Beauty of Ramadan, the fasting month for 1 billion

July 8, 2012 by

Ramadan lights going up in the Muslim section of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Click the cover to learn more about this book.Ramadan Mubarak!
That’s the phrase to greet Muslim neighbors and colleagues. The word Mubarak (the same as the name of Egypt’s former president) means “Blessed,” so the greeting “Ramadan Mubarak” conveys the wish, “Have a Blessed Ramadan!”
Ramadan 2012 is different!
That’s largely due to the Olympic games coinciding for the first time with Ramadan. Because more than 1 billion people around the world are Muslim, that means many athletes traveling to London will have to adapt for the fasting month. Ramadan rarely plays a positive role in global headline news distributed in non-Muslim countries. This year, it will, thanks to the Olympics.
Today, ReadTheSpirit recommends that readers consider ordering a copy of “The Beauty of Ramadan,” by Najah Bazzy, a nationally known cross-cultural nurse and human-rights activist. Najah’s book is packed with fascinating information about the religious and also the health concerns surrounding Ramadan. Even if you are not a Muslim, this information is vital to educators, public-safety professionals, medical personnel and community leaders.

WHEN DOES RAMADAN BEGIN IN 2012?

Fast begins in daylight hours, Friday July 20 or Saturday July 21.
The actual beginning of the fast depends on many factors: Does one follow the lunar cycles with scientific instruments? Or does one start the fast only with eye-sight confirmation of the moon? What do leading imams in your region decide for the larger community? Is there an official schedule for your nation? News media reports across the Middle East and Asia are pointing toward July 21 for some regions, based on reporting by the Islamic Crescents’ Observation Project. (On the Project’s website, you can find elaborate astronomical charts.)

Across most of the U.S., the first fast is set for July 20: The Fiqh Council of North America is led by Muslim authorities across the U.S. from a wide range of ethnic groups and both the Sunni and Shi’a sects. The Council accepts calculation of the new crescent moon, marking Ramadan, by using scientific instruments. So, the Fiqh Council declares for the U.S.: “The first day of Ramadan is Friday, July 20, insha’Allah.” (That final phrase means, “God willing.”) Then, the fasting month ends with a huge celebration (the “Eid u-Fitr”), marked by a new lunar crescent that starts a new month. The Fiqh Council declares: “Eid ul-Fitr is Sunday, August 19, insha’Allah.”

MYTH: DURING RAMADAN, MUSLIMS EAT LESS

The world’s billion-plus Muslims certainly eat and drink less during daylight hours, but during the evenings—and, in some cultures and communities, all night long—Muslims enjoy a festive Thanksgiving-like relationship with their food and drink. This is a time of family gatherings; friends spend time together at mosques and in cafes; family matriarchs pull out all the stops in making favorite dishes.

How much extra food? The oldest English-language newspaper in the Middle East, the Egyptian Gazatte, reports that Egyptians are anxious about food prices as each Ramadan rolls around. A July 4 Gazette report explained to readers: “People eat 70 per cent more during Ramadan, according to a study conducted by the Chamber of Foodstuffs. Consumption of sugar and pastry increases even by 100 per cent, meat and poultry by 50 per cent and diary products by 60 per cent. The consumption of rice and wheat increases only by 25 per cent.”

Price gouging and price supports? In such a month, price gouging can be a problem and one UAE news publication reports: “Ministry of Economy’s office in the Emirates has intensified price checks to ensure that all outlets, including super markets, groceries, salons and maintenance service shops, are not increasing prices.” Recognizing the huge importance of Ramadan, the government of Pakistan actually provides national subsidies to needy families through thousands of regional food stores. The program provides bundles of typical foods families need to provide night-time meals, bought in mass quantities by the government, bundled into “Ramadan Packs,” then sold at a deep discount to low-income families.

RAMADAN AND THE OLYMPICS: POSITIVE NEWS FROM THE UK

The Muslim calendar is based on lunar cycles. So, observances like Ramadan “move forward” through the world’s standard calendar. In 2011, Ramadan was entirely in August. In 2012, the start of fasting moves into mid-July and that’s a crisis for Muslim athletes competing in the 2012 Olympics.

In their Ramadan reporting, the Times of India and Reuters are citing a university study that, in a typical summer soccer match, an athlete loses 2 liters of body fluids. Fasting under such conditions seems impossible—but Islam traditionally exempts travelers from fasting as well as anyone for whom fasting poses a health risk. Olympic competitors might claim either exemption; and Muslim scholars are suggesting a range of other ideas from “making up” the fast later to donating funds for feeding hungry families.

Across the UK, non-Muslims are suddenly well aware of Ramadan in a positive way. Muslim athletes suddenly are talking about the depth of their faith—and their commitment to peacemaking and helping the poor during Ramadan. And there’s more! Muslim organizations in areas around the Olympic venues are welcoming both Muslim and non-Muslim visitors for Iftars (breaking-the-fast dinners after the sun sets). The UK grocery giant Tesco has set up a Ramadan portal within its website, already declaring: “Ramadan Mubarak.” Among the featured Tesco items are dates, traditionally the first bite each night as the fast is broken.

Also: Read the News Release on Ramadan posted within the official 2012 London Olympics website.

And: There is more about the Olympics debate in Stephanie Fenton’s Holiday column on Ramadan.

RAMADAN: A GREAT TIME FOR VISITING

Red-Carpet Hospitality in the UK: Given the global focus on London during Ramadan, various UK nonprofits and religious groups have established Iftar 2012, a program to organize and publicize a wide array of welcoming events. The information is centered on the Iftar 2012 website, a colorful collection of newsy posts and information.

Iftar 2012 describes its mission this way: “The British Muslim community invites you and your Olympic team to celebrate a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join them in a Ramadan fast-breaking meal during the London 2012 Olympic Games. Never before has the Olympics in the modern era coincided with the Islamic calendar month of Ramadan. Iftar 2012 is hoping to deliver the Ramadan experience with the help and support of Mosques, Islamic centers, community groups during the 2012 Olympics.” In many places on the website, the organization emphasizes that this is open to “Muslims and non-Muslims, people of all colors and races, people of faith and no faith.”

Hospitality across the United States: While Iftar 2012 in the UK already had generated a lot of news coverage, the same hospitality is shown by Muslim communities across the U.S. Generally, non-Muslims are welcome to visit mosques on most nights of Ramadan. It’s best to visit with a Muslim friend or to call ahead to ensure that someone from the mosque will orient you to the evening’s program. Most American Muslim centers do not provide nightly Iftar meals; that’s not typically a part of the evening gatherings for prayer and inspirational talks. However, most American Muslim communities do host occasional Iftars for friends and visitors. Call a local mosque or Muslim center and ask about local plans in your part of the U.S.

SERMON WELCOMING RAMADAN BY PROPHET MUHAMMAD (PBUH)

The Prophet’s sermon on Ramadan is one of the world’s most famous Muslim texts. Countless versions rendered in English are floating around the Internet, some of them more difficult to understand than others. For her book, The Beauty of Ramdan, Najah Bazzy consulted Muslim scholars and, then, gives readers this formal and yet accurate paraphrase in English. Note on parenthetical terms: The letters PBUH are a way for Muslim writers to show respect for the Prophets in their religious tradition, including Moses and Jesus. They stand for “Peace Be Upon Him.” In most English translations of Muslim texts in Arabic, parentheses are used to indicate words that go further than translation to add clarity to the otherwise unwritten context of a line.

Muslims enjoy the Quran inside the huge mosque in central Jakarta, Indonesia. Another popular form of worship is to recite the various Arabic “names” or attributions of God, often using a string of beads that sometimes are described, in English, as a rosary.O People! The month of God (Ramadan) has approached you with His mercy and blessings. This is the month that is the best of all months in the estimation of God. Its days are the best among the days; its nights are the best among the nights. Its hours are the best among the hours.

This is a month in which He has invited you. You have been, in this month, selected as the recipients of the honors of God, the Merciful. In this holy month, when you breathe, it has the heavenly reward of the praise of God on rosary beads (tasbeeh), and your sleep has the reward of worship.

Your good deeds are accepted in this month. So are your invocations. Therefore, you must invoke your Lord, in right earnest, with hearts that are free from sins and evils, that God may bless you. Observe fast, in this month, and recite the Holy Quran.

Verily! The person who may not receive the mercy and benevolence of God in this month must be very unfortunate having an end as bad (in the Hereafter). While fasting, remember the hunger and thirst of tomorrow in eternity. Give alms to the poor and the needy. Pay respect to your elders.

Have pity on those younger than you and be kind towards your relatives and kinsmen. Guard your tongues against unworthy words, and your eyes from such scenes that are not worth seeing (forbidden) and your ears from such sounds that should not be heard by you.

Be kind to orphans so that if your children become orphans they also may be treated with kindness. Do invoke God that He may forgive your sins. do raise your hands at the time of Salat (Prayers), as it is the best time for asking His mercy. When we invoke at such times, we are answered by Him; when we call Him, He responds; and when we ask for anything, it is accepted by Him.

O People! You have made your conscience the slave of your desires; make it free by invoking Him for repentance and forgiveness. Your back is breaking under the heavy load of your sins, so prostrate before Him for long inervals and lighten your load.

Do understand fully well that God has promised in the name of His Majesty and Honor that He wil lnot take to task such people who fast and offer prayers in this month and perform prostration, and will guard their bodies against the punishment on the Day of Judgment.

O People! If anybody amongst you arranges for the Iftar (food for the ending of the fast) of any believer, then God will give you a reward as if you have set free a slave. He will forgive your minor sins.

Then the companions of Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said: “But everybody amongst us does not have the means to do so?”

Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) told them: Keep yourself away form God’s wrath, by inviting for Iftar, though it may consist of only half a date or simply with water if you have nothing else. O People! Anybody who may cultivate good manners in this month wil walk over the bridge to the next life with ease, though his feet may be shaking.

Anybody who in this month may take light work from his servants (male or female), God will make easy his accounting on the Day of Judgment.

Anybody who covers the faults of other sin this month, God will cover his faults in this life and in eternity. Anybody who respects and treats an orphan with kindness in this month, God shall look at him with dignity in the Hereafter. Anybody who treats well his kinsmen, in this month, God will bestow His mercy on him, while anybody who mistreats his kinsmen in this month, God will keep him away from His mercy.

Whoever offers a recommended prayer in this month, God will give him freedom from Hell. Whosoever offers one obligatory prayer in this month, for him the Angels will write the rewards of 70 such prayers, which were offered by him in any other month.

Whosoever recites repeatedly Peace and blessings upon me, God will keep the scales of his good deeds heavy, (promising heaven).

READ MORE ABOUT MUSLIM LIFE AND RAMADAN

More about Ramadan in our Holidays column. Writer Stephanie Fenton follows Holidays and Festivals around the world. Her column already has additional details about the start of Ramadan. You may also want to bookmark the URL to her column https://readthespirit.com/religious-holidays-festivals/ so that you can follow upcoming stories about individual holidays that are marked within the month of Ramadan—whch will be published as Stephanie files those stories.

Read an interview with Dr. John Esposito, widely regarded as a top English-language scholar on Islam. ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm conducted this interview with Esposito a couple of years ago, but most of the scholar’s conclusions are relevant to this day.

Athlete’s point of view: Female Tae Kwan Do instructor Fidaa Bazzi talks about the difficult challenge of following the Ramadan fast as an athlete and college student in the U.S.

Mom’s point of view: Cooking during Ramadan is quite an effort, explains Zahia Hassen.

Hearing the Quran recited during Ramadan is one of the most beautiful and memorable experiences for Muslims around the world. Radwan Almadrahi talks about this experience.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ‘THE BEAUTY OF RAMADAN,’ a complete book about this season by cross-cultural nurse Najah Bazzy. This book not only explains the month of fasting in detail, but also contains information that is helpful to educators, health care professionals and community leaders.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
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Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Tanya Luhrmann interview: ‘When God Talks Back’

June 23, 2012 by

Since our initial coverage of Tanya Luhrmann’s “When God Talks Back,” many readers have emailed our offices to express fascination with this new book. She tackles “a subject that most other people would never touch,” according to the New Yorker. After years of research, she explains how millions of evangelical and Pentecostal Christians report such vivid interactions with God. Luhrmann is the Watkins University Professor in the Anthropology Department at Stanford University.
Today, she talks with ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm in …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH TANYA LUHRMANN
ON ‘WHEN GOD TALKS BACK’

DAVID: Let’s start with a crucial question behind this book: Why are we seeing such a strong Pentecostal movement today? In your first chapter, you touch on the 1906 Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles that is widely regarded as the birth of this revival—just a century ago. So, the first question: Why did this catch fire with Americans? From a single revival in LA, we’ve now got millions worshiping and praying in these very expressive forms. Why?

TANYA: You can find expressions like this going all the way back to ancient times and you can find them in religions around the world—in Tibetan Buddhism and so on. But, I think the reason this has exploded for so many Americans in recent years is the rise of doubt.

Doubt in Christianity is as old as the Gospels; Jesus constantly confronts doubt. People ask: Who is this man? People say: We don’t believe he is who he says he is. Doubt is a running theme throughout the Gospels and has been a part of Christianity since its founding. But, today, doubt is everywhere we turn in our culture—and is an even more powerful question than in the past. Now, it’s clear to all of us that there are a lot of sensible people who don’t believe in God at all. Many people wonder if what they are hearing from the pulpit really applies to them. In the Vineyard churches I write about, people find a relationship with God where they really feel God’s presence in a way that is a part of their daily lives.

With the kind of training they experience, they’re getting sensory evidence that God is real. God is speaking to them as individuals. The emphasis is both on God’s reality and God’s mystery—rather than a single line in the sand between “I believe” and “I don’t believe.” People now have ways to manage their faith and to hang onto that faith in the face of the skepticism they know is out there, today.

DAVID: Your book is not a history lesson, but I was surprised that in your overview section you didn’t touch on Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, scholars of religion in America regard the founding of AA as a major milestone in our distinctive American forms of faith. Your book is about intense, daily experiences of God. One group where people cultivate those experiences is AA—and other 12-Step programs, right?

TANYA: In modern religion, the big demand on the human mind is to persuade the person that God is real—and that God is good. You have to persuade yourself to envision God as somehow external to yourself and somehow a good thing in your life. Some people have more of a capacity for this than others, but I am saying in this book that most people can train themselves to increase their capacity to do this.

Alcoholics Anonymous is one example of how a person can conceive a Higher Power and train the mind that this Higher Power is good—and is in charge. That process doesn’t work for everyone, as we all know, but it has worked for many people over the years. Many people so effectively train themselves in the AA process—are able to persuade themselves of this Higher Power in their daily lives—that they are able to sever their dependence on addiction. This kind of religious perspective can be more powerful than a therapeutic perspective for a lot of people.

IGNATIUS, MERTON, KEATING AND SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES

Click the cover to visit this book’s Amazon page.DAVID: In the middle of your book, Chapter 6 “Lord Teach Us to Pray,” you explain that Vineyard churches and modern Pentecostals didn’t invent spiritual disciplines. You write about the influence of Thomas Merton, and also Thomas Keating and the other monks behind the revival of the “centering prayer” movement. You reach back centuries to briefly describe St. Ignatius’ spiritual exercises. So, how are “spiritual disciplines” different from the “training” that you see taking place in the congregations you studied?

TANYA: People who use that phrase—“spiritual disciplines”—are typically referring to sitting down and doing a set of exercises. I’m writing more about the experiences people have in ordinary conversation with God. Certainly, the cognitive skill and emotional practice in those daily conversations with God are the same as what people develop more intensely in formal spiritual disciplines. What’s happening in the Ignatian spiritual disciplines is also happening in an ordinary prayer conversation day after day. But, in answer to your question, I would say that in the Ignatian practice, you’re spending more time focusing on developing explicit spiritual skills. In all of these practices—from formal to just having daily conversations with God—you’re developing the same inner senses.

DAVID: OK, so we’re not talking about something that’s an entirely new spiritual process. Pentecostal churches aren’t the only places where people develop intense forms of prayer. There’s a very long Catholic tradition, for example. But, if I’m reading your book correctly, you’re arguing that there’s a significant difference in theology today. On page 106, you point out that the centuries-old emphasis on heaven and hell is fading—replaced by a very contemporary emphasis on feeling good, right now.

You write: “The future recedes in these churches. Your pain and suffering are now. Your joy and redemption—if you accept Jesus as your savior—are also now. A sermon is not meant to frighten you out of your misbehavior; it is meant to be like a door opening from a raw, chilly evening into a cozy room.”

TANYA: Yes, that’s right. People have told me: Vineyard is implicitly a salvation church and hellfire is preached there. And, on one level, that’s true. But mainly what I heard from the pulpit is that you should come to God because God will make you feel better now. Sin is the shadow that falls between you and God. If you just accept a God’s-eye view of yourself, you will feel happy or at least you’ll feel better. You’ll realize you don’t need whatever addiction you’re suffering from right now. This emphasis isn’t unique to Vineyard. I see this period in American Christianity as a buyer’s marketplace. Certainly the Vineyard is very aware of that. They try to draw people into the church by making God available to people—mainly God’s love right now rather than fear of God.

RICK WARREN AND PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE

DAVID: You say that these principles you’re talking about aren’t unique to Vineyard. In one section, you describe Rick Warren’s mega-best-seller The Purpose Driven Life. You write (on page 116): “Rick Warren never talks about failing the test for good. He never talks about damnation. He never suggests that God will punish you. … In fact, the book reads like a folksy, spiritualized manual for cognitive behavioral therapy, which trains clients to identify and to interrupt specific negative thoughts and to replace them with others.”

TANYA: This is a pretty effective psychotherapeutic system for people who are able to engage with these ideas in a healthy way. I go through the Purpose Driven Life and I see cognitive behavioral therapy in these pages.

Rick Warren wouldn’t use that term, but the process he is describing is to identify our fearful, negative thoughts about life—our anxieties about life. He’s inviting us to identify those thoughts and replace them with the way we would think of ourselves if we were God looking down at our lives with love. That’s a pretty effective psychotherapeutic system for people who are able to engage with these ideas in a healthy way. He wants us to experience a dialogue with a Person who is more loving, more warm and more kind-hearted than anyone who we know—and to model ourselves on that Person and to evoke that Person when we are in pain. That’s quite a powerful process.

TWO WAYS TO READ THIS BOOK

DAVID: What puzzles me is that 9 out of 10 Americans say they pray. A huge portion of Americans say that prayer is important in daily life. You cite those data in your book. But it is obvious that most Americans don’t experience the more vivid forms of prayer you describe. Why not, if most of us are praying regularly?

TANYA: That’s a really good question. I think people mean a lot of things when they say that they pray. For a lot of people, it may just be once a day—like a prayer at a meal or before bed. But, people in the Vineyard church are talking to God about many things in many different settings across the course of a day.

DAVID: My maternal grandmother used to say: “We need to pray when we don’t need it, so that—when we do need it—we don’t have to pray.” She was a devout church woman all her life, but I was puzzled for years about that advice. I would say it’s a message right out of your book. The frequent, daily process of prayer attunes us to a deeper awareness of God.

TANYA: Yes, that’s the process I’m talking about. I encountered people who might pray about getting a good haircut—or what shirt they should pick out to wear in the morning. Even though they do this, most people don’t take that too seriously. But people do that because they realize that when we pray regularly about the really little things in life, we are able to pray when it really counts.

You can read this book from two very different perspectives. Some people will read this book and say: It proves that God is imaginary and people are training themselves to lose touch with reality—it’s why our country is going down the drain. But there are other people who will read it and say: Yes, you’re right. We are training people to experience God and that is good. What we really need to do is train people even more effectively.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

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Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Tanya explains: How do they talk to God like that?

June 18, 2012 by

Click the book cover to visit its Amazon page.Here’s the first thing you need to know about Tanya Luhrmann’s new book, When God Talks Back, Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God: She is neither trying to prove the existence of God—nor to disprove God’s existence. She is a scientist trained in anthropology and psychology. She is interested in understanding how the most intensely active Christians shape their lives and their church culture to develop the deepest levels of interactive prayer. In a nutshell, she tells us: These Christians train their minds and senses to be attuned to signs and sounds of God’s presence. Then, they surround themselves with similarly attuned individuals.

Readers might guess that her book is an attempt to “explain away” what millions of evangelicals claim is the voice of God or other clear signs of God in their lives. In fact, she is not trying to belittle these experiences. Rather, she is trying to explain how some people spend years training themselves to sense these things—while most Americans don’t have such vivid experiences.

The New Yorker magazine assigned no less a reviewer than Joan Acocella, best known for her writing on dance and American literature, but also a noted author on psychological and spiritual themes. (Acocella has written about Joan of Arc, Mary Magdalene and Primo Levi among many other subjects.) Acocella’s in-depth essay for the New Yorker about Luhrmann’s book explains how Luhrmann’s life-long study of alternative spiritual cultures led her to years of research in two Vineyard churches near where she was teaching at the time. In the end, Acocella praises Luhrmann’s book: “She has addressed a subject that most other people would never touch. We should thank her.”

What is this Vineyard denomination where Luhrmann conducted her research?
The Vineyard movement is both evangelical and, more than that, it is open to what are often described as Pentecostal experiences: speaking in tongues, hearing God’s voice, spiritual healing and personal direction from prayer on a daily basis. The worship tends to be fairly intense—by mainline Christian standards, that is—and focuses on encouraging people to really feel God’s Holy Spirit moving among them. However, a good number of Vineyard men and women do not speak in tongues on a regular basis or experience the more vivid manifestations of God. Vineyard members are pretty much normal, well-adjusted men and women who might be working in the cubicle next to us. (Here’s the Vineyard Wikipedia entry if you care to learn more, although—like all Wiki entries—Vineyard adherents are likely to disagree with some details.)

These are the people you will meet in the pages of Luhrmann’s book—men and women struggling to make it through daily life, as we all do. Overall, Lurhmann tells their stories transparently and compassionately. How honest is this book? Readers will have to judge for themselves, but it rings true to us, as journalists here at ReadTheSpirit. From the Vineyard perspective, at least one prominent church leader is happy with the book. Nationally known Vineyard leader and author Ken Wilson appears on the book’s back cover, writing: “What if non-believers could understand how people come to experience God? What if believers could come to understand just how difficult the process of coming to experience God is for all of us, here at the end of modernity? ‘When God Talks Back’ is a chance for our divided nation to stop talking past each other about our national preoccupation: God.”

Bingo! Ken Wilson has cut to the chase. Right now, if a Pentecostal Christian finds herself sitting over coffee with a stranger who is, let’s say, an Episcopalian who prefers to attend worship at Christmas and Easter—the unspoken subtext of their conversation is likely to be unfortunate. The Episcopalian is likely to think: She heard God helping her pick out a pair of shoes!?! What a sadly deluded weirdo! Meanwhile, the Pentecostal is thinking: How sad! She calls herself a Christian, but she’s not a real Christian!

What Luhrmann gives us in these 325 pages (along with copious end notes) is a very compelling look at how these more-intensely active Christians train themselves to spot daily signs of God’s presence—and build a congregational culture to reinforce that awareness. These days, learning “spiritual disciplines” and taking “spiritual direction” and recovering “religious traditions” is all the rage. Luhrman is explaining to the less-intense majority of Americans about the disciplines, directions and traditions used by these the more-intense Christian minority.

She does this by telling us lots of fascinating stories about people she has met, along the way. Although her book is based on painstaking research and mountains of detailed notes (she actually stresses that her notes formed an overwhelming pile), Luhrmann is not drawing hard-and-fast conclusions. This is not an article in a scientific journal. Rather, she closes her book inviting more research into this process that involves millions upon millions of men and women. She invites us to keep discussing these issues.

In fact, she raises tantalyzing questions that are perfect for group discussion. Late in the book, for example, she speculates that the ever-growing power of multi-media devices in our lives means “we practice living in multiple realities” every day. Perhaps our entire culture is training us to more easily appreciate mind-bending experiences—perhaps even opening us more easily to mysticism. If that sounds crazy, just jump back and read our 2009 interview with Catholic Father Thomas Keating—the godfather of contemplative centering prayer for Christians—in which we talked with Keating about his decision to produce a multimedia set of training materials. When Keating does this, we praise it as a revival of traditional Christian wisdom. Luhrmann is simply arguing that Pentecostals aren’t weirdos—they’re simply training themselves to experience God’s presence in their own distinctive ways.

Borrowing from St. Paul’s famous 1st letter to the Corinthians, Luhrmann writes: “We see through a glass darkly. There is much we do not know, even now, about spiritual experience. … The goal of this book is simply to help readers understand the problem of presence more deeply, to understand why it is a problem—why it can be hard for Christians to know when God has spoken—and to explain how, in this day and age, people are nonetheless able to identify that presence to experience it as real.”

Now, read our interview with Dr. Tanya Luhrmann to learn more.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
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Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

ONE & Oprah converge! (We’ve got free movie extras)

June 3, 2012 by

Sit back! Grab a cup of coffee.
If you don’t have time now, then bookmark this page for a moment of pleasure and inspiration later in your day. (And please tell a friend? Perhaps click the Facebook button below?)

THE NEWS TODAY: Finally, ONE and Oprah are converging. Over the years, Oprah individually welcomed many of the religious sages who appear in this feature-length documentary film about the world’s diverse spiritual pathways. Now, Oprah has announced that she will broadcast ONE to the world on her OWN channel this year. Later this week, we welcome filmmaker Ward Powers to share the startling story of ONE’s creation and expansion as a message of peace.
Even before ReadTheSpirit was founded in 2007, Editor David Crumm was reporting nationally on this remarkable independent film production, which was created by first-time filmmakers and now has circled the globe in festivals and theaters.

TODAY’S FREE MOVIE EXTRAS: We’re giving you an All Access Pass, today, to dozens of inspiring extras from ONE that you won’t see on Oprah.
So, grab a cup of tea to sip. And, if you don’t have a moment now, then save this page for later!

ONE THE MOVIE TRAILER: GET THE BASIC IDEA

Let’s start with the basic Movie Trailer, so you’ll have an idea of this project’s origins and scope. Click on the video screen below to watch this short clip. (NOTE: If you don’t see a video screen in your version of this story, click here to reload the story in your browser.)

ONE THE MOVIE, AN EXTRA: SUFI MASTER LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE

On June 1, ReadTheSpirit featured our first in-depth interview with Sufi master Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, a major voice for peace and religious unity in the world. Llewellyn also appears in the ONE movie, but of course the original Powers interviews with him were far longer than the final length of ONE could hold. So, Ward Powers is releasing additional clips, this summer, including this one on the problem of suffering.

ONE THE MOVIE, AN EXTRA: CATHOLIC FATHER THOMAS KEATING

We also have featured Father Thomas Keating in the pages of ReadTheSpirit. Now, a world-famous spiritual figure for his innovative teaching on contemplative prayer, Keating is rare among spiritual sages for his depth of learning in science as well as religion. In this 4-minute clip about the natue of suffering in the world, Keating ranges widely from theology to contemporary science.

ONE THE MOVIE, AN EXTRA: FATHER RICHARD ROHR ON LOVE

We also have welcomed Father Richard Rohr to ReadTheSpirit, recommending his ongoing work on a variety of spiritual themes. Here, Rohr talks about the nature of “true love” and provides a definition that you may find very helpful to share with friends, yourself.

ONE THE MOVIE: DOZENS MORE EXTRAS

In preparation for the upcoming Oprah broadcast of ONE, Ward Powers has uploaded dozens of movie extras into a special new channel on YouTube. Use this link to the ONE Channel in YouTube to find links to a long list of these “extras” clips. The clips draw on spiritual wisdom far and wide, including Buddhist scholar and teacher Robert Thurman (yes, he’s Uma Thurman’s father), the Hindu-influenced writer Ram Dass, the Vietnamese-Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh—and many more.

You also can visit the ONE Project website, the home base for news about the movie, plus links to other showings, video clips and much more. There’s news on the ONE site, as well, about getting a copy of the movie for home viewing.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

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Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee talks about streams of prayer

May 31, 2012 by

In Part 1 of our coverage of Sufi mystic Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee’s new book, Prayer of the Heart in Christian and Sufi Mysticism, we provided an overview of this inspiring guide to prayer, plus an excerpt—and we compared that with a passage from Celtic-Christian writer John Philip Newell.
Today, we let Llewellyn speak for himself in our weekly author interview with ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm.

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH SUFI MYSTIC AND TEACHER
LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE

DAVID: If Americans recognize Sufism at all, they think of Rumi, Whirling Dervishes and Islam. But your branch of Sufism is distinctly different. Can you describe it in general terms?

LLEWELLYN: There are two schools of thought about Sufism. The traditional one you’re referring to is that Sufism is the mystical or esoteric school of Islam. Then, there is another school of thought that says Sufism is the ancient religion of the heart. That was the thinking of my own teacher. This belief sees Sufism flourishing under Islam, but also existing independently of Islam. In my view, Sufism is an expression of a living mystical tradition—the mysticism of love that appears in different times and different places. As long as there have been humans, we have had hearts—and this mysticism can arise within any heart that reaches God through love. In this way of thinking, we see streams of Sufism surfacing in many places. Some say that St. Francis of Assisi was influenced by a stream of Sufism.

DAVID: So, your branch of Sufism is distinctive. Now, tell us a bit about yourself. Let’s start with your unusual name.

LLEWELLYN: Llewellyn is a Welsh name. My family comes from the western part of England and also from Wales. I am 59. I was born in London in 1953. When I was born, there still was rationing in England. I grew up in a time of austerity. But I’ve lived in the United States for 20 years. I’m a permanent resident with a green card. I’ve thought of becoming an American citizen, but I feel too English to do that.

This particular stream of Sufism I represent had passed to a Hindu family in India. My own teacher, Irina Tweedie, went to India in the 1950s. Irina was born in Russia, educated in Europe and married an English officer after World War II. He died in 1954, which led to her spiritual quest. She joined the Theosophical Society in England. Then, in the late 1950s, she went to India and traveled there. She met her Sufi teacher, asked to take training. He asked her to keep a diary of her training and this became the spiritual classic: Daughter of Fire. She was the first Western woman to be trained in this Sufi lineage. Later, she returned to England and I eventually I became her successor. I am now the current lineage holder for this path.

DAVID: In describing your movement within Sufism, I tend to use the term “branch,”  but you use the term “stream” or “path” or “lineage.” Do you prefer particular terms for this process of handing off wisdom from the Indian Sufi teacher to Irina—and eventually from Irina to you?

LLEWELLYN: I prefer to describe this passing along of our wisdom as my “tradition” or my “lineage.” Through this particular lineage, we are part of the silent Sufis. That word “silent” distinguishes us from the Sufi lineages that use dance or music. For example, people are familiar with the Whirling Dervishes that stem from Rumi. But our particular lineage practices in silence. Our silent meditation of the heart is a silent remembrance of God.

DAVID: There wasn’t a single, “orthodox” Sufi movement. There were many movements, right?

LLEWELLYN: Yes, even in the era when Sufism was coming out of Islam, it was a movement of individual teachers or mystics who didn’t belong to any particular tradition. Small groups of disciples gathered around them. Out of those early Sufi gatherings, various Sufi lineages formed.

NAQSHBANDI LINEAGE: ‘IMPRESSED INTO THE HEART’

Click the cover to visit this book’s Amazon page.DAVID: I understand that your lineage stems, centuries ago, from what is called the Naqshbandi movement. In my own visits to Asia as a journalist, I did not encounter this particular lineage. But there is a lengthy Wikipedia entry about the 14th-century founder of this movement: Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari. We will share a link to that Wiki page, but I must caution readers: That kind of in-depth article can be almost overwhelming for American readers. What basic ideas should we understand about the Naqshbandi lineage—in broad strokes?

LLEWELLYN: The lineage focuses on the sense that one’s spiritual nature is bound into one, is impressed into the heart, the spiritual center of oneself. Most Sufi orders we see in the media do repetitions of the name of God in vocal forms. You can find audio recordings or film clips of these beautiful and very intoxicating rhythms. They do this as a group. But, in our particular path, we practice silently.

There are two paths I can describe in Sufism—one is a path of intoxication and the other is a path of sobriety. The path of intoxication involves Sufis gathering together and moving into a trance state through music or drumming or dancing or chanting. The Naqshbandi path is part of Sufism’s path of sobriety, because we don’t go into a trance state like others. This Naqshbandi path was one of the first paths to focus on psychological inner work. For example, we’ve always used dream work. Naqshband was renowned even his day as an interpreter of dreams.

When other Eastern spiritual movements crossed into the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, a lot of their early adoptees found themselves intoxicated with these spiritual disciplines. Some of these movements lacked a psychological component that could give them more balance.

FINDING A TEACHER; USING ‘SPIRITUAL DISCRIMINATION’

DAVID: Now you’re talking about one of the thorniest issues for Americans who want to explore Eastern religious traditions. Many of these traditions come through charismatic teachers who want to profoundly shape their followers’ lives. There are some wonderful accounts of these relationships—but there also are some serious complaints. What advice do you have about wisely selecting a teacher?

LLEWELLYN: I was fortunate. I was 19 when I met my teacher, who was not seeking power or money or sex. My teacher was an older woman and did not allow any of us to mess around or to get caught up in inappropriate projections on her as our teacher. She set the right kind of relationship.

I didn’t experience any other spiritual paths until I was in my late 30s and came to teach in America. Over here, it is sad to see that some Americans put too much trust in teachers who either turned out to be impure or who came over here out of pure motives, then wound up corrupted by money, power and sex. That was the reality for a lot of people and left a legacy of broken promises.

The biggest problem is the enormous amount of projection followers place on their spiritual teachers, something that was not fully understood in many cases and led to confusion and problems and, in some cases, to dangerous forms of guru worship. I’ve written about what it means to be a good teacher. And, I’ve had the experience of both being the student of a good teacher—and now being a teacher myself. So, I understand how difficult this is. It’s difficult to understand how a relationship that involves so much love can also be a completely impersonal teaching relationship. But, I have experienced that in my life.

Mainly, if people are looking for a teacher, they need to practice a lot of spiritual discrimination in choosing a teacher. You may think that you don’t need a teacher—and there is a lot of spiritual work you can do as an individual. But, there comes a time in these spiritual traditions when you do need a teacher to go further. For myself, I was 17 when I was practicing hatha yoga and I began to feel an awakening of powerful energies. When I began to experience these deeper spiritual energies, I needed someone who understood what was happening and could guide me. In these situations, you need to talk with someone who can say, “Yes, what you’re experiencing is expected at this stage.” They can guide you. They might say, “Perhaps, now, you should meditate less.” Or they can say, “Here’s a new spiritual practice you might try.”

THE SUFI DEBT TO THE POET RUMI

DAVID: I don’t want to leave the impression that most teachers are corrupt. Many do selfless, noble work. In fact, millions of Americans still enjoy poetry by the master teacher Rumi—and, after all these centuries, Rumi remains as inspiring as ever. How do you describe Rumi in relationship to your lineage?

LLEWELLYN: What is most important in the work of Rumi is that he brings this note of divine love into Western consciousness. Today, there are well-known Christian mystics and Western mystics, but for centuries mysticism was banished in most Christian and Western circles. This led to an enormous, unmet need in Western consciousness to reclaim this note of mystical love—the realization that love is more than something we find in a Hollywood romance. Rumi embraces all of creation in his passion for the divine. He has become the greatest poet of mystical love today.

DAVID: If I understand your message correctly, you are saying that the truth—the reconnection with divine love—does not depend on any single religious pathway. A central theme of your new book is that this divine love can be found through a number of different religious traditions that converge in deep forms of prayer. Am I saying that correctly?

LLEWELLYN: Yes, I look at the deeper mystical practices that make all real mystics—whatever their religious path—into a brotherhood and sisterhood in which there are no divisions. There’s a lovely saying from Rumi: “God does not look at your outer forms, but at the love within your love.”

Care to read Part 1 of our coverage?
In Part 1, we provide an overview and an excerpt from Llewellyn’s new guide to prayer—and we compared that with a passage from Celtic-Christian writer John Philip Newell.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee: A Sufi master invites us to pray

May 28, 2012 by

CLICK THE COVER to visit the book’s Amazon page.This week, ReadTheSpirit welcomes Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, a British-American Sufi mystic and teacher who is known to many Americans through his books, lectures and appearances in documentaries about interfaith unity. For most Americans, understanding Vaughan-Lee’s work is challenging. After all, the majority of us call ourselves Christian­—between 7 and 8 out of 10 Americans according to Gallup. Yet, more than half of Americans can’t name the four Gospels when pollsters ask. In America, George Gallup famously said, religion is “miles wide and inches deep.”

So, this week, we are introducing Vaughan-Lee to our readers in the U.S. and around the world—and we are drawing connections between his teaching and those of other religious voices we have featured in our pages. Come back later this week for our interview with Vaughan-Lee about his efforts to promote peace between the world’s religious traditions.

We asked readers what they know about Sufis, and many responded: “Wasn’t Rumi a Sufi?”
The answer is: Yes, and we have published stories about that famous poet, like this one featuring Rumi translator Coleman Barks.

Others asked: “Are Sufis the people who dance and whirl?” The answer: Yes, some Sufi traditions encourage dance and ecstatic whirling. But, Vaughan-Lee represents a “silent” branch of Sufism that practices quiet contemplative prayer perhaps closer to Catholic Father Thomas Keating than to Whirling Dervishes .

Today, we are recommending Vaughan-Lee’s new book, Prayer of the Heart in Christian and Sufi Mysticism. In less than 80 pages, he packs a concise and sturdy guide to global approaches to prayer that welcome everyone to pray—whatever your religious tradition may be. His teachings remind us of the work of Keating and Celtic Christian mystic John Philip Newell as well.

LLEWELLYN VAUGHN-LEE’S QUEST TO HEAL THE EARTH

A good example of Vaughan-Lee’s convergence with Newell is the chapter called Prayer for the Earth.
A brief excerpt from Vaughan-Lee …

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.In whatever way we are drawn to pray, there is a vital need to include the earth in our prayers. We are living in a time of ecological devastation, the catastrophic effect of our materialistic culture on the ecosystem. Our rivers are toxic, the rainforests slashed and burned, vast tracts of land made a wasteland due to our insatiable desires for oil, gas and minerals. We have raped and pillaged and polluted the earth, pushing it into the dangerous state of imbalance we call climate change. Creation itself is now calling to us, sending us signs of its imbalance, and the soul of the world, the anima mundi, which the ancients understood as the spiritual presence of the earth is crying out. … Those whose hearts are open may hear it too, the cry of the world soul, of the spiritual being of our mother the earth. …

We are the children and the inheritors of a culture that has banished God to heaven. Early Christianity persecuted and ultimately largely extinguished any earth-based spirituality, and the physical world became a place of darkness and sin. Then after the Age of Enlightenment, the prevailing world view that grew out of Newtonian physics framed the world as an inanimate mechanism we could easily master, indeed were meant to master; we simply needed to discover its laws to tame it to our own ends. As a legacy of that view we have developed a materialistic culture that treats the earth as a commodity that exists to serve our own selfish purpose. Our greed now walks with heavy boots across the world, with complete disregard for the sacred nature of creation. …

Our Western culture no longer knows how to relate to the world as a sacred being. Now the world needs our prayers more than we know. It needs us to acknowledge its sacred nature, to understand that it is not just something to use and dispose of. It needs us to help I to reconnect with its own sacred source, the life-giving waters of creation that can save it from destruction. It needs us to remember it to the Creator. We are needed now to reclaim our sacred duty as guardian, or vice-regent, of the natural world. …

There are many ways to pray for the earth. First it is essential to acknowledge that the earth is not “unfeeling matter” but a living being that has given us life. It can be helpful to ask ourselves: How would we like to be treated? Just as a physical object to e used and repeatedly abused? Then perhaps we can sense the earth’s suffering: the physical suffering we see in the dying species and polluted waters, the deeper suffering of our collective disregard for its sacred nature. Perhaps, if we open our hearts and souls to the being we call the world, we will be able to hear the cry of the anima mundi, of its soul. For centuries it was understood that the world was a living being with a soul, and that we were a part of this being, the light of our own soul a spark, a scintilla, of the light of the world soul. As a culture we have forgotten hat, but this understanding is foundation of the prayer that is needed now. Through it we make that connection conscious again; we help bring our light back to the world soul.

JOHN PHILIP NEWELL FROM CHRIST OF THE CELTS

What’s the connection with Celtic Christian writer John Philip Newell?
Read our earlier interview with Newell, or consider re-reading his book Christ of the Celts. Here are a few lines from Christ of the Celts that echo Vaughan-Lee’s writing, but approach the same theme from Newell’s Celtic-Christian perspective. From Christ of the Celts …

I heard within me what the ancients call “the music of the spheres.” The Celts were familiar with this music. In the Hebrides of Scotland, it was common practice well into the 19th century for men to take off their caps to greet the morning sun and for women to bend their knee in reverence to the moon at night. These were the lights of God. They moved in an ancient harmony that spoke to the relationship of all things. And they witnessed also to the eternal rhythm between masculine energies and feminine energies that commingle deep in the body of the universe. …

Not only is creation viewed as good, as coming out of the goodness of God, but it is viewed as well as theophany or a disclosing of the heart of God’s being. Eriugena, the 9th century Irish teacher, says that if goodness were extracted from the universe, all things would cease to exist. For goodness is not simply a feature of life; it is the very essence of life. Goodness gives rise to being just as evil leads to nonbeing or to a destruction and denial of life’s sacredness. The extent to which we become evil or false is the extent to which we no longer truly exist. Eriugena and the Celtic teachers invite us to look to the deepest energies of our bodies and souls and to the deepest patterns and rhythms of the earth as theophanies of the goodness of God. And they invite us to see Christ as the One who speaks again this forgotten goodness, the Word that comes to us from the Beginning. He is the memory of the first and deepest sound within creation. It is an invitation to listen for the sacred not away from life, but deep within all that has life.

Read More: Enjoy our interview with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
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Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

‘Pentecostal Passion,’ prayerful poetry from a peacemaker

May 20, 2012 by

“TO THE PENECOST” This 1902 painting by Sergei Korovin was produced under the rule of czarist Russia, yet the painting’s title echoed lines from Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin. Before his untimely death in a duel at age 37, Pushkin himself had trouble with czarist authorities for his biting commentary on the Russian ruling class. A major theme in Eugene Onegin is the selfish lack of compassion among Russian nobility for anyone who is suffering.For Pentecost 2012, we welcome back peacemaker, poet and pastor Ken Sehested, who was the founding director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America. Ken’s story and some of Ken’s writing are included in Daniel Buttry’s new Blessed Are the Peacemakers.
Ken currently is pastor of the Circle of Mercy congregation in Ashevile, North Carolina, with his wife Nancy Sehested and Joyce Holiday.

For Pentecost this year, Ken sent us one his poems that voice Psalm-like prayers. In this case, Ken echoes Ezekiel 34:1-14, Acts 2:17 and Romans 8:22. (Care to learn more about the centuries-old Christian observance? Read Stephanie Fenton’s holiday column on Pentecost.)
And, from the poet, here is …

Pentecostal Passion

By KEN SEHESTED

Pentecostal power has little to do with
exaggerated religious emotion. But
such power, when granted,
has everything to do
with passion, with conviction.
It’s not your mind that
you lose—it’s your heart,
which falls head-over-heels
in love with the vision of dry bones
re-sinewed and aspired to life.

When such power erupts, they
probably will call you crazy.
“Have you lost your mind?!”
Yes, we will say, because
these days the mind has
become acclimated to a culture
of war; has become inured to
the ravages of poverty in a culture
of obesity; has become numb
to ecological wreckage.

When Pentecostal power erupts, all
heaven’s gonna’ break loose.
The boundaries will be compromised;
barriers will be broken; and
borders will be breached.
Economies of privilege will be fractured
and the politics of enmity will be impeached.
The revenge of the Beloved is the
reversal of Babel’s bequest.

“I will pour out my Spirit,”
says the LORD: Poured out
not for escape to another
world beyond the sky but
here, amid the dust. Poured out
not on disembodied spirits but
“upon all flesh.” It is to the
agony of abandonment that Heaven
is aroused. Queer the One Who
fashions a future for the disfavored.

The groaning of creation is both
an ache and an assurance. We
dare not insulate ourselves from
the one, lest we be deafened to
the other. Birth is at work.
Though the labor is prolonged,
provision is tendered.
Pentecostal power is the wherewithal
by which we wager our lives on
the surety of this promise.

————————

Want more on Ken, social justice and peacemaking?

Find peace in your reading—and group discussions—this summer:
Consider learning about Daniel Buttry’s Blessed Are the Peacemakers. (The book includes more about Ken Sehested and his work.)

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post and other social-networking sites. You also can subscribe via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.