sons and daughters of our shrinking planet want us to unscramble our faiths and get on with building a world in which they can not only survive, but live richly—“toeghtre.”

Not a Believer Yet

~ by Samir Selmanovic

Yesterday, my two daughters had a debate in the car. It started with nine-year-old Leta stating, "I don't think Faith House will work out." When 11-year-old Ena probed into it, Leta strenuously argued that Jews, Muslims, and Christians won't be able to tolerate each other's ways. She said, "It is just too complicated. People just want to do what they want to do. And there are too many holidays to keep track of. I don’t think people can’t do it."

I interpreted her ways as saying that although monotheists might believe in the same God, they are all actually monomythic--believing that there is only one way, one truth, and one path that leads to one God. Monomythic monotheists not only reject all other gods, they reject all other explanations of one God.

I am convinced that all three monotheistic religions have internal resources that can help them not only tolerate, but embrace one another and be better Jews, Muslims, and Christians for it. Nevertheless, I was speechless listening to my daughters. Two of the most tender beings I know were discussing arguably the hardest problem on earth.

They have to. It’s their future that is at stake.

On my trip to Ethiopia couple of years ago, we took about two thousand pictures. It was only a year after the trip that I took a closer look at one of the pictures taken by my friend Larry Thomas. Here it is.

What is peculiar in this picture?

Do you see it?

Don't read on until you see it (tip: if you click on the image, the larger picture will pop up).

Each of the three girls wears a religious symbol. Can you name the three religions?

I remember the place where we took this picture. It was a brief stop on the street, not choreographed or arranged in any way. The three girls were playing together in the slums of Addis Ababa. It was a part of the city where people's religions had to work together for the benefit of one another.

Their families were struggling to keep food on the table and to send their children to school to learn to read and write. In the midst of their struggle to live, their religions were their allies, not part of the problem. I saw that over and over again. There was so much happiness in their lives together. Muslim leaders embraced Catholic nuns, and then both asked us to give a break to our driver who has been fasting all day observing his Orthodox holiday. One of the nuns told me, “We don’t care about which religion anyone is. We are all brothers and sisters. If we don’t care for each other, we die.”

So, I’m thinking, if it’s possible to live as brothers and sisters in humanity at this small scale, in slums of a big poor city, why not elsewhere? We too are coming to a place where we cannot afford to live out our religions only for our own benefit.

We are stuck together on this earth, whether we want it or not, and this reality dawns on us every time we leave isolated circles of our religions or ideologies. And every time we walk out on the street. Or turn on the news. There are more and more of “the other” in our midst. The difference between now and the past is that these encounters are becoming more frequent, and more is at stake each time. This goes beyond global communication, politics, and business. Most of us literally have someone else living in our family, or we will soon when our children or grandchildren marry.

Without living for the benefit of one another, our religions are becoming increasingly useless. If a religion cannot bless those who do not belong to it, it cannot bless at all. It has nothing more to say.

As things look right now, for my young daughters there is no way back to religion as we contemporary grown ups know it. The religion they would join would need to be great at blessing its non-adherents.

Is Faith House possible? My younger one is not a believer. Yet. Perhaps my life work is to show her and her friends that humanity and God are capable of making this happen.

Symposia Bookstore: A Report from the City

~ by Cornel Rusu, director of Symposia Bookstore, an innovative leader and a community organizer from New York

Like many other churches, the small Hoboken Faith Community Fellowship had a hard time finding what to offer its local community besides preaching. A food pantry or a clothes distribution program, typical in traditional churches, seemed irrelevant in a community with households averaging $70,000 income per year and lots of single, young professionals working in New York’s financial district.

Thus the idea of a bookstore was born, a place for books on faith and spiritual journeys, a place for meetings, conversations and workshops, a place for friendship and personal growth. In 2001 the church opened a bookstore (the only one besides Barnes & Noble) and hired a community director to manage it.

Hoboken Faith Bookstore had an extremely short life. It was a big surprise to see the store die several months after it’s birth. And not because the church lost interest or ran out of money, but because people had no interest in what the church was so generously offering through its store. The Hoboken community proved to be not only young and rich, but also secular and, like many other communities, resistant to anything coming from organized religion.

However, the church did not shake the dust off its feet and move away, nor did it stand on the pavement handing our pamphlets insisting on being noticed, but engaged in a “two-way dialogue” with the local community. The church asked questions, pondered the answers and ended up resurrecting the store. It is still a bookstore, but one that is visited, loved, and supported by the local community. The church began to learn from the community.

Today the Symposia Community Bookstore is a growing community project with its own legal not-for-profit status, is fueled by the same passion for service and fully sponsored by the local community through book donations. The store is a neutral place where everybody feels at home and can enjoy the large variety of events and programs offered. It is a place for rest and action, a place to give and receive, a place where dialogue and diversity are cherished.

It is no surprise that the conversation groups are by far the most enjoyed events. People long for a safe place where they can come together to talk and to listen to their fellow humans organizing themselves to help the town. Symposia has been hosting conversation groups every week for the last five years in Hoboken and for two years in West Village Manhattan. The attendance goes from 10 to 20 people per event and events are very diverse. Attendees in the beginning of a meeting vote on the conversation topic and one person takes the role of facilitator. Hundreds of subjects have been discussed over the years, including human relationship to technology, politics, health, spirituality, religion, cooking, traveling, movies and culture.

The store is also a place for art seekers. The walls are covered with art produced by local artists and by children attending local schools. Writers, filmmakers and musicians regularly visit the store to take part in book-signing events, open mics, and independent film screenings.

Every morning the store opens for its youngest customers and entertains them with puppet shows and music filled with lessons about our relationship to each other and environment. In yet another attempt to foster awareness, communication and dialogue, the Italian language is taught in an attractive, entertaining way. Currently the store offers eight shows per week attracting around 100 to 120 toddlers and their parents or caregivers.

During weekends, the store is usually run by local not-for-profit organizations that fundraise for their programs, taking away all the money earned that day through the sale of the books. The homeless shelter, the library, the Catholic charities, groups from the Methodist church, clubs of students from the Stevens Institute of Technology and other community groups regularly take advantage of this opportunity.

The community in turn supports the store through book donations and volunteers. Thousands of volumes have passed through the store every month for the last five years and hundreds of hours of work has been donated by volunteers. This validates the ancient truth that in giving we receive. The more we give to the community, the more they respond, making this venture a force for good in the town.

There are a number of non-profit ventures in New York City that are looking for the ways to connect with each other across the boundaries of religions and ideologies. We in Symposia are looking forward to Faith House that has the same values of creating a common space where bridge building, gracious human interaction and community organizing can take place. The city and the world is better for it.

Is Another World Possible?

~ by Samir Selmanovic

Today, I doubt. I doubt that Faith House is possible. I feel depressed about it. I wonder if I should quit.

All afternoon, I drove aimlessly around Orange County, stopping to eat, only to walk out without food, to just sit in the car. It is not that I don’t have anything to do. There is so much to do, I don’t know even where to start to make a dent on the list. My inner monologues go in circles, “How did I ever get myself into this? The city will crush our daily lives. Resistance of established religiosity will crush people’s spirits. New supporters will not step up and the current ones will forget about us. People will never come. . . How did I get myself into this? The city will crush out daily lives. Resistance of established …” On and on the tape goes.

After sitting in my car in a parking lot staring at nothing for fifteen minutes, I say a prayer and walk into a coffee shop one block further down the road, and resolve to tackle the to-do list. There, I sit aimlessly for another half hour. I drift from self-pity to fear. I dread finding an apartment in New York that is too small and too expensive, that I start talking to myself, then laughing my pain out loud about, then talking to myself again as I walk back to the car.

At times, during the last twelve months, I have been propelled forward by the sheer happiness of what Faith House can be. But on days like this, I feel sad and discouraged. It takes enormous energy to comfort myself.

That’s when I turn to my friends for glimmers of hope. Recently, my friend from Emergent Village, Damien O’Farrell e-mailed me a picture that his friend had just taken in Israel. It’s a picture of a wall that separates Muslims and Jews.

Somewhere in my files, I found the original quote from Arundhati Roy:

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen . . . with our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our sheer relentlessness—and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe . . . . Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

Today, I had a noisy day, the voices in my head chanting songs of fear I have picked up along the way from the empires of our religions, nations, and corporations. They have been yelling one thing, but God has been whispering another.

What do you think my friends? Is a new world possible? Has it been possible in your country, in your town, in your family? What do you hear God whispering while the empires are yelling? Your advice, stories, poems, and prayers have power and influence. Please share them with us on the web site. If a new world is possible, we need you to help us hear her breathing.

Waiting for the Dawn (U2's verses of hope)

~ by Samir Selmanovic

Monotheistic religions have been a blessing to the world. Each in its own time and in its own way, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam not only transformed religion by decrying the plurality of gods but they also changed the history of the world. The concept of one God made all humans equal.

Our common creaturehood made us all brothers and sisters of one human family. This unity superceded fragmentations of religions, races, and tribes of the time. A new way opened for a radical respect of “the other” no matter how “the other” differed in possessions, status, gender, or other accidents of birth. Every human being was now conceived as created, sustained, and blessed by one God, given the liberty to live under the same Mystery. By recognizing our common lot as finite human beings living together in the universe we can never fully understand, these religions were a foundation for present-day democracies.

Under One God we became One.

The world has also endured a lot from us over the centuries. I’ve spoken about these three monotheistic religions to non-believers for years, and they say: “At best, Jews, Christians, and Muslims look like three religious stooges slapping each other. At worst, they look like three brothers with hands clasped in prayer and soaked in blood.” We have colonized the name of God with our religions, and many in the world have simply had it with us. They believe we have nothing more to say. That's why they are turning other places to seek and understand God.

If we cannot move beyond our own tradition’s views of God, if we cannot hold something more sacred than our own religions, if we cannot keep on believing in our God while having a sense of creaturely self-doubt about the way we understand not only God but anything at all, then we all have turned away from one God. We, through our own religion, have betrayed humanity and are not to be trusted.

We all ought to take time and grieve about this.

Monotheism must change, or wither away. I believe that it can, must, and will not merely correct, but evolve. The only question is whether we, the three greatest hopes and disappointments of history, will come to our senses, kneel down along with all creation, and accept to be a part of something larger than ourselves.

We all ought to take time and grieve about this--so that we can hope again.

Since 9/11 I have seen many glimmers of hope. One of them is the work of Bono and U2. Enjoy animated excerpts of their song called Yahweh (from their album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb). It can be sung by a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim, even by a person who questions the whole enterprise of God. All of us have lost our way and are "waiting for the dawn."

      Yahweh (excerpts, by U2, from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb)

      Take this soul
      Stranded in some skin and bones
      Take this soul
      And make it sing

      Yahweh, Yahweh
      Always pain before a child is born
      Yahweh, Yahweh
      Still I'm waiting for the dawn

      Still waiting for the dawn, the sun is coming up
      The sun is coming up on the ocean
      This love is like a drop in the ocean
      This love is like a drop in the ocean

      Yahweh, Yahweh
      Always pain before a child is born
      Yahweh, tell me now
      Why the dark before the dawn?

      Take this city
      A city should be shining on a hill
      Take this city
      If it be your will
      What no man can own, no man can take
      Take this heart
      Take this heart
      Take this heart
      And make it break