Insha’allah

Mawlid an-Nabi, the birth of the prophet Muhammad, is observed this year on the 4th of February for the Sunnis and the 9th for the Shiites, the difference in dates is from adjusting the lunar calendar to Europe’s Gregorian solar reckoning. If curious, a reader might want to Google the difference. There is also biological lineage of sira, and the other, ecclesiastical sunna. It is what separates Iraq and Iran, defines the internecine conflicts within their borders, and those of other Islamic countries.

Three houses of faith emerged from the Abrahamic tradition: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, full of family squabbles.

IMHO, Judaism is rooted in the mysterious YHWH, understood as the supremacy of reality of the “way life is”—not what was or what will be nor what should be. It just IS, embodied and identified with the local iconic Canaanite figures of substance and existence, El (the supreme IS), and Elohim/Adonai (the sovereign Many as One).

The Jews wanted a king to rule them as a people, and its scripture fundamentally witnesses that having a king indicated a distrust in the sufficiency of YHWH’s rule, and the refusal of individuals to decide the course of their own destiny.

Christianity began as a reform movement in the synagogue. Galilean carpenter Joshua Ibn Nazareth was a Jew who confronted the prevailing illusion of His time: that someone in the royal line of David will rescue the Jews from oppression. A people waited for a Messiah to save them.

Joshua or Jesus (Anglicized) had a simple teaching, IMHO. “You are all waiting for a Messiah. Well, I have good news (gospel) for you. You need wait no more. There is no messiah, and I who bring you this truth, am being the Messiah. So, if you want to be well, that is, if you want to be saved, go ahead and pick up your bed, and walk.” Needless to say, many did, including this writer.

The Greeks picked up this message, liberated it from the racial confines of the synagogue into the realm of Olympian Theos and the Roman Forum’s Deus—the Ecclesia, the household of God. The Greeks and the Copts maintained orthodoxy, the Romans embraced catholicity, and northern Europe promoted transparency. Thus we have a plethora of traditions, denominations, and sects in this communion.

Islam’s Insha’allah is total surrender to al’ilah (the incomprehensible IS), or humility before the truth, which in the desert, is ruah the wind, Spirit. Its faith adheres to simple reality (tauhid) as one, requires sincerity of intent, purity of heart, and leaves no quarter for falsity or deception. Simplicity of truth prevails, complexity suspect. Something about this simplicity captivated Arabs, Mongols and the Ottoman Empire.

The Jews thrive on the covenant, the Christians on love, and the Muslims in simple charity. They belong to the same household, but the wars of the male of their specie have been the hallmark of the history of humankind in the last 2,500 years.

In my time, an old man in the Vatican opened its windows and doors; the winds of change could not be contained and without apology, it swept through its halls and cathedrals, along with other houses of worship where two or more are gathered. Ecclesia, the household of humanity before the Awesome, became Ecumené, the temple of the wonder-filled planet Earth itself.

In this planet, there are paths less known to the folks of Europe, but are trodden to earth by more denizens of other climes than those of the children of Abraham. They follow practices we have labeled under the general categories of Taoism, Animism, Tribalism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and the like.

The Prophet from the desert confronted the reality of His time, the struggle between the mirage of illusion, which gives momentary comfort and pleasure, and the truth that is at once awesome and mysterious. He chose the path of the latter, and His following carved out a universe from the southern tip of Africa to China’s Northeast.

The issue before us is the decision to forsake the ancient prejudices of exclusivity from any of the traditions and begin to create the umbrella big enough to contain the conflicts not only among siblings but also among neighbors.

We mentioned in an earlier column the three perspectives religious studies afford us: that of immanence, transcendence, and transparency.

Immanence insists on authenticity. Is it real? Can one existentially intuit in ones bones the truth? Transcendence requires inclusiveness and comprehensiveness in an image or story, not unlike the circle of the Taiji to contain the intense swirl of the yin-yang intact within its fold.

But transparency is the spirit mode of our time. It entails dialogue, the trusting of another eye to reflect in their “mirror” the reality of my being. Psychology is only too clear about the deceptiveness of self-image. Can we trust the transparency of what is true and real when our neighbor raises the mirror from whence we can see our selves? Dialogue is the spirit method of our time. The Hindus call it Namaste, “I salute and recognize your being.”

The CNMI is heir to all these human inventions, just as it is now in most of the globe. In these small islands, in 2012, the courage to trust the neighbor is our manifest calling. Insha’allah.

****
[I] Vergara is a regular contributor to the [/I]Saipan Tribune’[I]s Opinion Section[/I]