There is to be no compulsion in religion.
True direction is in fact distinct from error.
Surah 2:256
Wherever you are right now. Wherever you are standing… running, sitting, kneeling, breaking, or bowing… hear the question… the Qur’an’s all-encompassing overarching question to humanity:
“Tell me, friend, what are you doing with your life, your one and only wondrous life?”
You, created from water, out of ash, out of a germ-cell, out of clay, out of sperm meeting egg, out of a blood-clot, insignificant, an embryonic lump, one in an exponential zillion, as a glance, as nothing, yet you are something with dignity, complexity of thought, insight, discernment, movement, and passion.
Qur’an as a gift revealed to you is a way for you to read the verses of your life. Hopefully, you will become a love song for the world. There is no compulsion; only invitation to shape a life as holy, as distinct, with true direction.
You, bestowed with God’s eternal breath, have no beginning and no end and are beyond the confines of time; and when your bones have turned to dust, you will be resurrected as a new being, recreated into a hidden reality only God knows.
As the Qur’an intimates, before you decide if God exists or believe in the Last Day or in Angels or in Prophets, or Sacred Texts, you must first decide if you exist. Do you believe in the intricacy of you? Do you accept your existence as necessary? If so, what is your purpose? Where do you find meaning? Can a sacred text encourage you to delve deep, even when sacred words are difficult to read and to understand?
Do you love your own intimacy?
~ ~ ~ ~
It is a hot September day. School has only been in session a couple of weeks. In my early 30s, I have just been hired as a teacher of religion at a private day school in New York City. I am nervous and apprehensive – I want to succeed, and I am afraid I won’t.
I am assigned to teach seniors an introductory course to the Bible – a class no one wants to take and therefore no one wants to teach. New on the faculty, on the lowest rung of the totem pole of choices and with no tenure clout, Introduction to the Bible is mine to tackle.
It is Friday; our class is the last meeting of the day before the end of school, before the weekend. I am tired, my voice weak; I am feeling drained; I don’t know my students very well. The air conditioning isn’t working and the windows are painted shut. The cafeteria’s smell of fried fish is mixed in with a week’s worth of stale clothes stuffed in gym bags that line the corridors. There I am, as teacher, yet as eager as the students to leave.
I am writing notes on the chalkboard about Abraham and Sarah and the birth of their son Isaac when the students start to give me a bad time.
“You don’t really believe this stuff, do you? My God, they were over 90 years old. So what, they had a kid; what a stupid miracle anyway. Who cares – just two dried up people, in a dried up desert, having a dried up kid.”
I try to ignore their comments, but they are getting to me. I am on a journey of faith; I know that, but I’m still trying to keep my religious claims academic and separate from my living. Like fingernails scratching on chalkboard, their challenge is screeching against my stiff words of belief. I shiver in my spine. I am outnumbered. I move closer to the chalkboard.
How much of this do I believe in anyway? How do I understand scripture in terms of my own faith? No wonder no one wants to teach this class to a bunch of smart adolescents. I keep writing. And then, a student asks me,
“Do you believe in miracles?”
“Yes, I do,” I answer quickly, with my back still to the class, as I continue to write on the chalkboard.
“How can you believe in miracles?”
“Anyone who has worked as a chaplain on the Burn Unit as I have, has seen miracles.” The room becomes silent. Relief… yet, the students are too quiet. And for the first time that hot afternoon, I turn around and face the class.
“What’s up? Something just happened.” Silence. I wait.
And then a student who hardly had spoken a word in class for two weeks says, “I’ve been burned. I lived on that burn unit for 9 months.”
He is the only one in the room with a long sleeve shirt on. “Nine months – you were burned badly.”
“Yes, most of my chest, and arms and thighs. I was caught in an explosion on the street seven years ago, when I was eleven.”
“You’ve been through too much. May I see the work done on your hand?” And with that he begins to roll up his sleeve. I pull up a chair next to him and we talk about the grafts, and the pain, and the nurses, and his surgeons. While we talk, I run my hand over his arm admiring how well his body has recovered and the beautiful grafting work done by his medical team.
“The doctors said that I would never be able to run again.”
“Yeah, and now Jack is one of our starters on the soccer team.”
I look up. So caught up in examining the work on his hands and neck and arms, I hadn’t noticed that all the students had made a circle around us. Standing, listening and honoring. They love this boy. The school bell rings and our conversation ends.
The next week in the hallway, I run into Jack’s mother. She introduces herself to me and says, “My son has never talked about his burns with anyone. He has kept so much within. Over the weekend, he told me what happened in your class. It meant so much to him that you touched his deep scars, that you ran your hands over his grafts, and that you were not repelled by them; in fact, you thought they were beautiful.
“For the first time, he told me about his feelings and the hope he held onto through the ingenuity of his surgeons’ brilliance. We talked late into these past nights about the whole ordeal we’ve been through. Believe me, it’s a miracle.” And with that she begins to cry.
“You’ve been keeping a lot in, too.” And then I begin to cry, because, of course, I had been keeping a lot in, as well. As we stand in that hallway crying, something shifts within me, and I understand, maybe not with words, yet, but with a grace-filled certainty, that I want to live within the heartbeat of scripture as a way to bring meaning to my life.
I have not looked back, and today my scripture extends beyond Torah, Psalms, and Gospels to also include Qur’an. I choose holy scripture to shape the narrative of my life.
Holy words to help shape a life as holy as my heart opens up:
“In the Name of God, the All Merciful, Ever Merciful
Have We not made your heart broader than before,
and taken from you the burden you bore, that weighed sore upon your back,
making your name soar in esteem.
With every hardship comes ease – yes, with every hardship comes ease!
So when you cease your task, increase your striving,
And seek your Lord eagerly. Surah 94
Day 3: Reflection
There is no compulsion in religion. Holy words are given to you to help shape a life as holy.
How is your life unfolding? What do you desire? Your life. It’s all within your reach, found between your hands. What life are you choosing to live?You are your journey.
