Photograph of the Week

 

Photographed is the Venerable Geshe Dakpa Topgyal during a candlelight vigil to commemorate 50 years of Tibetans’ plight for freedom and human rights. The ceremony took place at Colonial Lake in Downtown Charleston. A small gathering that was intimate and poignant. Lovely simple. Just words, prayers, dixie cup candle abodes, and silence, remembrance and love projected to the world.

International Women’s Day

 I believe this is the first year of organized events in Charleston to celebrate International Women’s Day, and I’m excited to say I get to be a part of it. This Sunday, at the Circular Congregational Church, there will be an afternoon filled with art, lectures, singing, and much more. All of which is by the efforts and creative minds of an eclectic group of women, whose lineages span the globe, and whose lives are enriched with experience and unique perspective. 

On display will be several images from my series The Elements: Earth. Six women covered in potting soil, personifying a complex element that in its own existence has mimicked that of women’s history or vice versa. The Womb to much of life, violated due to greed and lust for power, raped of its resources, yet survives and forever changes, never letting us forget its strength and plight. 

Two other photographers will also be displaying work: Stacy Pearsall, well known for her military photography, and Mikayla Mackaness, a photojournalist and light seeker whose images are pungently emotive and imbued with Life. The latter, is a great friend and teacher, who without which I may not have ever trekked down the photographic journey that began just over a year ago. 

A detail of the afternoon’s events can be found at the blog for Project Speak Up. The organizers are Leah Suarez and Alice Keeney, both talented artists and extraordinary activists of art, cultures, communities, and women. And as a last ’shout out,’ the events are also in coordination with the College of Charleston’s Women and Gender Studies Program (which happens to be what I minored in at CofC and is an awesome program!).  

I hope everyone can come enjoy the art, music, and great conversations. Oh, but no boys allowed…just kidding.

In the Land of Shiva: Part XIII

We rose with the sun in search of the holiest site in Sikhism. And I relished the plush green carpet beneath my feet, the Western showers, hot water pouring down, a four star hotel for the same price as a Motel 8 room in the States. It was luxury.

Not the same can be said for the taxi driver we reserved for the weekend. I discovered his bed was the backseat of the taxi, likely a quick face and ear wash with cold water in a bathroom nearby. He packed no change of clothes, np overnight bag for our two day journey, only his thinning button up shirt, pants, and a Punjabi music cassette that we’d listen to for over 5 hours that weekend. I thought it odd to memorize excerpts of a song in a language I didn’t speak, words whose meaning I failed to grasp. 

He left us in a parking lot. Melancholy buildings loomed around, Indian men’s eyes stared at these six Western women huddled together, whispering concerns, debating direction to step. The driver just waived for us to walk away, and hesitantly, we complied. But after five minutes, the same decrepit structures and eyes with different faces remained. It felt like post war Europe invaded with immigrants, and we panicked, racing back to the lot. Taxi and driver gone. Shit. Abandoned in Amritsar. 

We decided to retrace our steps thinking perhaps we didn’t go far enough. But nothing fit, nothing made sense. We were in search of a building of gold, but we were encompassed by forgotten structures, their facades faded and subdued. It would be like finding Eden within the bounds of a wasteland. 

After a ten minute walk and rounding a corner, we came to see this was indeed the case. Red and silver streamers glimmered in the morning light, a party at the edge of disaster. An immaculate structure encircled the Golden Temple, a threshold to be crossed, separating sacred from profane. 

Beneath a tent, we slipped off our shoes and handed them over in exchange for a chip. Within the tiled ground were basins of water. Slowly walking through, washing my feet of impurities so as not to taint holy ground. As I climbed the steps, a sliver of gold began to appear. At the top, all was revealed, a temple of gold that almost seemed to be floating on water. How the rising sun warmed its walls with light, causing it to radiate. 

At the sight of it, Haylee cried. Others wanted a moment of silent meditation. And I was in a state of horrific concern. Never would I share my thoughts at that precise moment with them, even with Jaye, nor with another when I returned home in the weeks to come. Before me was a building that invoked awe. That awoke the numinous and compelled people to to their knees, to prayer, to tears. But inside me, before that great temple, was a terrifying silence, a void of emotive fervor. So scared was I of this absent emotion that I almost broke down and wept. And the source of my tears would have been misinterpreted drastically.

The hallow state I felt then haunted me for so long after that day. I thought myself soul sick. How could a student of religions, so passionate about this discourse, feel nothing before one of the greatest temples in the world? And how could others that knew nothing of Sikhism, little of this temple, of its significance to Sikhs, could be struck so powerfully just at the sight of its walls? I evaded ruminating on this for months, fearing what I may unearth about myself in the process. I blamed it on the sickness waking from dormancy in my belly, the nausea and pepto chewables I ate like candy. Yes, it was illness, dehydration, a sick state of being that ruined my encounter with the Golden Temple. I knew this to be a lie, but I willed myself to believe it until the day I realized what had happened to me that day. A revelation that came almost an entire year later.

At the doors of the temple, sound changes. No longer can the ears distinguish between sounds. All there is is a series of voices, prayers, a chorus of bodies without a conductor to guide them. Men and women stand with eyes closed, hands pressed together all the while their mouths move. No room for air between brother and sister, feel the sweat of another, their breath upon your back. And the deeper inside the abyss of bodies, the sound rises, the mind hears nothing but hundreds of voices in indecipherable tongues and all that I can see is the center, the reason for bowed heads, and prostrations, tears and prayers. Roped off is three men and the sacred text, the eternal prophet of the Sikhs, the Guru Granth Sahib. 

Standing but several feet away, I am pushed, jostled, shoved away by pilgrims earnestly reaching towards the sacred heart of their being. Rupees are being tossed in, crumpled bills, meager coin change. Dozens on their knees, arms stretched towards men who hold folded orange fabric. These are blessed, to be worn by men upon their brow, but only if the right number of rupees fall to the ground. So many palms open, waiting to be filled. 

I am entranced. Paralyzed by so much before me. My eyes attempt to take it all in, I want to remember it all. And the voices make it difficult to focus. I see the intricate craftsmanship of its underbelly, vivid paints on all its walls, blues, oranges, whites, and the reflected light from its gold walls cascades inside. I cannot move, cannot dismiss these prostrating bodies, their prayers, the smell of their skin, the reading of scripture, too much in this place lives, too much to segregate in the mind. And then I feel my sickness rising, the heat of too many bodies causing my body to concede. Now I pray a silent prayer, “Don’t throw up in their sacred space. Do not throw up in their sacred space.” 

And I’m chanting this over and over in my head. Trying to inch my way towards the closest open space, a bit of air and perhaps I’ll be okay. And then I feel a quick slap across my head, then another. I turn to find an old woman, hair white and face pruned, berating me in Hindi. She slaps the side of my head again, and I jerk away from her, think her mad. But then she smacks her own head, and I realize my grave error. In the midst of my fixation and illness, my headscarf had slipped off, exposing my dark brown hair, a naked head before something so holy. I am horrified, and quickly adjust my scarf, tuck back my hair. All the while I’m apologizing in a language no one around me knows. Long ago was I separated from the others, now alone to face my gaffe. I’m inching away, giving a half bow, the only Hindi word I can think of is Namaste, no use in this context. But I think myself forgiven, for she laughed at me, then went back to her prayer. I managed not to vomit on sacred ground, but brandishing an uncovered head just may trump illness.

The experience and exertion of the morning had drained my energy. I was so tired that all I yearned for was the small cot and window air conditioning that awaited me back at the hotel. My belly and soul were soured, and I just wanted to retreat back to seclusion.

A year later, I once again confronted the void I felt at the sight of the temple. It was an issue I kept analyzing for months, wondering the extent of the illness in my soul. But one day, I realized why it had been such. In Religious Studies, it is said that one sees religion one of two ways: from the top down or from the bottom up. Those focused on the top are usually fixated with god(s), philosophy, abstractions, manifestations of the sacred, symbols, and so on. But those that start at the bottom likely never raise their head enough to even see the sky. The bottom is the people. The focus on the ritual, the internalizing of beliefs, the manifestation of religion in thoughts, speech, action, the union of spirituality and religion with a person, a community, a people.

Since the day I devoted myself to the study of religions, I have been a practitioner of from the bottom up. It is within the lives and stories of the people that I seek religion and spirituality, abstractions do little to entice and engage me, as is the same with gods and philosophy. I felt nothing at the sight of the temple, but was greatly overwhelmed within its walls, engulfed by hundreds of devotees. I sought to etch into my mind the images of praying, prostrating, puja, the smells, all I touched, the sensuality and spirituality that saturated that space.  It took so long for me to see, to realize, what truly invoked me, but the day that I finally understood this gave me insight I had lacked even into my own being.

In the Land of Shiva: Part XI

I adore a particular Hindu narrative about Shiva. Sitting in a Himalayan cave, Shiva sits in meditation. Playfully, his lover, his bride, Uma, comes up behind him and covers his eyes. In the brief seconds of innocent blindness, the earth quakes, darkness engulfs the world, chaos, destruction. But then Shiva’s third eye awakens, lifting its dormant lid, replenishing light upon the earth, restoring order. How the closed eyes of a god can bring a world to its knees…

Religion is beyond pervasive, it is intricately woven into Indian life. There is no separation. Each day is dedicated to a deity. Dime store posters hung on walls of every home I entered. Durga and her tiger. Shiva with his many arms, performing his dance of destruction. Saraswati playing her veena, perched on a blossoming lotus, swan by her feet. Ganesha, the elephant god, with his wondrous trunk. Hanuman, the monkey god, the one who helped Rama rescue his wife, Sita. Vishnue the preserver. Brahma, the creator. Kali, blackened skin, tongue sticking out, skulls and blood around her, she is death, she is powerful, she is the end. Each contain their own sacred narratives, their intoxicating myths of life, destruction, foolishness, forgiveness. Iconic images with layers of meaning, no item held in their palm is without purpose, no mudra pointless, it all is symbolic, equal importance.

In the mornings, I would watch the mother of the upstairs flat walk down the steps to the small shrine. It could easily go unnoticed to the ignorant eye. Merely bricks white washed piled in a fashion to make perhaps a miniature outdoor oven. But inside its belly three painted tiles held Ganesha, Shiva, and Durga. At their feet were crafted lingams and an array of sacred objects. She would light incense, pray, puja.

Even religion and business collide. On the ride to Amritsar, I saw a business called ‘Shiva Tires’ and it made me laugh so much. Because I knew what an odd thing it be to drive down a street in the U.S. and find a business called ‘Jesus Tires.’ How our cultures perceive and incorporate religion into life was at times drastically different.

Materialism is another unique facet of Hinduism. Icons, whether in poster or sculpture, were sold in the bazaar no differently than a mango. Buddhist prayer beads were strung up in stores just as often as I’d witness a monk thumbing his strand. But these icons do not take on sacred importance until the deity is believed to manifest within it. Before then, it is but a trinket. But once it is placed in a home, in a shrine, in one’s heart, and the owner asks to have the privilege of the god(dess) presence in the home, does the icon awaken. The act of puja itself is an offering, but this exchange between devotee and god is an intimate relationship, it is Darshan…to see. And it is this exchange of seeing and being seen, the presence of a god, caring for its momentary bodily home like if it were a loved one, to bathe it, offer it sweets and drink, items pleasing and entertaining, it is a relationship acknowledged, present, active every day in life. The god shares and is present for even the most mundane occurrences of the day, but has never abandoned or turned away from the devotee. This relationship is written in a language similar to the deity as one’s lover or as one’s child or mother.

In the hotel, the one with the lovely carpeted floors beneath my feet, had a large icon of Ganesha right in the lobby, carved beautifully. Taxi drivers taped tiny paper images to the car visors. Devotees walked with a red dot upon the brow after having performed puja at a temple. Orange turbans were blessed cloth from the Golden Temple. And even when not in materialistic form, there were the echoes of Tibetan monks chanting, a deep baritone sound that cascaded down the Himalayas. The soft prayers of the woman from above.

And never in my time there did a person attempt to persuade me to convert. No need. Spirituality was all around, saturating the world, that there was no way I could not be effected. Impossible for me not to know moments of great serenity, clarity, thoughtfulness. Moments of peace upon my heart and spirit. There was no need to persuade me because it is assumed I am somehow pursuing, maintaining, am active with god(dess). This is a rare find, a land of all the religions of the world resting on her bosom, and no tradition seeks to dominate its motherland. Yes, there have been struggles, bombings, violence at times between Hindus and Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus, but in general, the acceptance of other traditions isn’t merely tolerance in India, it is a purer form of acceptance.

To say it is okay for my Muslim neighbor to pray to Allah is one thing, but to hear the daily prayers from my window and not be bothered, perhaps find a spiritual beauty in the Arabic, the words lifting up to god, that is what isn’t seen in the U.S. And it is different in that land likely for the reason many things are done the way they are. Why have privacy, why hide, when so much of life’s occurrences are shared and common to all? It is not odd that one is performing puja, praying, meditating, but what would be odd and of great concern is the one who does none of these things, believes in none of these things. It is that which would raise eyebrows and cause concern.

The religion and spirituality of India is like nothing I have witnessed in my life. In no other land do I think I could bear witness to so many traditions all active in society and daily living and find that it is of such normalcy that Indians laugh at perplexed foreigners like I wondering how it can be such. And though I tried, or hoped, I could not be exempt from being effected by the spiritual and religious elements of Indian culture.

In the Land of Shiva: Part VIII

Symbols, signs, a construction of the mind to obtain meaning. Organizing the cosmos. No different with letters, words. I think of the film the Miracle Worker, black and white, little Helen Keller lost in her mind, enraged, confused. No meaning in this place, she must have thought, what to do but be idle, be frustrated with a world that I can’t comprehend. Until she found the answer in water, her teacher signing in her hand feverishly, understand little Helen, find the two as one, I have given you the symbols, the word, now know the world. And she did.

But I am no Miracle Worker. I had no knowledge of the difficulty of my own language. Its complex origins of Latin, Spanish, German, French…the list is long. We make rules only to break them. A prolific language that creates itself, procreates into the largest in the world. And I struggle to teach her ‘water,’ to teach her ‘wet.’ Hembei squints when she doesn’t understand, puts a finger to her lips, almost scared to tell me an answer whether wrong or right. I do not scold or show disappointment. Any of that I hold for my person alone in my failure to be what she needs.

A small composition book holds sketches of faces, the human body, colors, weather, English words pointing to eye, rain, blue. I give it to her for a reference, for future notes. She has no books at home to read daily, no English newspaper dropped at her step. Those aren’t things to be afforded, luxuries that aren’t needed. Everyday begins with a ten minute refresher. I ask about the weather, point to parts of my body, I ask how she is. This becomes familiar and she gets comfortable, I feel better when I know she is relaxed. And in the background is Kay, holding up a letter card, waiting for the other women to say “L” or “S” and identity a picture.

So frustrated was I, and other volunteers, to discover the resources at our disposal. How am I to teach an adult woman with Dr. Seuss books and elementary school ABC flip cards? Why does she need to know the word for hamburger when it isn’t something she will ever eat, will ever be relevant to her world? It is all too simple, too irrelevant to life, it is words for a Western world, not for a woman in Dharamsala. We were told not to bring materials because likely they wouldn’t be tools easily purchased in the town or India. However, once we all arrived, the story was a bit altered. They would have permitted us to bring resources if only we had been willing to leave them there. And so many of us shouted, “WHY SAY THIS NOW! IF WE ONLY HAD KNOWN!”

My flatmate, Haley, was teaching special ed children. A program developed in Dharamsala by CCS, and no other like it was provided in the mountain town. Haley talked of all the things she could have brought for them, to have, and the regret in her voice was in all of ours as well. We would have filled suitcases with teaching materials had we only known. But Haley pulled from her creativity, and always managed to find craft activities and lessons to engage her students. I was always so proud of her diligence, her patience, her unbound love for those children.  And she would visit their homes, meet their parents, feign drinking from the beverage glass they kindly offered. She knew them, their world, and it only seemed to make her appreciate all around us even more. I learned much from this California native.

I made copies of Seuss’ words, cutout articles from the news, scoured the net on one of two computers at CCS hoping to find free TEFL resources. Lesson planning was a haphazard affair. I wanted her tongue to get used to the words, moving her mouth differently. And my month in India would only manage about two and half weeks of actual teaching. I was in a panic. Feeling a great pressure, realizing I was only a minute piece of a long continuum, but who would be there for her when I was gone? I should have stayed longer. Two or three months if for no other reason than to teach her. Between travel to and from Delhi, monsoon rains, sickness, a wedding and a funeral, our short time was even more shortened. It doesn’t take much for a small town to shutdown. It doesn’t take much for a foreign belly to fall ill. And all I was hoping for was to give her the words, give her the motivation to want to learn more after my departure, even if that meant finding a way to do so on her own.

And it was the day I was trying to teach her ‘wet.’ Bella and Jaggi were sitting in, listening to Kay and my lessons. This was the first day after the blowout; they wanted to ensure we could coexist in one room for several hours a day. I kept pointing to a picture of water, and saying ‘It feels wet,’ running my hands against each other, then trying to replace it with other things to express ‘feel.’ But Hembei wasn’t understanding, I wasn’t explaining it very well, and she’d say, “It feels water.” It was a logical association, I was indeed pointing to a picture of water. Finally, I reached for my bottled water, poured some in my hand, and touched it, “Wet.” Then I asked for her hands, poured some in hers, said it again, made her touch it, “It feels wet.” And in her eyes I could see the ‘aha,’ the moment of comprehension, and she nodded, smiled, and says, ‘feels wet.’ Thank you, and I sighed in relief.

I often wish I had taken her to the bazaar, spoken English in her familiar places. She could have learned much more, at least, that is what I believe. Put her in the context of the meanings, and how quick she would have caught on. This faith I always had in her.  When I left, I gave her my English-Hindi dictionary, small but precise in its included words, and told her to just keep reading, to speak, and she would come to understand it.

But my difficulties seemed ridiculous in comparison to other teaching situations. My other flatmate, Jaye, was so tender in heart. It affected her dearly to see dozens of children everyday, pull from meager resources, watch them eat the same plate of chickpeas each lunch. And when summer came, classes over, the school buildings held something similar to summer camp. Except the water was cut off. It wasn’t something funded by the government, so no water for a few months. and the volunteers had to find ways to bring in water for arts and crafts, washing tiny hands. It wore on her. At her home in Florida, she had been a Montessori teacher, she had faced so many problems as a teacher, but none compared to the ones in India.

One day, I came home, and found Jaye washing her undergarments in the shower bucket, scrubbing her Victoria Secret underwear with a bar of soap, and she was crying. No matter the reason, I had felt them all as well, India is a vestibule to a myriad of emotions. She said she had come with no expectations to this place. And I said sometimes we don’t know our expectations until we’ve been disappointed. I told her she should send her laundry out to be cleaned like I was so she wouldn’t find herself crying over a bucket of wet, soapy, panties. She laughed, and in moments of great emotional intensity, just the ability to release it in one breath of laughter can be the greatest relief, the best method for remaining grounded, or coming up from a state of despair. And the paradox was becoming us. To cry and laugh in the same moment, no sense of a sound mind were we, and we were learning to find solace in the crux of the paradoxical.

And somewhere in the Himalayas, in his meditative snowcapped cave, Shiva too is laughing…and only now do I see, darshan has found my eyes.

In the Land of Shiva: Part II

The flat was humid. Central air a concept not yet embraced. I waited with Lalit in the corridor when Bella Singh and her nephew, Jeetu, arrived. Wearing pants and a sleeveless shirt, Bella forwent the traditional saris and kurtas. Her heavy glasses matched her intense gaze, and no one spoke as she sat in thought. She mumbled about me being early, and I responded that I sent my itinerary, it clearly said the day. But she brushed me off as if a fly had merely buzzed in her ear. Things would have to be switched around. Undoubtedly due to my fault.

The Delhi flat was spacious, placed in a middle class community gated off from the streets. It was a prized location of doctors, business people, and now foreigners. Sitting in the living room, I noticed the tele was broken. The carpet was a deep hue, similar to dried blood, and random toiletries littered the entertainment console. Remnants of volunteers past who discarded unnecessary items. Soaps, shampoos, tampons, clothes, it was all there like a poor man’s thrift store.

Once Bella determined I’d stay there, they all swiftly rose and left me to face a closed door. I’m not sure what came first, the mouse greeting me or me hearing the soft squeaking. I didn’t panic. Only roaches send me into fits of bad dancing and shoulder spasms. This was no ordinary rodent. Small with a furry coat of light brown and a pinstripe line going down its spine. It seemed the product of interspecies mating. A mouse and a squirrel in a Romeo & Juliet star crossed lovers tale. In the animal kingdom, I suppose the coupling wasn’t impossible, just odd. I thought him cute nonetheless and named him Tobias.

In the three bedrooms there slept volunteers at the end of their journey, preparing to go home or venture on in their travels. One was awake long enough to give me a brief rundown of where bananas, Nutella, and juice were, along with the fact that the flat’s water ran on a generator, which was only turned on for two hours in the morning and two in the evening, basically long enough for a shower and chai in the morning. And then for a shower and chai in the evening. Without the power meant no running water and no flushed toilets. I was told two of the girls were sick, and not to look too close into the toilet basin. Of course that’s like telling a child not to watch a bloody horror scene with human limbs being butchered. The site was repulsive, immediately enabling gag reflexes. Colored vomit, excrement, urine and blood make for a traumatic vision and smell. Had I thought it sanitary, I probably would have peed over the shower drain instead of risking a bottom first meeting with that toilet. By the time I finished brushing my teeth with the help of bottled water, I had convinced my bladder to wait until the morning, which it kindly obliged.

The next day, several of the young women sat at the dining room table eating bananas and toast dressed with Nutella (a delicious creation I had never tried until then). I noticed one girl had not shaved her legs in quite some time by the length of the hairs, but I tried not to stare. She was tied to India by genes alone, but wanted to visit. Leaving CCS early, she had decided to trek across India alone. What was concerning wasn’t a young woman traveling alone, but the fact that she was diabetic, carrying her insulin shots in a small case. I thought about the potential outcome of her stranded in a rural town with insufficient medical care and no insulin. Another seemed sickly. Tall and gangly like a baby giraffe, she was disenchanted, cynical, ready to leave India. Her diet had consisted of bananas and juice for several days since sickness settled into her bowels. Later that day, she would faint at the Delhi airport, be denied access to boarding her flight, and have to return for a rushed doctor visit in order to fly the following day. It surprised me what a two week stint had done to her.

I used this time to ask them questions. Find out the good and ugly of it all. This was no reality, no, nothing like the glossy brochure. I was sweating just sitting, breathing, and listening to their stories, their advice, their forewarnings. This batch of returners were unable to take a luxury bus back to Delhi, finding themselves piled into a small, non air conditioned van, for over half a day. Their moods were warranted. I was told to go to Amristar, see the temple, they said. Expect what you wouldn’t have. I was already well on my way down that adapted thought.

As these veterans began to leave, my fellow novice India travelers were coming in. I greeted each one with a smile and a quick rundown about the water situation and the flat mouse. If I could have photographed the facial reactions, the eyes growing large, the surprise and shock of what we had all gotten ourselves into, what a album I’d have! Not all of the volunteers came to that flat, but I enjoyed the ones who did. Likely my quickest bond formed with Jennie, a middle aged woman who reminded me of my feminist guru back in Charleston. She had a carefree laugh, a witty humor, and an air of a woman in the know. We sat in the living room and talked for several hours her first night. She came to India with her college bound daughter, Beth, who physically appeared to be Jennie’s opposite with long, taut straight hair and fair skin. Jennie was a professor of sociology (I believe), and it was a deep conversation on feminism, socio-political constructs, and the stories of our lives. I won’t delve too deep into our late night talk because for being strangers we freely revealed so much, including the roots of our pain and struggles. It is not my place to tell Jennie’s story, but I hold it close.

Another Beth was a Floridian gal who had decided to chop off most of hair before leaving and frequented vibrant colored bandannas to hold back what was left. She had managed to raise a good sum of money to fund her volunteer work, and was usually seen with a small camcorder. She wanted to document her placement and make a disc for those who helped her.

Shilpa’s heritage was in India. Her parents were rogue lovers, defying the traditions of arranged marriage to runaway together. Eventually both families accepted the union, and eventually came Shilpa. She was a confident pre-med student, intelligent, and sharp. At times, I thought her a bit pompous, but I realize that seems to be a trait of my generation.

Elsie was an amateur body builder pursuing a degree in economics. Practically half of her luggage was actually protein powder. Never have I witnessed a person of such diligent diet and exercise. Her body molded to the muscles beneath, and in her passion, she found the confidence she said she had always needed. If not body building, she always spoke in economical speak. Sputtering off theories, vocabulary, tangents that no one but her understood. It usually made me laugh because religious studies was my “economics.” I’d be halfway through breaking down a tradition or analyzing a Buddhist thangka in the Mcleodganj bazaar before realizing only I knew what I was talking about, and I likely was the only one who cared.

Before dinner one evening, we had all decided to nap. Because there are few options in the summer heat in Delhi, sleeping seemed best to wait out the peak hot hours. In the evening, Elsie shook me partially awake and said, “Dinner,” before walking out of our room. Startled, I had somehow forgotten myself, and stuck in that sleepy half conscious haze, I felt a quick wave of panic, not knowing where I was. And then the epiphany came quick, and I said aloud without realizing it, “Fuck. I’m still in India.”

Religious Ill-Literacy

The U.S. is simultaneously saturated with religion and ignorance of religion. A paradox that isn’t to be worn like a medal of honor. In a country where religion is an undercurrent in a myriad of political issues and even practitioners’ swing votes cause presidential nominees to gravitate to Evangelicals and their ideologies, it is inexcusable that knowledge of religions is absent or greatly distorted. Even Christians seem to lack information about the historical origins and development of their religion. In fact, many Christians I know hardly peruse the Bible that adorns their nightstand or coffee table. Typically, they site ‘faith’ as the foundation of their religion, and because of that, the history and study of Christianity is viewed as irrelevant. The past isn’t applicable to their present. What happened in 2 C.E. is insignificant in comparison to going through a divorce, having to raise a teenager, or figuring out how to manage all the household bills.

If Christians do little to delve into the history of their own tradition, then it isn’t surprising that their religious illiteracy is pervasive, but that just brings to light the graveness of the situation. There is no critical analysis of the nation’s leading religion. Why do Christian practitioners not notice Jesus’ inclusion of women as his followers but not questions the oppression women have had socially in their societies? Why are the edits of the Bible not discussed? Changing words, excluding passage, and including passages alter biblical texts and their interpretations drastically. Why is cultural context never a thought in passage analysis? How has Christianity changed over its years of existence? These are all pertinent questions, but ones that don’t seem to be of importance to contemporary Christians. Social issues and the interpretation from a pulpit standing leader seem to have drawn focus away from individual thought and action.

Post 9/11, there were reports of attacks on immigrants who were thought to be Muslim. In actuality, the victims were Sikh. In no way is malicious and violent action condoned, but that simple distinction in headdress alone is absent in religious knowledge in the U.S. I once had a relative ask me if the word ‘love’ is to be found anywhere in the Qur’an, and it was difficult to swallow my disgust. The term Islam translates into “submission” or “surrender” to God. It does not mean hijack planes and attack the U.S. The 5 Pillars of Islam do not include jihad (and even then, the interpretation of jihad extends beyond mainstream views). The foundation of Islam is based on these pillars: profession of faith, ritual prayer, tithing, fasting particularly during Ramadan, and a pilgrimage to Mecca. No where is violent means mentioned at the heart of this tradition. People fail to realize that interpretations on the fringe are what gain most media exposure and command attention. I am always inclined to remember a phrase, “the silent majority.” The small group of Muslims who caused 9/11 should not be held as a blanket definition for their tradition. Just like there are numerous Christianities, there are numerous Islams. And when people associate violence and oppression with Islam, I ask that they turn to their own tradition and site the Inquisition, the witch trials, the Crusades, etc. How many lives were slaughtered? Christian deaths by Christian hands. Non-Christian deaths by Christian hands. For a succinct Christian history, I suggest the following: Christianity.

Considering ourselves the melting pot of the world, and being a primary force in international relations, it should be considered a responsibility for people to be knowledgeable of other traditions, especially their own! The separation of Church and State has awarded the religious freedom that the U.S. possesses, but it has not yet found a way to compensate for its absence in institutions that greatly influence citizens, particularly in the public school system. Here in the south, courses involving teaching the Bible as literature are being developed and introduced into public schools, but it’s being taught by teachers not educated with a Religious Studies background (preferably from an academic standpoint, not theological).

Religion can be included in academic environments without a theological agenda, but this has never been supplemented since extracting religious education from the public school system. The absence of religious education hasn’t replaced the multifaceted existence of religion in people’s lives and in societies. Obviously, the ignorance of such is resulting in grave consequences.

It can no longer be ignored that the world is a pluralistic place, and the responsibility entailed with living in a multicultural, multi-religious world should no longer be shirked by people.