Last week, I accompanied my roommate to the mosque, where we prayed. We have a beautiful neighborhood mosque, just a block and a half down the road towards the city center. Conspicuously austere, the mosque emits simplicity in its exterior but is magnificently opulent on the interior. It is one of the few mosques I've seen with such brightness, such brilliance in its tiles. Colors of bright white, rich crimson reds, shining blues and greens like mountain grass, it is a place where even the non-believers, like myself, can find solitude and believe in something.
At first when I lived abroad in Christian minority countries, I thought it strange to pray in a temple or a mosque. It felt like I was cheating on Christianity, on how I was brought up. I would find the occasional church and attend a service, but nothing was quite the same. I didn't feel the same familial bonds, the kinship, the divinity I feel at my home church. In Israel, I attended temple services regularly, much more regularly in fact, than many of my Jewish friends. In Egypt, it was more difficult to go into the smaller mosques, but I did so outside of Cairo, in Alexandria and smaller towns. There is something beautifully holy about being able to pray wherever you feel inspired. Such simplistic beauty, in Turkey especially, inspires prayer. I find my odd practices humbly reflect my view of religion: holistic and universal. I don't care where I am, or with whom I may be, but rather, where I feel inspired. Where I know that there has to be something greater. I wish I had that confidence to believe, but at moments, you can almost believe it, you want to believe it and pray for some kind of direction...a sign of sorts.
If people stopped judging, if we took the time to actually learn and go outside ourselves, maybe there wouldn't be so much horror. Go to one of your local temples or mosques. Attend a service. See if you can find spirituality in a new place, through another perspective. I hope to hear what you find.
At first when I lived abroad in Christian minority countries, I thought it strange to pray in a temple or a mosque. It felt like I was cheating on Christianity, on how I was brought up. I would find the occasional church and attend a service, but nothing was quite the same. I didn't feel the same familial bonds, the kinship, the divinity I feel at my home church. In Israel, I attended temple services regularly, much more regularly in fact, than many of my Jewish friends. In Egypt, it was more difficult to go into the smaller mosques, but I did so outside of Cairo, in Alexandria and smaller towns. There is something beautifully holy about being able to pray wherever you feel inspired. Such simplistic beauty, in Turkey especially, inspires prayer. I find my odd practices humbly reflect my view of religion: holistic and universal. I don't care where I am, or with whom I may be, but rather, where I feel inspired. Where I know that there has to be something greater. I wish I had that confidence to believe, but at moments, you can almost believe it, you want to believe it and pray for some kind of direction...a sign of sorts.
If people stopped judging, if we took the time to actually learn and go outside ourselves, maybe there wouldn't be so much horror. Go to one of your local temples or mosques. Attend a service. See if you can find spirituality in a new place, through another perspective. I hope to hear what you find.
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