The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.
We Found It Back Home
[Note: I wrote this for our synagogue's newsletter and it was just published, and came in today's mail:]
It may be easy to find a Jewish person just about anywhere in the world these days, but finding a sense of yiddishkeit in a place like Bangalore is another matter entirely. During a recent six-month stretch in India, I’d often spend Friday night sitting with my partner Pat at the Rajgarh restaurant, where we feasted on dishes like tandoori gobi and dal makahni, but found ourselves thirsting for Jewish life.
Prior to moving into a house, we lived at a hotel for 35 days. During a party, we met a lone Jewish expat wearing a white woven kippah and engaged him in conversation. But when we asked the hotel’s concierge if she could locate a synagogue for us in the metro area, she responded, “We didn’t find a synagogue, but there’s a Methodist church….”
Pat joked with me later, “Well, you know, those monotheists all look alike.”
The experience would have been more haimish (homey) had we felt comfortable, being ourselves as a visible couple. But we almost never felt did, aside from when we were with my colleagues from work.
It was retro, being so cagey. Prior to moving into my current role in management and leadership development at IBM, I was a featured face of my employer to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender clients, having helped start a sales team dedicated to the LGBT market. Why was I willing to take so many steps backward in my openness with this Indian assignment? After all, I didn’t even request the position, but rather was asked by a superior to help our company leaders at all levels in India advance their leadership skills.
Speaking only for myself—and not my employer—through these reflections, I’d wondered: When else would my colleagues in India have had the opportunity to get to know lesbians as people? Openly gay or lesbian colleagues are rare in India, I confirmed during my first, brief trip there in 2005, and re-confirmed this time. Yet I have a sacred sense that once people are exposed to one another, they can never again be purely ignorant of one another…and that includes Pat’s and my exposure to Indian culture and people.
The most beautiful woman I met during our trip was named Sapna, who became a visible friend to our community as a result of our meeting. She introduced herself, saying, “Sapna – it means “Dream.”
Yes, it does! I told myself silently, smiling.
Since my local boss was out of the country at the time, Sapna invited me in his place to address a group of IBMers, who were volunteering to help “freshers,” (not fressers [Yiddish for gourmands]) feel at home. “Freshers” is the expression used in India to refer to people who have just joined a company. In my remarks, I made a plug for employee networking groups, ensuring that people knew of their availability, and that any L, G, B, or T employees were welcome to contact me about starting an Indian chapter of our LGBT employee group.
Sapna approached me afterwards and said she wanted to help. She agreed to start up the chapter; she was heterosexual and deeply, traditionally Hindu with a lesbian friend, who she said confided only in her. “I like being part of anything that advances humanity,” Sapna said as her lovely rationale.
Since India is just in the early stages of further LGBT inclusion, Pat and I chose to respect the local norms to a degree, so that we could live without a measure of anxiety and worry. People can be jailed for homosexual acts, though I’m told it hasn’t happened for years. Still, it meant that during the week we lived in separate rooms, giving our maid the weekends off. Essentially, being in stealth-mode also made Jewish community life impossible for us. We didn’t want to seek out Jews and then not be able to share our full story with them, and so we thirsted....
On the morning of Erev Rosh Hashanah, Pat and I flew to Kochi to visit the Pardesi synagogue and experience the only shul within a several hours journey of our home. The modest stone building bore a welcome sign, but sadly it was locked in preparation for the holiday. With a little ingenuity (and a handful of rupees), we convinced a Hindu worker to let us inside to quickly glimpse the interior. The Orthodox-style sanctuary had seating for men downstairs and women behind a latticed partition above; there were several Belgian chandeliers and a floor with 1,100 hand-painted Chinese tiles. The five Torah scrolls had Sephardic-style coverings and one was decorated with jewel-encrusted gold crowns—a gift from the Maharajah. (For more on the visit, see our blog and pictures at http://sarahsiegelstories.blogspot.com/2007/09/chag-samayach.html and at http://hewittsphotoblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/cochin-synagogue.html.
As we were ready to leave, the Hindu man said, "Chag samayach" ("Happy holiday,") and Pat and I nearly cried with gratitude. I was struck by how meaningful our two minutes at the Pardesi felt compared to the 20 minutes spent in an Indian temple the previous week. Somehow, despite the lack of ritual during those six months, I still managed to feel incredibly Jewish. A paradox, perhaps. But I’ve come to believe that seeing others' religions only strengthened my affection for my own.
More than ever, CBST has been an oasis since our return from India. Our first weekend back, we came to services and Rabbi Cohen generously asked us to light the Shabbat candles. When Pat and I stood on the bimah, singing “Shalom aleichem” with our arms around each other and the rabbi and cantor, I looked out shyly with delighted awe at the huge roomful of LGBT Jews and our friends and family. No one needs half a thirsty year in India to appreciate what we have in the CBST community, but it can’t hurt.
Sarah Siegel and her partner Pat Hewitt of nearly 16 years have been members at CBST since they moved here from Illinois in 1996. They live in Montclair, NJ.
Showing posts with label Kochi synagogue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kochi synagogue. Show all posts
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Chag Samayach!
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
Touring the "Oldest Synagogue in the British Commonwealth"
Yesterday felt like the closest Pat and I have ever been and will ever come again to being on a pilgrimage. We awoke at 3:30 am, got to the Bangalore Airport by 5 am and to Kochi by 7:30 am.
The total ground and water transportation took longer than the flight, which was just a bit over an hour. We rode in an ancient Mercedes Ambassador car with no seat-belts for the 45-minute trip to the tip of the island, where we were staying, across from Mattancherry/Fort Cochin.
It's much hotter in Kerala, by the Arabian Sea, than in Bangalore, we soon understood. My sunglasses weren't quite strong enough and the walk from the hotel to the jetty primed us for our inevitable sunstroke later.
Sunblock #45 did not prevent the sun from beating on our heads, but all we had were India cricket team hats with us, and we did not want to appear disrespectful when we visited the synagogue. My mom doesn't have a computer, fortunately, and so my sisters can skip reading her this part; she'd be unhappy that we didn't protect ourselves better....Bev [Pat's mother], if you're reading this, please don't worry. Both of us took two extra-strength aspirin upon our return to the hotel, went for a swim and felt fully refreshed.
A Pair of Perspiring Pilgrims
We got off at the bottom of the island and walked nearly its length, which took about 30 minutes -- past innumerable handicraft storefronts and spice-stalls, goat-gangs and perfumers. So many smells and unrelenting heat. Since my prior time in India, in 2005, I've said that I've smelled the world's best and worst smells in India -- mostly the best. My nose is never bored here.
When we got closer to the synagogue, the number of antique and handicraft shops multiplied and men kept calling to us, "Come into my store. Just see for a minute....Good afternoon! How are you? I've been waiting for you! Come see. Only a minute!"
I found myself looking at the ground more than I wanted to, as I wanted to avoid eye contact with any of them. We just kept repeating, "No thank you," and walking past. None were happy with our disinterest.
Once, looking up for just a minute, I saw a pretty woman in the doorway of a store and her expression invited me to come in. She said nothing bold, like the men, and I was as close to looking in her shop as I came during the entire barrage, but we just kept forging ahead. I had to remember that just because her appeal to me was more appealing than theirs, it was no more sincere necessarily; it was a safe bet that her friendliness -- and theirs -- was based, above all, on encouraging commerce.
How do religious pilgrims feel when they're approaching their holy site? Do shopkeepers bother people when they walk the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem? If I remember correctly, they don't. My cousin Nitzah (Blossom) took me on a walk on that path when I lived there, and I recall that there were many stalls with rugs and leather belts and bags and clay drums and candy, but I do not recall having felt harassed to buy anything.
We reached the doorway by 11:30: "Nah l'hagiyah b'libush tznuah," read a sign in Hebrew, which was translated: "Please dress modestly," and then it defined "modestly," saying that anyone in "short trousers" or short skirts, or who was "sleeveless" would not be permitted to enter the synagogue.
Pat and I were wearing long pants and long-sleeved blouses by design, and still were forbidden to enter the synagogue. Next to the modest-dress sign hung another that read, "Synagogue closed today for the Jewish holiday."
I heard voices upstairs in the synagogue and called upward, "It's not yet Rosh Hashanah! The Jewish holiday doesn't begin till sundown. We flew all the way from Bangalore. Please let us in, just for a quick look!"
"We are cleaning. The synagogue is closed," they called down.
We knew it was a hazard to come on the morning of Rosh Hashanah Eve, but took a chance -- a nutty one, it turned out. We stood on the street outside the non-descript, white building, which Pat noted, oddly included a bell-tower, and felt ashamed at our inability to witness the only synagogue in South India, at our bad luck at being unable to have any Jewish connection on the morning prior to one of our holiest days of the year.
A clean-cut guy appeared and listened to our disappointment for a bit. He told us that he was Catholic and that he was sorry we were unable to go into the synagogue.
Pat looked at me with an expression of hope and an idea born of desperation and said, "Sarah, hold up 500 rupees and tell them, 'The first one to open the door gets 500 rupees.'"
I did, assuring them, "We just want to come in for two minutes," and there was rustling...and then silence. The Catholic man yelled up something in Hindi and a moment later, the door opened.
Finally, An Open Door
A Hindu man showed us around and we saw that indeed, they really were cleaning. It was the oddest sanctuary I'd ever seen: glass chandeliers of random shapes and sizes, and some with colored glass, hanging just over our heads, all over the room, which our guide said all came from Belgium; blue and white porcelain tiles, which he told us each were unique and imported from China -- they had scenes on them, but I was too unnerved to notice specifics; the ark had an inscription over it that read in Hebrew: "Keter Torah," (Torah crown); to the left of the ark, painted in blue, on white, in Hebrew was the central prayer of Judaism, the "Shema..." (Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One").
As we stared at the wooden ark -- built into the wall, which was not strange, but more typical, he said, "This synagogue was built in 1568," and, "This is the oldest synagogue in the British Commonwealth." And then, since he was not Jewish and so un-observant of Jewish rituals, he swung open the doors of the ark, which is not done typically, unless and until it is time to remove a Torah in order to chant from it.
Five Torah scrolls, each encased in a big, round, silver cylinder, which my mother tells me is the Sephardic style of Torah cover, appeared inside the ark. Again, since he was not Jewish, he opened one of them and said, "Touch it if you like. You can kiss it."
It's true that there's a procession, where people carry a Torah(s/ot) around the synagogue during the Torah-reading service, at which point congregants are free to kiss the Torah, either by touching a fringe of their prayer shawl to it, or by touching a corner of their prayer-book to it, and then kissing the fringe or book. It's never OK to touch it with our bare hands...and yet, when he invited me to do so, I put the first two fingers of my right hand against the parchment, near the Hebrew text and kissed my fingers afterwards.
"Pat, do you want to? Go ahead," I suggested.
"No, let me just touch your fingers," she said, not wishing to compound the transgression, and she did, and then kissed her own fingers. Afterwards, she told me she was highly surprised that I went ahead and touched it. "He didn't know better, but you...."
"I couldn't resist." And then we talked about how if it had been during a genuine service, Pat and I likely would never have gotten to walk on the main floor of the sanctuary, since during services, women must sit upstairs, apart from the men.
Just as we were about to leave, one of the cleaners came down from upstairs, holding two giant, jewel-bedecked, bright, bright gold Torah crowns that he had just polished apparently. The guide said, "They were a gift of the Maharajah...."
The synagogue we belong to, as well as the one where I grew up had Torah crowns, too, but they were pale, sterling silver -- nothing as grand as what we witnessed in the Kochi synagogue.
Just then, as we were remarking on the amazing preciousness of the crowns, the Hindu man said, "Chag samayach" / "Happy holiday," and Pat and I nearly cried with gratitude. We loved that he knew the expression that Jews use with each other on every holiday, and that we got to hear it and say it very near to ours.
The whole tour really did require not much more than two minutes, and Pat and I left there ecstatic. I was struck by how meaningful the two minutes in the synagogue felt to me compared with the 20 or more minutes we spent in the Ganesh and Bull temples last weekend.
I had no frame of reference for the Hindu houses of worship and a deep one for the synagogue. When we left, the guide said, "Shalom," (Hebrew for "Peace," and a greeting of either hello or goodbye). We loved him then.
When we exited the synagogue, I looked for the Catholic man who had helped us and didn't see him at first. Then he appeared and I wanted to give him some money for his help. "Oh, no, please. Instead, come see my shop," he said. It was huge and filled with large, unportable antiques, including Christian Madonna figures.
Pat asked, "Do you sell rosaries? A woman was very kind to my mother when she was in the hospital recently and when my mother wanted to give her a gift, the woman asked that her daughter bring her a rosary from India."
He didn't and advised us that next to churches, we could likely find small shops that would sell rosaries. I told him, "Thank you so much for helping us have a meaningful holiday."
At the post office, a wheat-toast-complexioned, white-haired man with a white, knitted kippah/skull-cap with red and blue Stars of David bordering it hurried past me to post a letter, and I felt emboldened by the synagogue visit and said, "Chag samayach."
"Chag samayach," he answered softly as he nearly ran past me.
Next to the synagogue was the Incy Bella bookshop, where I found a book on Jewish identity and India; a comparison of Hinduism and Judaism, which described how both are all about orthopraxy, rather than orthodoxy, which made sense to me; and two on the Jewish community of Kochi, of which I learned in the book there were just 20 members (as of 2005) -- one of our guidebooks had specified that only seven Jewish families remained in Jew Town, which is what the area is called.
How We Spent Erev Rosh Hashanah
Satisfied that we made the connection we hoped to make with South-Indian Jewish life, or mostly with South-Indian Jewish history at least, we took the ferry back to our hotel, where we ate a delicious lunch of our first Middle Eastern food in India; swam in the infinity pool; went on a sunset cruise around Fort Cochin; saw a demo of Kathakali dance; and ate grilled fish, Kerala style, outside by the sea, listening to Muslim prayers over loudspeakers that faced us from across the water, at the next island. The dance included an enactment of Baby Krishna, sucking the life out of an evil wet-nurse.
Typically, Pat and I would be at synagogue, singing the traditional "Avinu Malkeinu" in community, rather than watching a tale from the Mahabharata. In fact, that's likely what the rest of my family's doing right now, in their synagogues in Jamaica Estates, New York and Brooklyn.
Paradoxically, It's Not At All Paradoxical
Here's the paradox....I hope it doesn't seem paradoxical, actually, but rather understandable: I've never felt more Jewish, even as I've never been less observant ritually. I grew up, not being particularly encouraged to do cross-religious exploration and I've been doing more in India -- even with the little bit of temple visits and reading I've done -- than I've done since earning my World Religions badge in Girl Scouts at 12.
It's as though seeing others' religions only strengthens my affection for my own. What has impressed me is how people can be enthusiastic about religious traditions that I do not relate to at all, and I've become more directly appreciative that the world has any number of ways to get at similar truths.
God is everywhere, no matter how remote I am from the familiar; I see God's work and feel God's presence whenever I'm open to it. Right now, it's pretty late at night, after 11 pm (India time), and I can hear the rain beating outside, and the ceiling-fan whooshing over my head, and I'm alone in this room, and yet, I'm not at all.
Touring the "Oldest Synagogue in the British Commonwealth"
Yesterday felt like the closest Pat and I have ever been and will ever come again to being on a pilgrimage. We awoke at 3:30 am, got to the Bangalore Airport by 5 am and to Kochi by 7:30 am.
The total ground and water transportation took longer than the flight, which was just a bit over an hour. We rode in an ancient Mercedes Ambassador car with no seat-belts for the 45-minute trip to the tip of the island, where we were staying, across from Mattancherry/Fort Cochin.
It's much hotter in Kerala, by the Arabian Sea, than in Bangalore, we soon understood. My sunglasses weren't quite strong enough and the walk from the hotel to the jetty primed us for our inevitable sunstroke later.
Sunblock #45 did not prevent the sun from beating on our heads, but all we had were India cricket team hats with us, and we did not want to appear disrespectful when we visited the synagogue. My mom doesn't have a computer, fortunately, and so my sisters can skip reading her this part; she'd be unhappy that we didn't protect ourselves better....Bev [Pat's mother], if you're reading this, please don't worry. Both of us took two extra-strength aspirin upon our return to the hotel, went for a swim and felt fully refreshed.
A Pair of Perspiring Pilgrims
We got off at the bottom of the island and walked nearly its length, which took about 30 minutes -- past innumerable handicraft storefronts and spice-stalls, goat-gangs and perfumers. So many smells and unrelenting heat. Since my prior time in India, in 2005, I've said that I've smelled the world's best and worst smells in India -- mostly the best. My nose is never bored here.
When we got closer to the synagogue, the number of antique and handicraft shops multiplied and men kept calling to us, "Come into my store. Just see for a minute....Good afternoon! How are you? I've been waiting for you! Come see. Only a minute!"
I found myself looking at the ground more than I wanted to, as I wanted to avoid eye contact with any of them. We just kept repeating, "No thank you," and walking past. None were happy with our disinterest.
Once, looking up for just a minute, I saw a pretty woman in the doorway of a store and her expression invited me to come in. She said nothing bold, like the men, and I was as close to looking in her shop as I came during the entire barrage, but we just kept forging ahead. I had to remember that just because her appeal to me was more appealing than theirs, it was no more sincere necessarily; it was a safe bet that her friendliness -- and theirs -- was based, above all, on encouraging commerce.
How do religious pilgrims feel when they're approaching their holy site? Do shopkeepers bother people when they walk the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem? If I remember correctly, they don't. My cousin Nitzah (Blossom) took me on a walk on that path when I lived there, and I recall that there were many stalls with rugs and leather belts and bags and clay drums and candy, but I do not recall having felt harassed to buy anything.
We reached the doorway by 11:30: "Nah l'hagiyah b'libush tznuah," read a sign in Hebrew, which was translated: "Please dress modestly," and then it defined "modestly," saying that anyone in "short trousers" or short skirts, or who was "sleeveless" would not be permitted to enter the synagogue.
Pat and I were wearing long pants and long-sleeved blouses by design, and still were forbidden to enter the synagogue. Next to the modest-dress sign hung another that read, "Synagogue closed today for the Jewish holiday."
I heard voices upstairs in the synagogue and called upward, "It's not yet Rosh Hashanah! The Jewish holiday doesn't begin till sundown. We flew all the way from Bangalore. Please let us in, just for a quick look!"
"We are cleaning. The synagogue is closed," they called down.
We knew it was a hazard to come on the morning of Rosh Hashanah Eve, but took a chance -- a nutty one, it turned out. We stood on the street outside the non-descript, white building, which Pat noted, oddly included a bell-tower, and felt ashamed at our inability to witness the only synagogue in South India, at our bad luck at being unable to have any Jewish connection on the morning prior to one of our holiest days of the year.
A clean-cut guy appeared and listened to our disappointment for a bit. He told us that he was Catholic and that he was sorry we were unable to go into the synagogue.
Pat looked at me with an expression of hope and an idea born of desperation and said, "Sarah, hold up 500 rupees and tell them, 'The first one to open the door gets 500 rupees.'"
I did, assuring them, "We just want to come in for two minutes," and there was rustling...and then silence. The Catholic man yelled up something in Hindi and a moment later, the door opened.
Finally, An Open Door
A Hindu man showed us around and we saw that indeed, they really were cleaning. It was the oddest sanctuary I'd ever seen: glass chandeliers of random shapes and sizes, and some with colored glass, hanging just over our heads, all over the room, which our guide said all came from Belgium; blue and white porcelain tiles, which he told us each were unique and imported from China -- they had scenes on them, but I was too unnerved to notice specifics; the ark had an inscription over it that read in Hebrew: "Keter Torah," (Torah crown); to the left of the ark, painted in blue, on white, in Hebrew was the central prayer of Judaism, the "Shema..." (Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One").
As we stared at the wooden ark -- built into the wall, which was not strange, but more typical, he said, "This synagogue was built in 1568," and, "This is the oldest synagogue in the British Commonwealth." And then, since he was not Jewish and so un-observant of Jewish rituals, he swung open the doors of the ark, which is not done typically, unless and until it is time to remove a Torah in order to chant from it.
Five Torah scrolls, each encased in a big, round, silver cylinder, which my mother tells me is the Sephardic style of Torah cover, appeared inside the ark. Again, since he was not Jewish, he opened one of them and said, "Touch it if you like. You can kiss it."
It's true that there's a procession, where people carry a Torah(s/ot) around the synagogue during the Torah-reading service, at which point congregants are free to kiss the Torah, either by touching a fringe of their prayer shawl to it, or by touching a corner of their prayer-book to it, and then kissing the fringe or book. It's never OK to touch it with our bare hands...and yet, when he invited me to do so, I put the first two fingers of my right hand against the parchment, near the Hebrew text and kissed my fingers afterwards.
"Pat, do you want to? Go ahead," I suggested.
"No, let me just touch your fingers," she said, not wishing to compound the transgression, and she did, and then kissed her own fingers. Afterwards, she told me she was highly surprised that I went ahead and touched it. "He didn't know better, but you...."
"I couldn't resist." And then we talked about how if it had been during a genuine service, Pat and I likely would never have gotten to walk on the main floor of the sanctuary, since during services, women must sit upstairs, apart from the men.
Just as we were about to leave, one of the cleaners came down from upstairs, holding two giant, jewel-bedecked, bright, bright gold Torah crowns that he had just polished apparently. The guide said, "They were a gift of the Maharajah...."
The synagogue we belong to, as well as the one where I grew up had Torah crowns, too, but they were pale, sterling silver -- nothing as grand as what we witnessed in the Kochi synagogue.
Just then, as we were remarking on the amazing preciousness of the crowns, the Hindu man said, "Chag samayach" / "Happy holiday," and Pat and I nearly cried with gratitude. We loved that he knew the expression that Jews use with each other on every holiday, and that we got to hear it and say it very near to ours.
The whole tour really did require not much more than two minutes, and Pat and I left there ecstatic. I was struck by how meaningful the two minutes in the synagogue felt to me compared with the 20 or more minutes we spent in the Ganesh and Bull temples last weekend.
I had no frame of reference for the Hindu houses of worship and a deep one for the synagogue. When we left, the guide said, "Shalom," (Hebrew for "Peace," and a greeting of either hello or goodbye). We loved him then.
When we exited the synagogue, I looked for the Catholic man who had helped us and didn't see him at first. Then he appeared and I wanted to give him some money for his help. "Oh, no, please. Instead, come see my shop," he said. It was huge and filled with large, unportable antiques, including Christian Madonna figures.
Pat asked, "Do you sell rosaries? A woman was very kind to my mother when she was in the hospital recently and when my mother wanted to give her a gift, the woman asked that her daughter bring her a rosary from India."
He didn't and advised us that next to churches, we could likely find small shops that would sell rosaries. I told him, "Thank you so much for helping us have a meaningful holiday."
At the post office, a wheat-toast-complexioned, white-haired man with a white, knitted kippah/skull-cap with red and blue Stars of David bordering it hurried past me to post a letter, and I felt emboldened by the synagogue visit and said, "Chag samayach."
"Chag samayach," he answered softly as he nearly ran past me.
Next to the synagogue was the Incy Bella bookshop, where I found a book on Jewish identity and India; a comparison of Hinduism and Judaism, which described how both are all about orthopraxy, rather than orthodoxy, which made sense to me; and two on the Jewish community of Kochi, of which I learned in the book there were just 20 members (as of 2005) -- one of our guidebooks had specified that only seven Jewish families remained in Jew Town, which is what the area is called.
How We Spent Erev Rosh Hashanah
Satisfied that we made the connection we hoped to make with South-Indian Jewish life, or mostly with South-Indian Jewish history at least, we took the ferry back to our hotel, where we ate a delicious lunch of our first Middle Eastern food in India; swam in the infinity pool; went on a sunset cruise around Fort Cochin; saw a demo of Kathakali dance; and ate grilled fish, Kerala style, outside by the sea, listening to Muslim prayers over loudspeakers that faced us from across the water, at the next island. The dance included an enactment of Baby Krishna, sucking the life out of an evil wet-nurse.
Typically, Pat and I would be at synagogue, singing the traditional "Avinu Malkeinu" in community, rather than watching a tale from the Mahabharata. In fact, that's likely what the rest of my family's doing right now, in their synagogues in Jamaica Estates, New York and Brooklyn.
Paradoxically, It's Not At All Paradoxical
Here's the paradox....I hope it doesn't seem paradoxical, actually, but rather understandable: I've never felt more Jewish, even as I've never been less observant ritually. I grew up, not being particularly encouraged to do cross-religious exploration and I've been doing more in India -- even with the little bit of temple visits and reading I've done -- than I've done since earning my World Religions badge in Girl Scouts at 12.
It's as though seeing others' religions only strengthens my affection for my own. What has impressed me is how people can be enthusiastic about religious traditions that I do not relate to at all, and I've become more directly appreciative that the world has any number of ways to get at similar truths.
God is everywhere, no matter how remote I am from the familiar; I see God's work and feel God's presence whenever I'm open to it. Right now, it's pretty late at night, after 11 pm (India time), and I can hear the rain beating outside, and the ceiling-fan whooshing over my head, and I'm alone in this room, and yet, I'm not at all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)