Thanksgiving is one of the most important holidays in the US. And given its religious backgrounds and its similarities to Mehregan, one of the most fascinating to me. In Mehregan however, Iranians celebrate on sheep instead of turkeys. And in both feasts where celebrations are centered on harvest, I wonder why animals (turkeys or sheep) have to pay the price.
Anyway, attending thanksgiving celebrations (and hence studying religious rituals in churches) was on my to-do list long before coming to the US. However, due to my very heavy schoolwork, I cannot pursue all my wishes this semester. So, I had to choose only one celebration to attend (and even that would put a burden on my time).
When I happened to know about Multifaith Thanksgiving by Multifaith Council of Northwest Ohio, I chose this one. I always love multifaith events. When people sit and learn about how much they share in beliefs and how they worship the same God, they'll no longer waste their time and energy fighting over differences in practice and theology. More people thinking this way and we'll get rid of bigotry. Quoting Dr Martin Luther King, "I have a dream".
Here, representatives of American Indian faith, Baha'i, Baptist, Islam and Mennonites gave speeches to explain how and why we give thanks to God (and I wondered why nobody from Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism was present). After the speeches, we had to dance a little before proceeding to refreshments. A Sufi guitarist gave us the lines to repeat and share the heavenly peace.
Well, as a Muslim, I find the blend of Sufism in the US an example of commodification of religion. For more on this topic, you can read Consuming Religion and Jesus in Disneyland; although I don't agree with all the arguments in these books (especially the first one that at times is overly cynical and sophistic). In short, these books try to explain how consumer culture (and its freedom of choice entailment) in Western postmodern culture, would lead to cherry picking from different religions, resulting in a new conglomerate of elements (bricolage or salad, depending on how you want to look at it) that have lost their attachment to their original sources and hence are devoid of their contextual meaning and cultural/historical setting.
Sufism by and in itself is an offshoot of Islam produced this way 10 centuries ago. But while original Sufism could still be considered Islamic (and orthodox Muslims vehemently dispute such a view), my personal experience, study and familiarity with it in Iran, make me believe what I see in the US is a clear example of the arguments in the above mentioned books. Anyway, back to the party.
We left the program for the refreshments singing "Metta, Karuna, Mudita, Upeka". And after we entered the fellowship hall, we made two counter-rotating concentric circles with the American Sufi guitarist in the center (some sort of Murshid?) and continued singing and dancing. As a conservative Muslim, I found myself in a funny situation. I don't have much problem with Sufism but I don't feel comfortable practicing what I don't completely believe in. And as I was standing beside Imam Ibrahim Abdulrahim from Masjid of Al-Islam, I found him in the same funny situation and feeling. But in the meantime, I found it interesting to sing the following while rotating and holding hand with people on my sides:
"Fill your cup, drink it up, ya Allah Allah"
Well, at least I felt at home with this line, given my lifetime familiarity with Rumi as an Iranian Muslim.
Anyway, attending thanksgiving celebrations (and hence studying religious rituals in churches) was on my to-do list long before coming to the US. However, due to my very heavy schoolwork, I cannot pursue all my wishes this semester. So, I had to choose only one celebration to attend (and even that would put a burden on my time).
When I happened to know about Multifaith Thanksgiving by Multifaith Council of Northwest Ohio, I chose this one. I always love multifaith events. When people sit and learn about how much they share in beliefs and how they worship the same God, they'll no longer waste their time and energy fighting over differences in practice and theology. More people thinking this way and we'll get rid of bigotry. Quoting Dr Martin Luther King, "I have a dream".
Here, representatives of American Indian faith, Baha'i, Baptist, Islam and Mennonites gave speeches to explain how and why we give thanks to God (and I wondered why nobody from Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism was present). After the speeches, we had to dance a little before proceeding to refreshments. A Sufi guitarist gave us the lines to repeat and share the heavenly peace.
Well, as a Muslim, I find the blend of Sufism in the US an example of commodification of religion. For more on this topic, you can read Consuming Religion and Jesus in Disneyland; although I don't agree with all the arguments in these books (especially the first one that at times is overly cynical and sophistic). In short, these books try to explain how consumer culture (and its freedom of choice entailment) in Western postmodern culture, would lead to cherry picking from different religions, resulting in a new conglomerate of elements (bricolage or salad, depending on how you want to look at it) that have lost their attachment to their original sources and hence are devoid of their contextual meaning and cultural/historical setting.
Sufism by and in itself is an offshoot of Islam produced this way 10 centuries ago. But while original Sufism could still be considered Islamic (and orthodox Muslims vehemently dispute such a view), my personal experience, study and familiarity with it in Iran, make me believe what I see in the US is a clear example of the arguments in the above mentioned books. Anyway, back to the party.
We left the program for the refreshments singing "Metta, Karuna, Mudita, Upeka". And after we entered the fellowship hall, we made two counter-rotating concentric circles with the American Sufi guitarist in the center (some sort of Murshid?) and continued singing and dancing. As a conservative Muslim, I found myself in a funny situation. I don't have much problem with Sufism but I don't feel comfortable practicing what I don't completely believe in. And as I was standing beside Imam Ibrahim Abdulrahim from Masjid of Al-Islam, I found him in the same funny situation and feeling. But in the meantime, I found it interesting to sing the following while rotating and holding hand with people on my sides:
"Fill your cup, drink it up, ya Allah Allah"
Well, at least I felt at home with this line, given my lifetime familiarity with Rumi as an Iranian Muslim.
2 comments:
I am sorry that you were uncomfortable with the dance. It was not a requirement to participate.
I am far from a murshid, although an initiated Sufi. I am not unfamiliar with the criticisms of western Sufism and can only say that it is a mystical approach, more about experience of the Divine than about set rituals.
The dances were meant to celebrate all faith traditions and sincerely reflect an intention for peace.
We feature different faith perspectives each year in our MultiFaith Thanksgiving. We have featured Hinduism and Buddhism in the past.
We hope to see you again at a MultiFaith event. Good luck in your studies and personal journey.
When somebody chooses to attend a multifaith event, conforming to the proceedings is the most trivial thing to do. I just found myself in a funny situation.
I'm looking forward to attend more multifaith events. I really enjoy being around people of different faiths and getting familiar with different perspectives on belief. As I've written in my post, we all worship the same God and if people focus on what we have in common, we'll have a better world. Multifaith events definitely serve that purpose.
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