The Crusades

Image from the movie Kingdom of Heaven

The strength and spread of Islam in what was previously the Christian world greatly angered the Church. Islam was seen as worse than heresy and was completely blasphemous as Islam rejected the divinity of Jesus Christ, although the Muslims accepted him as the word of God, as Messiah, and as a very important prophet of God. The conquering of lands and holy places caused Christians to become inflamed with a vengeful zeal. IN 1095 CE, Pope Urban II was especially zealous and called for the destruction of Islam, which had been equated with the evil in Revelations, with Mohammed starring as the antichrist (Global and Tradition). 

Pope Urban II had specific goals in mind regarding how Christian unity could be strengthened with a Holy War against Islam. He wanted to avenge the conquest of Christian lands and holy places, calling for an ongoing war against the Muslims, while at the same time promoting peace and unity within the Christian lands. Unity is often formed by a common enemy, and Pope Urban II and some prominent Christians before him, like John of Damascus, had done a lot of work to show Islam as Christianity’s enemy. Pope Urban II hoped that the common goal to defeat Islam would bring together Christians who were previously divided over differences in opinion of how to celebrate Christianity. One major unifying concept was to reclaim Jerusalem from Muslim control (Global). 

Other goals of the crusades developed over time to include the reclamation of holy relics, protection of Christians on their pilgrimage to holy places, such as Jerusalem. The crusades were originally termed a pilgrim’s war due to this goal. This pilgrim’s war called for the need of Christian Soldiers (the song “Onward Christian Soldiers” comes to mind), which eventually became a defining feature of Western Christianity (Global). A special order of Knights was created during the crusades, called the Knights Templar. They were considered to be the Holy Knights of Solomon’s Temple. They were specifically called to protect pilgrims during their pilgrimages (Global).

Medieval Christians were attracted to the call for Christian soldiers and to the Pilgrim’s War because it offered them a chance to redeem themselves. Even those with a tendency for violence could be fully forgiven for their sins by becoming a crusader (Global and Tradition). The crusades gave them a chance to fight. Previously, Christians were not allowed to fight in wars, as they might end up having to kill someone, which was against the Ten Commandments, “Thou shall not kill”. This ability to have justified warfare and justified death (killing) became a divider between Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism. Justified killing in the name of Christ was not akin to murder, and was not a sin anymore. Crusading Knights were even sanctified by the Church as servants of Christ (and therefore, God, in Christian theology).

The crusades were not only directed at Islam, but also at those things that the Western Christians found sinful about Eastern Orthodoxy, furthering the Christian divide. It gave Iconoclasts permission to destroy images of the Eastern veneration and crusaders permission to “retrieve” holy relics from the Eastern churches and “return” them to the Western churches. As such, a siege on Constantinople was conducted during the crusades.

Christianity evolved from being the persecuted religion to being the persecuting religion. In the intolerance for any other religion, the crusades also picked up a goal against the Jewish people and sought to punish them to avenge the death of Jesus Christ. From Jewish Perspective though, they were not only wrongly persecuted, but that the Pope of Rome was Satan himself (Tradition). The crusades actually ended up distracting Jewish intolerance of Islam to the new threat of Christian persecution and Jews were called to sward against Christians in this Holy War, just as Christians were called to the sword against all that was not Christian and was a threat to “pure” Christianity (Tradition).             
 I wrote this piece on 11/29/11 for my Christianity class 

Icontroversy

The icon is a defining element of Eastern Orthodox Christianity that, like much of Christian history, has a controversial past. Icon veneration became prominent, and subsequently controversial, in the eighth century CE (Global). The central theme in the midst of the controversy related to incarnation versus idolatry. Much controversy was perhaps initially an inter-religious argument, but also was a controversy within the Christian church – eventually dividing the Western Catholic Christians from the Eastern Orthodox (Global).  

The inter-religious controversy was between the iconophilistic (image-loving)Christians and Jews and Muslims, who both abhorred the veneration of images, feeling that it was akin to idolatry (Global). One prominent Christian wrote in Arabic, the language of the Muslims, to the iconophiles that they should not allow pressure from Jews or Muslims to prevent them from worshiping the images of their Christian veneration (Global).  John of Damascus, who lived in Muslim lands, wrote to the iconophiles in both that their veneration of the images of Christ, the Mother Mary, or any of the Saints, was an appropriate form of worship to those individuals (Global and Tradition).

Iconoclasm, the destruction of images, began in the eighth century CE when the Byzantine ruler, Leo III ordered that all the icons be destroyed and those that promoted or made icons should be punished or killed (Global and Tradition).  Emperor Leo III saw the icons as idols and the veneration of them as idolatry, which was against the Ten Commandments, therefore he sought to destroy them same as he did the pagan idols. His successor, Constantine V was also an iconoclast and continued the siege against icon veneration. He even convened a council in Nicea in the late 700s to officially condemn icon veneration and the iconophiles as he considered them to be blasphemous for two reasons. First, he saw the veneration of idols as idolatry, as mentioned above. Second, he believed that the iconophiles were limiting God by assuming that divinity can be captured in paintings or even be divine themselves. This condemnation was the moment that Western Catholic Christianity and Eastern Orthodox Christianity essentially split, as the Orthodox Christians maintained their veneration of idols as one of their defining elements of Christian identity and ritual. John of Damascus was pivotal to the continuation of icon veneration to be orthodox (Global and Tradition).

Since John of Damascus lived in Muslim lands, he was protected from the church and Leo III’s siege against iconoclasts. He wrote against the iconoclasts and encouraged the Orthodox Christians to continue their veneration of icons because of how he believed in the incarnation of the spirit in the material. He saw that the icons were divine for the same reason that Jesus Christ was divine. Christ was an incarnation of the spirit of God in human flesh. Since divinity could be captured in human flesh that was of the material world, so could pictures of Christ contain divinity. John extended this incarnation to the Mother Mary, as he believed her holy for being the mother of God, and also the saints, as they obviously (to him) contained divinity as witnessed by the miracles they were able to perform, both alive and dead (relics collected by the church and Christians).

Not only did John of Damascus think that the icons could contain the divine, but also he believed that the images served as prototypes that conveyed the worship of the icon to the individual represented. It was that representation that was important to John. The representation was actually a presentation and therefore a presence of the individual in the image. He did not believe that iconophiles were worshiping of the material that contained the images, but the actual individual that was represented in the image. The image was a presence, a reminder, and a prototype that allowed the worshiper to pass the worship to the Christ, Mary, or the saints and in return receive miracles of the divine. The image was not an idol to John; rather it was a gateway or door to the divine. Icons were how the world could see the unseen, just as Jesus Christ as an incarnation of God was how the unseen was made visible (Tradition). 

I originally wrote this piece in November 2011 for my Christianity class

Christianity and Withdrawal from the World

                Everyone has been alone at some point in their life. When one finds solitude, they typically can hear their own thoughts more clearly, whether they are thoughts of reflection, ponderings about the meaning of life, or even more mundane things like a to-do list. For two Christians, St. Antony and St. Martin, solitude is not just a means to think clearly, but the way to be a better Christian.

The accounts of these saints’ lives in Life of Antony by Athanasius and Life of Martin of Tours by Sulpicius Severus show similarities on how they lived their lives and why they lived their lives that way. Both men had a desire from childhood to be religious men and upon becoming adults, decided to live for Christ and forgo earthly things, with the exception of the food that their bodies required to live. Antony was inspired by the Acts of the Apostles to reject everything worldly to follow the Savior. This inspiration was confirmed for him when he went to church and heard a Gospel passage read, “If you wish to be perfect, go and sell everything you possess and give it to the poor and come, follow me and you will have treasure in heaven” (Ant. 2). Neither Antony nor Martin were not worried for their welfare in becoming Ascetics, as they believed in the Gospel that said, “Take no thought for the morrow” (Ant. 3, Mart. II).

Selling their possessions or refraining from collecting material things was only the first step in their journeys to solitude. Antony believed in a hard and arduous life and set out for it immediately, for the Bible told him that, “He who does not work, does not eat” (Ant. 3). Martin on the other hand, was taken into bondage with the military, as he was the son of a military man. Both men only kept what little of their earnings they needed for the bare sustenance and distributed the rest to the needy. The second step of their journeys was to literally withdraw from human interaction as much as possible. Once alone, the men could devote their time to prayer, their thoughts to Christ their Lord, and to dispelling demons and thwarting the devil himself.

It seems that it is in their solitude that both Antony and Martin become able to discern between the spirits, knowing angel from demon. The demons they wrestle with and expel from the possessed. Satan has no power against the sign of the cross or the mention of Christ’s name from the lips of these men. Both men also gained other miraculous abilities during their solitude. Both Antony and Martin gained the ability to heal the sick, and in the case of Martin, bring back the dead. Further, both men, on occasion, were given accurate information about things to come from a source only thought to be that of Christ the Lord. However miraculous these abilities were, they were not the only characteristics that these men both seemed to acquire during their ascetic lives.

Antony and Martin are both praised for their strength of character, as well as their dedication to their Lord Christ. It was because Antony was ever vigilant in his prayers, constant in his renunciation of demons and Satan, and patient with his trials that he believed God transforms what were habits into his second nature and his divinely anointed powers grew (Ant. 7).  Martin also believed that his daily devotion to God, to prayer, and steadfastness in faith is what provided for his holiness and his power over evil (Mart. XXVI). It is in his endeavor to be rid of material things and focus on the soul that Antony believes is what is most important for Christians – to strive for those characteristics that “lead to heaven, namely wisdom, chastity, justice, virtue, an ever watchful mind, care of the poor, firm faith in Christ, a mind that can control anger, and hospitality” (Ant. 17). Likewise, Martin had an even temper, was steadfast in faith and cared for even the sinners (Mart. XXVII).  In solitude, wisdom is found in clarity of thought, chastity is kept without temptations near, faith is deepened for needs to be met, and a patient temperance is surely cultivated.

One of the main ideas involved in Antony’s faith was not only to be rid of worldly things and to rely on faith in Christ for daily survival, but to understand that death could come at any given moment in time. To Antony, a Christian should ever be fearful of death’s approach, and to act accordingly. Since death could come at any time and without warning, it was best that the Christian of true faith be ever vigilant of his/her actions and thoughts to be sure that the way they behave on earth will lead them to acceptance in heaven. They should guard their minds from sordid thoughts, stay humble, and let their stomachs be hungry so that they don’t become lazy and idle, yet eat enough to be able to sustain hard arduous work, so again they don’t become idle. They should not allow too much comfort for themselves lest they be tempted into laziness as well (Ant. 19, 43, 65).  Antony regularly slept on either a mat or on the bare floor and both Antony and Martin wore the most meager of clothing. Both men were not concerned with vanity and looked dirty and disheveled.

Although both Antony and Martin sought solitude to be able to focus their minds on Christ, they both became hunted men by those eager to understand them, follow them, or seek healing from them. They tried often to go further and further into the wilderness to seek their solitude, but were ever found. It is possible to say that they were never in solitude for long, if ever. If you consider their regular battles with demons and Satan, and their constant faith that Christ was with them and in them, they may never have truly been alone, even if they were not being plagued by other humans. Still, in their solitude they were able to accomplish wondrous things by being faithful enough, thus perhaps deserving, in their choice to give up all for Christ. It is easy to see how their choice to give up material possessions and to rely only on faith that God will provide would force one to keep their mind on faith and on God. If they have to toil to provide for themselves, and keep busy so as not to have idleness lead to sordid thoughts, it leaves little time for much to enter their mind except for prayers and devotions: prayers to make it through the day, thankfulness for sustenance, and constant mind battles against evil thoughts. When one is forced to rely on God for everything, there is little time to think of worldly things. It is in this way that Antony and Martin withdrew from worldly things and became the Christian saints they are known as today.

I originally wrote this piece in September 2011 for my Christianity class

Theodicy and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

The movie Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) shows a world that many can familiarize with: a world that allows for seemingly unjustified suffering and reward. Cliff, one of the main characters of the story, notices this aspect of life and points it out to his niece while divulging his words of wisdom to her, “you’ll find as you go through life that great depth and smoldering sensuality does not always win.” He tells her this after relating to her how he is in love with Halley, but she is enamored with Lester, a man that he finds revolting and undeserving of his wealth and fame. Cliff seems to be a pessimistic man and that he has learned his lessons from having experienced life first hand. Ecclesiastes 1:18 perhaps explains his attitude on life, “because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain.”

Cliff also tells his niece about how although the world is unfair and good people like Ben, the rabbi, suffer without reason, it is good people like Ben that don’t seem to let the world come down on them. Ben doesn’t let on that he is suffering, rather he has a good attitude towards life and Cliff considers him to be a “mensch” – a man of integrity.

Ben is reminiscent of Job from the Bible. Ben, like Job, is a God-fearing man that is struck with a seemingly undeserved affliction that is causing him to go blind. We don’t know from the film whether or not Ben laments the way Job does, “Why did I not die at birth,
Come forth from the womb and expire? Why did the knees receive me, and why the breasts, that I should suck? For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept then, I would have been at rest, but we are given a sense that he does not” (Job 3:11-13), but we are given the sense that he does not. Rather than lament, Ben seems to have the “patience of Job” that is discussed in Journey on page 184. He seems to grasp the overarching meaning of Job, that humankind is not “at the center on the cosmic stage” (Journey, 188).

Two men in the film carry the theme of unjustified reward, Judah and Lester. Cliff is obvious in his distaste for Lester. He finds Lester to be an arrogant womanizer that is undeserving of his wealth and fame. Lester seems oblivious of his nature and goes through life as if he is happy and always celebrating. Perhaps he has an outlook on life that can be taken from Ecclesiastes 8:15, “So I commended pleasure, for there is nothing good for a man under the sun except to eat and to drink and to be merry, and this will stand by him in his toils throughout the days of his life which God has given him under the sun.” At the end of the film, Judah seems to take on the same outlook, as he seems to have gotten away with having his mistress, Deloris, killed. Nothing particularly bad had come to him from her death. Another man was punished for the crime, but Judah didn’t feel this was a problem as that man had committed several other crimes of a similar nature and, “what was one more” (Crimes and Misdemeanors, 1989).

Judah didn’t always have this attitude though, and it is possible that although he seems to feel that he has gotten away with the crime; his increase in drinking perhaps shows that he still feels guilty and expects to be punished yet. It is as if he knows that “God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:14) and is waiting for that axe to fall. Even the fact that he seemingly confesses to Cliff, while giving him a plot for a movie, shows that he is still disturbed and in wonderment of the fact that he has so far gotten away with the murder. Judah would have been wise to follow the words from Ecclesiastes 1:10-19:

¹⁰ My son, if sinners entice you,

Do not consent.

¹¹ If they say, “Come with us,

Let us lie in wait for blood,

Let us ambush the innocent without cause;

¹² Let us swallow them alive like Sheol,

Even whole, as those who go down to the pit;

¹³ We will find all kinds of precious wealth,

We will fill our houses with spoil;

¹⁴ Throw in your lot ^[c]with us,

We shall all have one purse,”

¹⁵ My son, do not walk in the way with them.

Keep your feet from their path,

¹⁶ For their feet run to evil

And they hasten to shed blood.

¹⁷ Indeed, it is ^[d]useless to spread the baited net

In the sight of any ^[e]bird;

¹⁸ But they lie in wait for their own blood;

They ambush their own lives.

¹⁹ So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence;

It takes away the life of its possessors.

Perhaps if he had, his conscience would at least be clear and he would not be ever waiting for that axe
to fall.

                All in all, the messages from the movie seem to accumulate to a common theme that seems expressed best in Ecclesiastes 9:2-3, “It is the same for all. There is one fate for the righteous and for the wicked; for the good, for the clean and for the unclean; for the man who offers a sacrifice and for the one who does not sacrifice. As the good man is, so is the sinner; as the swearer is, so is the one who is afraid to swear.  This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one fate for all men. Furthermore, the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives. Afterwards they go to the dead.”

Written on 11/8/11 for my Intro to Biblical Literature class

Crimes & Misdemeanors

I must blame my Introduction to Biblical Literature Professor for the fact that I now own a Woody Allen Movies, "Crimes and Misdemeanors". We had to watch the film in relation to what we were learning about Biblical literature in class. The following "thought piece" was preparation for a further essay on the film. (Essay to follow in the next post). 

In the scene from “Crimes and Misdemeanors” where Cliff is walking with his niece while eating pizza, Cliff seems to wonder about how life is simply not fair. He agonizes over his love for Haley, who is being pursued by Lester, a man that Cliff finds to be shallow, yet is famous, rich, and successful. He explains to his niece that she’ll “find as {she} goes through life that great depth and smoldering sensuality does not always win.” He’s sorry to have to tell her this “truth of life” or words of wisdom. He then goes on to talk about the Rabbi, Ben, who although he is a wonderful guy (and obviously a man of faith) he is poor in that he is going blind, yet he has a great attitude about life. He calls Ben a mensch, which is a person of integrity and honor.

This scene is reminiscent of the message in Ecclesiastes 8 – 9 that talks about how life is meaningless on earth, “There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.” (Ecclesiastes 8:14) Further, Cliff’s wonderment at how this irony could occur is discussed in Ecclesiastes 8:16-17, “When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night. Then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.” Although Cliff seems to be wise, he can still not comprehend the reality of life. 
Originally written on 11/1/11 for my Intro to Biblical Literature class

Back... Again

Well, I have learned something on this journey: being a single mom, a full time student, and a part time employee is very very difficult, especially when going through a disaster of a divorce. The only time I seem to have free is when I am knocked down with one illness or another from the stress - and in those cases, I let myself sleep. So, there is my excuse for no posting in too many months. I suppose that I gave more than one excuse.

Yes, my babies often get roped in to doing extra-curricular activites with me. Don't worry, I go to theirs too ;)

I have decided to share my "thought pieces" from my classes the past months. I would love to hear critiques about my writing style. The pieces I will post are free form response pieces to readings or topics we were discussing in class, unless otherwise specified.

I hope you will enjoy them as I enjoyed writing (most of) them.

Salam

Walking in the MSU Homecoming Parade
(our group is much larger than this, but only a few of us showed up to walk)

Self-Expose

I have been on an over-long hiatus since starting this blog due to my enrollment into Michigan State University. I decided to return to school and restart my life, following my passion and the path that I believe has been set before me.

The transition has been interesting, stressful, but well worth it. My absence has been due to my academic workload as a double major in Religious Studies and Arabic, as well as now being a single full-time mom. Hopefully, now that I have learned the new routine, I will have more time to give to this blog.

As a re-introduction, I have decided to post a paper I wrote for an awesome Religion class that I took over the summer. It is basically an expose of myself and how myth affects my life. I hope you enjoy it and I welcome and comments and questions. Thank you for reading.

Being Born for Myth
By
Elizabeth Robins
6/16/2011

I believe that I first discovered myth when I began reading, at an early age of three. My mom and dad read to me a lot and I always had fairy tale books around as a child. Of course, at that time I didn’t know what a myth was, but I knew the stories of princesses and noble knights and princes, witches, bad parents, and children enduring hardship to be rewarded with good things in the end. I think that is something I always liked about those stories, the happy ending. It was the possibilities in mythology that made my imagination soar and made me think anything was possible. I never realized how much mythology was going to influence my life, how important it would become.

As I grew up, I realized that these stories were just that, stories. I knew they had morals to learn and taught lessons in sneaky ways, but to me, they became just stories. I still enjoyed them, but I couldn’t relate them to my own life, except for daydream about my own happy endings. I had wandered away from myths and fantasy in my reading as an elementary student, but my Aunt had given me a book written by Piers Anthony called, Man from Mundania, one of the Xanth series. For a long time, I wouldn’t read the book because fantasy just didn’t perk my interest. I had somewhat given up on the idea of happy endings. But, I was out of books one summer day, and being an avid reader, I needed something to read. I picked it up to take to my Grandma’s house with me. I didn’t put it down until I finished. My Nana even had to bring my lunch because I wouldn’t stop reading to eat. The story intrigued me. Here a normal man was drawn into this parallel world of fantastical things. I got a kick out of the puns too.

I was in about to enter the seventh grade and had just gone through one of the worst years in my life at that time. I had even gone through my first suicidal attempts. I was often depressed, from having to deal with more than I could handle as a child. I found an escape in this book. The idea that a normal man could have wonderful adventures woke up my imagination again; it probably even sparked some sense of hope in me. This was probably the first time myth became alive for me. From that time on, fantasy, myths, and legends became my genre of choice. I ached for those happy endings.

Although I think that there is a chance that my desire for escapism causes me to occasionally drown in other people’s dreams, I believe I found something more important in these “dreams”. I noticed that a lot of the various stories I was reading, stories from around the world and written at different eras, seemed to have many of the same running themes, like they were linked somehow. I became curious about that, and at the same time was becoming curious about religion. I began asking myself, “how is it that these stories and religion all seem to be trying to teach the same basic concepts?” They no longer were just other people’s stories or escapism for me; they were now somehow a mystery in which Truth was contained. I wanted to start to unravel that mystery and find Truth.

When I refer to the term, “truth”, I place it in a dichotomy. I think there are two different kinds of truth. One is truth with a little “t”, it is the truths we as individuals know, and those truths, in my eye, are our perceptions of “what is”. Truth with a big “T” is something different. It is something that we as individuals cannot KNOW, but we can sense or believe in. It is where faith comes from, I think. Truth is “what is”. It is absolute, no perception. We as people, as individuals, experience everything differently, and our experiences shape our perceptions.

Because of our differing perceptions, and my own unique way of looking at the world, I began to question religion and see how different religions held different paths to the same thing for people. I recognized that I could not KNOW the Truth of which religion had it right. I could only have faith in what I believed, which at this time was becoming blurred. I believed in God and in goodness and in Truth, but structured religion started to not make a lot of sense to me. As a Christian, there were certain things about my faith and the stories I was told from the Bible that just didn’t make sense to me, but at the same time, some of the stories I was reading on my own, the ones from ancient mythology and other religions were making sense. The problem I saw was that they all tried to teach the same things, basically, but they all also seemed to get things wrong too.

Christianity for me was always more of a way of life than adherence to a particular doctrine. My parents didn’t attend church regularly because they had gotten involved in a Christian cult as a young couple and that ruined organized religion for them. They still accepted Christ as their savior, and taught us about Jesus, but it kind of ended there. Most of my church experience was the Christian holidays and from when I went with my Grandparents. My Grandmother’s church was rather conservative and they didn’t like to have children at mass, so I didn’t get much from going there, except the feeling that I wasn’t wanted. My Nana’s church was the opposite, and I enjoyed going with her.

My Nana’s church was Episcopalian and she had helped to start the church, as she was from England and missed her home church. I liked going because I liked to hear the sermon and the stories from the bible. I could always find some way that they were speaking to me. I often thought of Jesus, as I stared up at the crucifixion statue in front of us on the wall. I often thought of what it must have been like to be him; how he was so strong and courageous. I suppose that he was a hero to me. Someone to look up to, to want to be like, but I couldn’t worship him like the others did. I honored him, but I usually saved my worship for God. That was where I started to get off track with the rest of my family and with other Christians. I questioned the idea of Christ as God incarnate and as the only son of God. I felt we were all God’s children in a way, that without God, we couldn’t exist. I also had a hard time thinking of God as a man. For me, God was this big unexplainable mystery, but I knew God loved me and I did and often do think of God as a bit of a parental figure. When I do something stupid and I meet the consequence, I joke of it being God reaching down to smack me on the back of the head, as if to say, “you idiot, you knew better and you did it anyway, so here you go!”

My priest and I would have wonderful discussions and he seemed very understanding and patient with my questions and challenges; but, I wasn’t allowed in bible study. I tried that a few times in different groups… I usually ended up stirring the pot more than the leader liked. This refusal to question what we were being taught really caused me to question things even more. I started to think of Christianity as more of an idea that people like to follow, and if followed properly, can be very good. The problem I was seeing was that there was a lot of hypocrisy and all these “good” Christians were often very judgmental and had a lot of hatred for others, exactly as we were taught not to be. For me, this is where the myth started to break down.

Religion as a doctrine wasn’t focused on in my childhood per say, but my parents always talked of having faith. Usually it was to tell me some story about how they needed something and just when it seemed like they were lost, God would deliver. That their faith is what kept them going. I was often told that I needed to have more faith. I can say they were right, but it took me a long time to understand what faith was.

I think the lack of focus on religion as a structure in my household allowed me be more open to other ideas. I think it made me a more spiritual person than a religious person, and of course by that I am referring to religion as a system of rule and practices, rather than some of the other definitions available.

I no longer define myself as a Christian, as there are particular parts of the doctrine that are central to being a “Christian” that I was never comfortable with and I no longer accept as a possibility. I do however, accept Christianity as another possible path, but for me, it lost some of its truth. Not being a “Christian” doesn’t mean that I don’t value a Christian life. I still love and honor Jesus and his teachings, but for me, another path feels more like Truth to me. Not only feels, but logically, it makes more sense to me. That is not to say I reject all other faiths, in fact I find a lot of what I see as Truth in many faiths, but in those other faiths, I often find something that just doesn’t make sense.

I found my new path via a conversation online. I met someone in a chat room and immediately jumped into my favorite topic: spirituality. We discussed how we believed in our own spirituality and discussed God. I found myself agreeing with everything he was saying, which I found intriguing because I was never a traditional Christian and would often come across some things to disagree on. In the course of our conversation I asked him, finally, what his faith was. I was surprised when he said he was Muslim. This statement took me aback because Islam was foreign to me.

I have read about many religions and mythologies around the globe, but Islam was something I knew very little about, with the exception of what was given to us via the news media (which I never quite believed). It was interesting to me that I met this individual, because I was indeed already interested in learning more about Islam. I was frustrated that I didn’t know much about this religion that was the second most popular in the world. In fact, the previous Christmas I had even asked for an English translation of the Quran for Christmas. My parents laughed at my request though, saying that it was “probably sacrilegious” to purchase it for me. Needless to say, I didn’t receive it.

After my meeting with this individual online, I decided it was time for me to purchase the Quran and read it for myself. It was time for me to see what was written in this book and not just listen to what others had to tell me about it or the faith. I went to the nearby bookstore and purchased it and began reading the same day. I began reading the Quran as I did any book about religion, as an academic, pen and highlighter in hand. Within the first few pages though, something changed. I was no longer just reading a book. The book was speaking to me, to my heart. I would definitely say I was having a religious or spiritual experience. It definitely felt spiritual.

I found by reading the Quran that Islam is much like Christianity. The differences are few, but major. The same things I questioned as a child and young woman were explained in the Quran in a way that made sense to me. I was finding myself reading what I already believed. For the most part, Islam was very easy for me to accept. In fact, I believe I accepted it by the time I finished reading the Quran the first time. It took me a while before I “officially” accepted Islam by saying shahada. My hesitation was not so much about the faith but about social acceptance. After a time though, I decided that I believed what I believed and social acceptance or lack thereof wasn’t going to change that.

Even with Islam though, I question things. I don’t question much of what I read in the Quran, but I do question the hadith and many of the beliefs and practices that the more conservative Muslims follow (and are sometimes cultural and not religious as they think). For me, if it doesn’t make sense, or if I don’t understand it, then I need to find out why. One thing I like about Islam is the fact that I am told to use the brain God gave me. I am sure that my experience growing up being told not to question things led me to appreciating this aspect a lot.

Although I have accepted a new path, I don’t see my view of myth changing dramatically. I already am open to the lessons that can be learned from them and I no longer look to them for escapism only. I still see hope in them and I hope that I will always find the parcels of Truth within them. I think myth is important for reasons of faith, growing and learning, and also for plain old imagination. I love reading the stories to my kids and I hope they find something great within them as well. My acceptance of Islam is not going to prevent me from wanting to continue to read and learn about other religions and ancient mythology. Perhaps, it even encourages it in me in some ways. Here I was a Christian my whole life until I read the Quran and found a truth that resounded in me more than what I found in the Christian church and at the same time, shared so much with Christianity. It enforces my belief that all these traditions share a thread of Truth and I am interested in learning more and more. I have always believed that myths and legends came from some Truth, whether they are based on actual people and events (and have since been exaggerated or been tampered with) or are stories of worldly truths. I hope I will always retain some of that childhood wonder and inquisitiveness. I know I am more skeptical than I was when I was a young child, but a healthy dose of skepticism is good, I think, to help decipher fact from fiction or possibility from impossibility.

My openness in the face of mythology is one reason I feel that I am suited for the next stage in my life, the stage I now prepare myself for. I wish to work with people of different faiths, different beliefs, different cultures, to see each other not as different, but as how frequently we are the same. I want to work in the interfaith / intercultural dialogue and peace process and being open-minded about other peoples’ faiths and beliefs is an important requirement to be successful in such a field. I begin with myself, my friends, and my family, even my children. Everyone in my family is Christian, including my son (as he says he is Christian and I support him). Many of my friends are of other faiths, but namely they are Christian. I don’t wish to convert anyone to anything but tolerance. I already sift through the challenges of interfaith and intercultural relations and find myself comfortable with those challenges. I believe it is my open-mindedness and knowledge of many religions and mythology that aids this process. I find that I sit at the cusp of the rest of my life, and it is being shaped by mythology.

NOTE: I am particularly interested in studying the mythology of pre-Islamic Arabia and the potential influences on the ahadith.