I am writing on Sunday and, as any regular reader of this blog knows, I began the day by listening to Krista Tippett’s national public radio program, “On Being”. Today she was interviewing/chatting with Rami Nashashibi. As is often the case with her guests this was a “first date” and, as is often the case, I fell in love with this gentle, bright, articulate, father, husband, brother, son who was born in Palestine and eventually ended up in Chicago which was where his mother originated from. Since that time he has had many love affairs – with Chicago, the Muslim Faith, his wife, his children and in his belief that:
“For me, thinking about living in a city like Chicago where you just — honestly, in a society like the one that we're in and the world that we're in with such extraordinary disparities between those who, you know, if you're in a block in Chicago, you're born in one ZIP code, you are, you know, destined for a school that has over 50 percent dropout rate, you're destined to be four times more likely to be incarcerated, three more times to be, you know, unemployed. So I think, for me, this work is in part a way to deal with the anxiety, the spiritual anxiety, of those disparities that I can't feel religiously comfortable in simply accepting that type of division in the way we live our lives.”
In many respects since moving to Florida last August, the change in geographical location and the change in my work schedule has challenged me, at a new level, to question what it means to be home from a spiritual and emotional standpoint. Geographically, I lived in the Wheeling and Pittsburgh Ohio Valley area longer than I had lived anywhere else. I came to know many people who are dear to my heart. I also came to know the richness of the culture from the history of the slaves of the coal mines and steel mills to the rich arts – opera, dance, music, theater, museums, and conservatories which were often built with the profit from the work in the coal mines and the steel plants- these same mines and plants which often ensured disability and in many cases painful, chronic conditions leading to early deaths and broken promises. In many respects this area came to feel more like home than any place I had lived. In other ways I continued to feel as if I lived life just on the edge of the community – not quite out of the community and not quite in the community. Most of all I came to accept that “coming home” was and is a spiritual concept for me. Although I had been raised in the Christian church and had eventually been ordained a Presbyterian minister, I had, in many respects, known I was, even then, an outsider – a fraud if you will.
When I worked for and with the Tlingit Indian community in Alaska I met many who felt as if they no longer had a authentic Tlingit Community which they could call home and, yet, they did not feel or even want to feel a member of the culture which had destroyed much of their written and spoken history as well as their land, their nutritional balance and their sense of community. First the Russians and then the United States people had systematically done all they could do to erase as many aspects of their “heathen” culture as possible. They had no place to truly feel at home. Some through music, woodcarvings and story telling did all they could to tell their story and, thus, hold on to or reclaim their identity. In many respects I felt more at home with the Tlingit members of the community than I did with the imported Caucasians, some of whom were also my superiors in the hierarchy of the Presbyterian Church. When I worked in prisons I also felt as if I was more at home with the inmates than I was with other members of the staff.
Rami Nashashibi, the son of a diplomat and a mother from Chicago was born in Palestine. Early on learned to fear the Jewish people. He grew up without a religious practice or a strong sense of the divine as it is expressed in the many religions. He also grew up economically privileged in many respects. In Chicago he began to identify with the black community (what most referred to as the African American community) and to become acutely aware of the history of race, poverty and all else which kept and keeps people in Chicago and elsewhere divided.
Perhaps, most importantly, through his own study of the Quran and the Muslim religion he came face to face with the divisions within himself, which lead to injustice. He says:
“So the first question about justice, there's an interesting — not only do certain categories get described in the Qur'an, one of the categories that's considered the worst type of human being is described as the hypocrite, right? And there's almost a spiritual science in Islam about the idea of hypocrisy. There are more outward, blatant signs of hypocrisy and then there are the more inward signs of hypocrisy. And in the Muslim tradition, you're actually agitated to constantly engage in self-examination about those inward signs….
Am I just with the privileges and benefits that have been given to me? Am I just with my family? Am I just as a father? Am I just as a person that has been given a tremendous amount? So that's how I see justice.”
This aching hunger which is common to all spiritual seekers led him to not only get a PhD in Sociology from a very prestigious university it has lead him to become the “leader of a globally-emulated project converging religious virtues, the arts, and social action…It’s called IMAN, the Inner-City Muslim Action Network. That acronym means faith in Arabic. * IMAN’s vision cultivates social justice and the arts in its expressions of the core Islamic commitment to humanity…”
*(It also refers to the leader of a Mosque. The man who is the leader of the Mosque in our community is addressed as the Iman. )
One of the reasons I felt so “at home” with Rami Nashashibi was his
recognition of nia, which is both a Swahili and Arabic word meaning spiritual intention. He says, “And oftentimes, Muslims are always asked before they pray, before they do any act of service, before they engage in anything that has any kind of sense of worship associated with it, is it being done for the right nia? Is it being done for the right purpose? Are you attempting to get fame or credit?”
Nia is known by many other terms. In English I would generally just ask myself what my true motive or intention was before doing something. If asking this question is to be of any value I must again come back to my commitment to practicing new levels of honesty with myself. If I am being dishonest with myself it keeps me separated from myself and keeps me from doing all that I do with love. If I cannot do any task with love I have kept myself separated from the divine. I have to finally accept that what keeps me from feeling and being at home is this internal separation from me. It has nothing to do with place or other people per se. I have to do with my habit of avoiding and/or not accepting myself as the loving creation of God/Allah.
Of course, it is also good and even necessary to have a sense of community with others. A church, temple or Mosque can be one of the places where one experiences community. This is also the purpose of the community café where others who work with Rami Nashashibi gather. One can only have that sense of community when one has it with oneself. One then can we sit down with others from different traditions, religions, and disparate parts of the community and feel at home. For when I am at home with myself I can be with others in community rather than being with the labels, which I pretend, separate them from me.
If I am to grow and if there is to be any progress in bringing together neighbors at war I think it will be because we have taken the first step of introducing ourselves to the beauty which is in each of us and which we can reflect in the words, the art, the music, and the dance we share with each other. This will lead us to a consciousness of the divine. We can then feel at home.
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