I am indebted to Mogammad Abrahams and to Ismail Rhode who inspired
this conversation.
What do passports, green cards, and
the world's
three great religions have in
common?
My answer is I embrace more than one of each.
I'm a dual national. I hold two passports: one is British, the other is
American. I was born in England which qualifies me for the former. I'm
a naturalized citizen of the United States which qualifies me for the
latter.
I might not be the only dual national you know. But I'm probably the
only
guy
you know who's held five green cards from five different countries. I
say "who's held" rather than "who holds" because a green card typically
expires if, once granted, its holder doesn't maintain continuous
residence in the issuing country. That said, I've lived and worked in
these five countries long enough to qualify for their green card:
England,
South Africa,
France,
New Zealand,
and the United States.
And now, after an experience I had during this visit to
Cape Town, February 2015,
I embrace all three of
the world's
great religions:
Judaism,
Christianity,
and
Islam.
This is what I mean by that:
I was born a
Jew
(which is to say I was born into a
Jewishfamily)
and completed the
rite de
passage
into manhood, my Bar Mitzvah, at thirteen years old in the
"Manystairs" synagogue in Wynberg, Cape Town,
South Africa,
in which I embraced the spirit of
Judaism.
Bar Mitzvah is a vehicle of initiation into the spirit of
Judaism.
Nearly thirty years later I fulfilled a ten year
intention
and received baptism by full immersion in the Merced River in the
Yosemite Valley, California, USA, under the sheer granite cliffs of El
Capitan and Half Dome, in which I embraced the
presence
of
Jesus Christ
in my life - which is to say I embraced the spirit of
Christianity
while embracing the spirit of
Judaism.
Baptism is a vehicle of initiation into the spirit of
Christianity.
Now, twenty years later at the
Oudekraal
kramat
ie at the
Oudekraal
mosque
in Cape Town,
South Africa,
I received
Wuudhu in which I embraced the spirit of
Islam
while embracing the spirit of
Judaism
and while embracing the spirit of
Christianity.
Wuudhu (pronounced "would do", as in "I would do anything
for you", and meaning ablution) is a vehicle of initiation
into the spirit of
Islam.
The
drive
heading south along the west coast of the Cape Peninsula leaving Cape
Town, has the sheer Twelve Apostles mountain range on your
left, and the breaking waves of the Atlantic Ocean crashing onto
massive boulders on your right. To call this vista
magnificent is to woefully understate it. There's a place
along this road I always make
time
to visit when I'm in the area. It's the
Oudekraal kramat
which is accessed via a short hike up the mountain along a path which
is barely visible from the road. It's a tiny, white-washed building
which is one of the many
kramats
central to the Muslim faith in Cape Town. For me it's a place of peace.
I go there for reflection. I go there for
meditation.
The vibes there (to borrow a colloquially hip term) are
really quite lovely. So I'm
sitting
here, being with myself,
quietly,
when the door opens and two hadjis (pilgrims) come in.
It's really their place. So I stand up to leave, saying "I'm so sorry,
I'll be going now.". But they say "No, it's OK, please stay while we
pray.".
So I stay. And I
sit.
And reflect. And
meditate.
And they
pray.
And when they're finished
praying,
they tell me
why
they came here. It's a story you may find hard to
believe.
But I'll relay it anyway without judgement, and I invite you to
suspend disbelief
as you
listen.
They tell me they were
driving
along the coast road at the bottom of the path, with no plans to hike
up to the
kramat,
when they heard the Imam calling them to come. The Imam is
the holy man, the Muslim
leader
who's been deceased for about three hundred years, whose
presence
is the central focus in the
kramat.
They tell me they each individually heard him calling them to come, and
then they turned to each other and confirmed they'd both heard him call
them. They tell me the Imam told them there's someone they must come
and meet in the
kramat.
That someone, it turns out, was me.
Outside the
kramat,
a tiny rivulet which meanders down from the mountain, has been
lovingly
and carefully diverted to a
bricked
pool, as it's regarded as holy water. They offer me the gift of Wuudhu.
I'm taken aback. It's a
privilege.
I accept. I embrace their offer. No, it's more than that. It's
waaay more. It's I'm
moved
by it. It touches me deeply.
They ask me to
sit
with them at the edge of the pool and remove my socks (I'd already
removed my boots before
walking
into the
kramat).
One of them washes my
feet
("... so you
walk
in
purity
..."). He washes my
hands
("... so you
touchpurity
..."). He washes my
eyes
("... so you
seepurity
..."). He washes my
ears
("... so you
hearpurity
..."). He washes my nose ("... so you
breathepurity
..."). He washes my
mouth
("... so you
speakpurity
..."). He washes my
head
and
face
("... so you
think
and
livepurity
..."). Then he gives me a name. "Your name" he tells me "is
Eisa.". It means
"God
is salvation". It's an Arabic name for
Jesus
(it's actually the second Muslim name I've been given:
years earlier at the same kramat,
I was given the name
Elijah
which I thought was pretty remarkable since my Jewish name is
Eleazer which is Elijah in Hebrew). We then
walk
back into the
kramat
where they
speak
of their religion in kind, loving, reverend terms which I can totally
get. They take
nothing
from me. They ask
nothing
of me. They simply open their
hearts
and share themselves with me.
I've experienced similar
conversations
before. Where people of faith in
the world's
three great religions come from, is their relationship with
God.
Yet what they often stay stuck in (in spite of their very best
intentions)
is their entrenched
beliefs.
In these
conversations,
what I give them back is
language
- in other
words,
what I keep giving them is that which is
constituted in
language
ie that which comes from
who we really are
as our
speaking.
When they give me Moses, I get Moses, and I give them back
Werner
ie I give them
the space,
and maybe the name but never gratuitously. When they give me
Jesus Christ,
I get
Jesus Christ,
and I give them back
Werner
ie
the space,
and maybe the name but never gratuitously. When they give me Muhammad,
I get Muhammad, and I give them back
Werner
ie
the space,
and maybe the name but never gratuitously. And they all give me
God
- which at first sounds like there's three different versions of
God.
No, they're really all giving me the same
Godonly they're each
speakingGod
in their slightly different terms coming from their own unique
point of view.
Clearly there's one experience all
the world's
religions indeed have in
common.
It's the same one experience all the sects and all the denominations
within each of
the world's
religions have in
common.
I'll bet you good
money
that what this
common experience
is, is the
context
ie the platform for revealing and bringing forth
language
as
who we really are.
Here I mean
language
like the Greek logos ie
language
which has the
power
expressed best by John's "In the beginning was the
Word,
and the
Word
was with
God,
and the
Word
was
God.".
And if it isn't couched in exactly those terms these days, I'll bet you
good
money
that was the
common
experience each of the founders of
the world's
religions had ... until, as a result of layers upon layers of
interpretations
upon
interpretations
over the centuries, it simply got so diluted that their
original
divine experiences are now obfuscated by our
beliefs
in and by our
interpretations
of our religions which by now have almost totally sidelined
distinguishing
direct experience
altogether.
That's not a trivial assertion to make. So it may require
sitting
with it in your lap like a hot
brick
and allowing it to sink in. If the goal of each of the
the world's
religions, is to facilitate our relationship with
God
(and from where I
stand
and look, they sure seem to have that in
mind),
then those holy men and women who are most successful in bringing forth
the possibility of our relationship with
God,
are those who have sought and found out how to
speak
the experience of it, into existence for all of us.
For me, the full impact of their
moving
gift of Wuudhu, of ablution, of cleansing, of purification, translates
directly into our inquiring into, into our examining of, and into our
cleaning up of our own
epistemology
and of our own belief systems so that
who we really are
as our
speaking,
can be fully expressed, and can be cleanly and clearly and
decisively
differentiated from whatever else (like our righteousness and our
divisive religious prejudices) we human beings naïvely consider
ourselves to be. Being
who we really are
as our
speaking,
is, I assert, a
powerful,
profound, and
authentic
access to
walking
with
God
for devotees of any of
the world's
religions.