Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

Nothing is Impossible With God

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John hears Jesus’s last words. He sees Jesus absolutely dead, blood and water issuing from his heart. He goes to bed, I imagine, shattered beyond grief—rent with the horror and guilt and unimaginable agony I would feel if I saw that happen to my husband or father or child. Talk of post-traumatic stress!

And then, and then–two days later, he enters the grave, and sees the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head folded up by itself. Neatly, orderly.
And he says simply in the third person, “He saw and believed.”
That Jesus was resurrected.
And, surely, his world exploded. Anything was possible, as Jesus had said so often. Miracles, magic. “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” Jesus had said, just a week ago!! “Everything is possible for one who believes.” (Mark 9:23).
* * *
“All things are possible if you believe.” The believing comes before the impossible becomes possible.
After years of being in and leading women’s small groups, I often wonder if we all have a compartmentalised faith—areas in which we find it easy to trust and believe God, and areas in which we find it hard.
It’s relatively easy for me to trust God with my finances; I believe he is the river of abundance, and it’s not hard for me (in general) to believe he’ll replenish my stores.
In February, I had a cancer scare, and had a biopsy. On the day I was told of the abnormal ultrasound results, fear gripped my heart: fear of chemotherapy mostly, and also of death before my children are safely grown up, or before I have fulfilled my dream of writing. “Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,” as John Keats said. I realised that I had a choice to trust or be afraid. I decided on faith to trust and peace possessed my heart. I basically almost forgot about the biopsy and went on writing. Just as well, as it took 4 weeks to receive the biopsy result—which was normal!!
But there are things for which I pray, and it’s just words. I have little faith in my heart that what I pray for will come to pass, though I know Jesus said,  Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matt. 17:20.
·      * *
The dead Jesus walks. He has neatly folded the cloth covering his head.
All things are now possible for them for believe.
But yet not all our prayers are answered affirmatively. Sometimes the answer to prayer is No.
Jacob wrestles with God, refusing to let God go, unless he is blessed. And so God blesses him.
A limp to slow down the self-sufficient, manipulative, scheming Jacob. A child will be able to out-run him. He will tire easily.  He will not be able to oversee everything himself. He will have to depend on others. And on God.
Paul is given a thorn in the flesh, so that he will have to get through his day and his life relying on God’s grace which is sufficient. On God’s power made perfect in weakness.
My limp and thorn is my rapidly declining physical fitness. My battles with weight.
And I don’t know what to do!! Should I accept it as God’s will? A thorn, a limp to keep me humble? To remind me of my sin, weakness and limitations?
Yes, my life-long habit of comfort-eating, and my life-long dislike of doing anything more active than reading or writing are thorns in the flesh. I will always need God’s help to overcome them.
But being over-weight, and, consequently, being physically weak and unfit and easily fatigued–I cannot believe that those are God’s will for me (though less energy does means more time in an armchair with my books and laptop.)
* * *
We had a charismatic pastor who used to say, “You must SEE it to RECEIVE it.” I suppose in secular terms it would be called creative visualisation.
I wonder if that is part of my struggle. That I have trouble seeing myself as fit, strong and energetic. Never really believed that I could lose weight—which I have been slowly gaining since my late teens at the rate of 3+ pounds a year… Which, well, adds up!!
So I asked God to give me an image to strengthen my faith.
And this was the image I got—myself running down a country road, tirelessly. (I love running, get high on those endorphins quickly, but am very, very slow, and easily fatigued.)
Ah, and here’s where that image is from:
29 He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40)
What’s the key here? It’s hoping in the Lord, trusting in the Lord, waiting on the Lord.
Just hanging out with God as a branch in the vine, resting in him, being rejuvenated by his sweet sap flowing into me, his life flowing into me.
That’s where the strength comes from to change life-long habits of comfort-eating when bored or stressed or unhappy or empty. That’s where the strength comes from to eat healthily. And the strength to run and not grow bored or weary.
The secret of the vine: living in Christ, hanging out in and with Christ, relying on that other deeper, sweeter life to flow through me, to fill me, to still my restlessness, comfort my sadness, and give me the will-power and discipline to run and to walk (and, eventually, not grow weary or faint.)



In which areas do you find faith easy–or hard? What are your limps and thorns?

C. S. Lewis on Whether the Christian Life if Hard or Easy. (I love this!)

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I love this passage in Mere Christianity in which Lewis talks about whether the Christian life is hard or easy.
It’s both, Lewis says. It’s hard as death in the beginning, and then as his life begins to worth within us and transform us, it is relatively easy, because he does the work of transforming us.
We are to hand ourselves over to Christ, to be ploughed up and resown. We are to have the bad tooth out, and a new tooth given us. It’s like death.
But then, He lives within us and helps us to do impossible things. In that way, it’s easy.
And–and this is the insight I love–once we surrender ourselves to Jesus, and rely on his strength within us to get through our days, it’s fine, it’s normal, if we only succeed for moments at a time. You surrender yourself to Christ, you rely on his strength. Perhaps, relying on it, you will bite back one unkind retort; silence a bit of juicy gossip; not respond to provocation; pass up the chocolate you do not need; close the laptop when you’re wasting time on the internet. And then, you might blow it.
But “from those moments of victory, a new sort of life is spreading through your system,” and that too is a way in which sanctification works.
Surrendering ourselves to Jesus for moments at a time. Relying on his strength for moments at a time. Even the weakest Christian, such as I often am, can do that? And a lifetime is made up of moments!!
Mere Christianity, Chapter 30, 
Is the Christian Life Hard or Easy?
In the previous chapter we were considering the Christian idea of ‘putting on Christ,’ or first ‘dressing up’ as a son of God in order that you may finally become a real son. What I want to make clear is that this is not one among many jobs a Christian has to do; and it is not a sort of special exercise for the top class. It is the whole of Christianity. Christianity offers nothing else at all.  ’.
 The Christian way is hard, and easy. Christ says `Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’
 Both harder and easier. You have noticed, I expect, that Christ Himself sometimes describes the Christian way as very hard, sometimes as very easy. He says, ‘Take up your Cross’- in other words, it is like going to be beaten to death in a concentration camp. Next minute he says, ‘My yoke is easy and my burden light.’ He means both. And one can just see why both are true.
Teachers will tell you that the laziest boy in the class is the one who works hardest in the end. They mean this. If you give two boys, say, a proposition in geometry to do, the one who is prepared to take trouble will try to understand it. The lazy boy will try to learn it by heart because, for the moment, that needs less effort. But six months later, when they are preparing for an exam, that lazy boy is doing hours and hours of miserable drudgery over things the other boy understands, and positively enjoys, in a few minutes. Laziness means more work in the long run. Or look at it this way. In a battle, or in mountain climbing, there is often one thing which it takes a lot of pluck to do; but it is also, in the long run, the safest things to do. If you funk it, you will find yourself, hours later, in far worse danger. The cowardly thing is also the most dangerous thing.
It is like that here. The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self – all your wishes and precautions – to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call ‘ourselves,’ to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be ‘good’.
We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way-centred on money or pleasure or ambition–and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do. As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown.
That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.
We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through. He never talked vague, idealistic gas. When he said, `Be perfect,’ He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder – in fact, it is impossible.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird : it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
May I come back to what I said before? This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. It is so easy to get muddled about that. It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects education, building, missions, holding services. The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.
It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose. It says in the Bible that the whole universe was made for Christ and that everything is to be gathered together in Him. I do not suppose any of us can understand how this will happen as regards the whole universe. We do not know what (if anything) lives in the parts of it that are millions of miles away from this Earth. Even on this Earth we do not know how it applies to things other than men. After all, that is what you would expect. We have been shown the plan only in so far as it concerns ourselves.
I sometimes like to imagine that I can just see how it might apply to other things. I think I can see how the higher animals are in a sense drawn into Man when he loves them and makes them (as he does) much more nearly human than they would otherwise be. I can even see a sense in which the dead things and plants are drawn into Man as he studies them and uses and appreciates them. And if there were intelligent creatures in other worlds they might do the same with their worlds. It might be that when intelligent creatures entered into Christ they would, in that way, bring all the other things in along with them. But I do not know: it is only a guess.
 What we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ – can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father – that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we I are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature will begun to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning.

Images of Istanbul

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(A guest post from my husband, Roy)

A roundup of a few shorter visits — The Topkapi Palace ( that was suddenly closed as we arrived because of a sudden dust storm, that also closed souvenir sellers), the Grand Bazaar, Church of SS Sergius and Bacchus (now a Mosque, and called Small Haghia Sophia), the Basilica Cistern, and sights on the street.

Topkapi Palace (Entrance Only)

Entrance to Topkapi Palace Gardens
A row of tulips (Topkapi gardens)
Entrance of Topkapi Palace Enclosure
(see details below)

Alas we were at the exit very soon

Blue Mosque through the exit from Topkapi
An interesting building being build just outside the Palace
detail of above
Street light near the Blue Mosque
Anita and Irene in front of Hagia Sophia

Sweet temptation

healthier temptation

The Grand Bazaar is one of the world’s oldest and largest covered markets with 61 covered streets and over 3,000 shops — we explored less than 1% before emerging with our booty.  The guidebook advised us not to miss the many surrounding shops, but we had had enough.  It is not a noisy Middle Eastern market with vendors hawking their wares, and is actually more peaceful than most Western shopping malls!

Goldsmith’s street
Souveniers
Ceramics of all sorts — wall tiles, table tops, clocks, bowls, plates, vases, figurines, …  All beautifully painted by hand or machine.
Lamps and textiles
The exit

Church of SS Sergius and Bacchus built by Justinian and converted to a mosque and now known as Little Hagia Sophia Mosque (Küçuk Ayasofya Camii) is in an unpromising residential area near our hotel

It looks like a Byzantine church on the outside

image credit

but like a mosque inside
Lovely soft carpet underfoot
A color scheme for the interior of the domes above the entrance

The Basilica Cistern  (Turkish: Yerebatan Sarayı – “Sunken Palace”, or Yerebatan Sarnıcı – “Sunken Cistern”), built by, you guessed it, Justinian.   The columns are 9 meters tall, and there are over 300 of them, so it is like a massive flooded crypt.  Now there are only a few feet of water, but someone has introduced goldfish.

Most of the columns aresmooth with an ornate capitol.  However, for reasons unknown, there are two with Medusa head bases and one carved column.   Ofcourse, these columns were not desiged to be see by the publish, so they were probably just left overs, and defectives.

Sideways Medusa head base
Inverted Medusa head base
Back at street level tulips everywhere

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My Teenage Rebellion: Trying to become a Nun at Mother Teresa’s Convent!

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I have written about the experience here, A Teenage Atheist, and here, The Holy Ground of Kalighat.

Matt of The Church of No People recently asked me some questions about my experience, and I thought I would share them here. The questions in bold are Matt’s.

I’d like to hear what the everyday experience is like being a Christian in India, which makes someone a small minority in that society.
I left India in 1984. While I was there, Catholics were respected: because they ran good schools, colleges, hospitals, orphanages, homes for the handicapped, open to people of all creeds. However, intolerance were becoming evident with “Anti-Conversion Bills” making proselytising illegal. There is more hostility towards Christians now, and making converts (leave alone disciples!) is illegal in several states.
If you can, briefly tell us about why you joined the convent.
I was rebellious as a teenager in Catholic boarding school. During a period of “curfew” after religious riots, I found myself reading the few books in our house which I had not read—Catherine Marshall’s Beyond Ourselves and The Cross and the Switchblade.
I was attracted by the idea of a living relationship with Christ, and committed my life to Him. I simplistically thought the only way to follow him was along the lines of Matthew 25, “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.”
Who did that kind of work? Mother Teresa.
I wrote to her, was accepted, and was in the convent 4 months after my conversion!!
I have written about my conversion experience for Commonweal magazine, reprinted in Phil Zaleski’s Best Spiritual Writing.
Forgive my non-Catholic vocabulary, but what your “title” there – were you a nun?  
I was a postulant. Nuns go through a 6 month aspirancy, a 6 month postulancy, and a 2 year novitiate, before they take their vows for 6 years. After 9 years, they take their final vows.
Anyway, I’d love to hear just a bit about life in a convent, particularly the convent of our time’s most famous nun.
 It followed the ancient Benedictine model, a mixture of work and prayer.
 Since I was still in training, we spent mornings in classes on theology, Scripture and their constitution, and in prayer. We worked in Mother Teresa’s homes in the evenings– in the home for dying destitute, orphans, and the mentally. (I’ve written about my work at Kalighat, the home for dying destitute in Zaleski’s Best Spiritual Writing series.
 The recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours–laud, none, vespers and compline, a melange of psalms and traditional prayers–ring-fenced the day in prayer, In addition, there was Mass; an early morning half-hour of silent meditation on scripture; an hour of “adoration,” or contemplative prayer; and a half hour of spiritual reading. A total of 3.5 hours in various spiritual activities. I did gain much familiarity with Scripture, which has been a blessing to me.
When I was there, 1979-1980, it was a young religious order, and eccentric, shaped by a visionary, who was revered, and apparently unquestioningly obeyed.
One of her dearly-held ideas was that one needed to voluntarily share the hardships of the poorest of the poor to have empathy for them.
The deliberate quest for extreme poverty meant that we were put 25 to a room, and there was a constant time-consuming shifting and re-arranging as the room became a refectory, a classroom, and a dormitory.
There was no running water which meant we spent half an hour every day in a crocodile, drawing buckets of water from the wells and transporting it to the bathrooms and kitchen. We had just 2 sets of white sarees, which meant daily hand-washing…
The food was simple, and nutritious enough, but, another peculiarity, there were large fixed quantities one had to eat, which were quite extreme: 5 chapatis for breakfast, and five ladles of rich for lunch and dinner. After a couple of her sisters caught TB on her original diet of salt and rice, rice and salt, she imposed this as a safeguard against disease.  
Everything, even the pettiest details–subjects to meditate on as one dressed, mending sarees from thread unravelled from scraps– was controlled by rules. It was high-control, almost like a cult, legalistic and judgmental.  After a while, it becomes easier not to think for yourself, and instead do whatever would get you praised, or avoid what would get you judged.
What went into your decision to leave the convent and your faith?  How does someone walk away from such a dedicated faith life?
I saw an image of myself in a train going ever further in the wrong direction, but afraid to get off for fear of looking foolish
We slept at 10, and woke at 4.40 a.m. for church, with a half hour mid-day nap. Since I was 17 when I joined, I was perpetually tired and felt constantly sleep-deprived. Sleep deprivation (used by cults, and authoritarian systems: labour camps, prisons) makes it easy to go along with authority and not question. My first thought on waking and predominant longing was for naps and bedtime. It wasn’t sustainable.
The first three years were a kind of boot-camp, deliberately harsh. The novice-mistresses had complete power over us (one of the vows was obedience) and I struggled with perceived injustice, and the authoritarianism with no recourse of complaint. 
The nervous intensity of prayer, and scripture study and meditation can ironically heighten irritability, and the rub of community life 24/7 with 25 people sharing a medium sized room.  
   
Two people had breakdowns when I was there. One just sat and giggled helplessly. Another was sent home and attempted to jump out from the bars of the train. Leaving the convent once you join was viewed as disgraceful in Indian Catholic society.
And, in fact, my health was shattered, though no one realised this while I was in the convent. I returned home, deeply exhausted, and within the month was diagnosed with both early stage TB and hepatitis!
I was thoroughly exhausted, and in retrospect, it clearly wasn’t my vocation!
 What brought you to the faith you have today?  Did you have the support of Christian friends or family members?
I was a passionate, absorbed student, so faith—in particular, the liturgy, the rituals, the dogma of Catholicism–gradually went limp and lifeless for me.
I earned an undergraduate degree in English at Oxford University, and then did a master’s in Creative Writing at Ohio State University, and some of a Ph.D in Creative Writing at SUNY-Binghamton. A couple of young students on a campus mission came up to me, and asked if I knew Jesus.
My dream then was to be a successful  poet.  Success had evaded me. It was all very uphill–and it struck me that I wasn’t doing too well, managing life on my own. It could only be better if Christ managed it.
But faith had by then sloughed away, and a friend suggested I just do what Jesus said and see if worked. Well I did, it did; I was surrounded by little miracles, and I recommitted myself to following Jesus.
My goal now is to live as a contemplative in the world
The Christian imperatives which Jesus with his Gordian-knot-slashing directness reduced to two–to wholly love God  and to love your neighbor as yourself–remain the same. There is just more distraction. Without the traditional monastic disciplines- prayer, meditation, adoration, the liturgy of the hours, and “spiritual reading– it takes ingenuity to carve for myself a circle of silence to feed on Christ and Scripture and to live contemplatively, remembering Jesus not only amid the beauty and tranquillity of my garden, my writing, and my books, but in the crucible of marriage, motherhood, domesticity, and the busyness of everyday. The demands of unselfishness remain constant, without the convent’s periodic sanctioned escape into the sacred ivory spaces of psalmody and song. In fact, I now consider domesticity, marriage, and motherhood a smithy in which the soul can be forged as painfully, as beautifully, as amid the splendid virginal solitudes of the convent.

The Bosphorus Cruise–in the narrow strait between Europe and Asia!!

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We went on one of the world’s most unique cruises today–the Bosphorus Cruise: Europe on one side of the narrow strait, Asia on the other. Seagulls haunting the strait, dolphins leaping, the Black Sea at one end, the Sea of Marmara on the other–and fantastic mosques, palaces, summer houses and churches on either side of the Bosphorus.

I loved it–it’s where I live, metaphorically, between Europe and Asia. Am totally at home in Europe after almost 3 decades in the West, and at home in Asia too (though, oddly, less so). What a fantastic, and beautiful conjunction of my two worlds!

And sitting watching the amazing, almost surreal panorama of palaces, mansions, summer houses, mosques and churches go by while seagulls wheeled and screeched–I was purely happy.

I always thought I would get bored on a cruise–that I had too active a temperament, would like to interact with streets, churches and palaces on foot.
Turned out I was wrong–I think I will enjoy a cruise–am dreaming of a Baltic cruise to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia someday–when I am am old(er)…

And thank you to Roy for writing the rest of this post, and giving me a fighting chance of keeping up with my blog on holiday:-)

The Bosphorus Cruise begins at the Galata Bridge.

Galata Bridge — showing shops below, and the New Mosque above.
The Galata bridge features in many paintings of Istanbul.  Here is one from our hotel
There are numerous palaces along either side of the Bosphorus, as well as some elegant riverside homes.  Unfortunately, they tend to all blur into one another by the end of the day.  Here are a few shots of palaces

and river front homes

There were numerous mosques, both by the water and higher up
After a while one leaves Istanbul, and comes to smaller villages.  Here are a couple of the stops
and a wooded area between them
Despite the filthy water traversed by Russian oil tankers and other large rusty vessels
we saw a lot of dolphins, but were not quick enough to get a good shot
Of course there were seagulls too
At the Black Sea end the ship breaks for lunch.  We had a nice fish meal at a riverside restaurant
and Irene posed with the tulips

The Blue Mosque in Istanbul

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The Blue Mosque in Istanbul

I visited the Blue Mosque today. Simply gorgeous. Called blue because of the Iznik tiles, but also because of the wealth of stained glass windows. Simply, mind-blowingly, mind-bogglingly gorgeous!!

And I am thankful to my husband, Roy for the photos and the commentary in the rest of this post!

View of the Blue Mosque from just inside the courtyard.
The banners give extracts from the courtyard that are likely to appeal to all. e.g,
Pay the worker his wage before his sweat dries
The Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmet Cami in Turkish) is generally regarded as the most beautiful Mosque in Istanbul, and is many tourists’ favourite sight.   Here is an aerial view 
showing the six minarets (four is more usual) the large courtyard, and the hilltop setting.  Notice also the single large dome, smaller domes and numerous semi-domes (in this picture and the one above).  The inside of each of them is decorated.
Entrance to the outer courtyard
detail
Some views from inside the courtyard, which was a cool, peaceful and restful place.
Ceiling design

Ceiling design

Arcade along one side of the outer courtyard
The entrance for those who wish to prayer.  The honeycombing above the calligraphy is very similar to that at the Alhambra.
The dome above this entrance. (The first of many obstructed photos, alas.)
Here are views of the interior of the Blue Mosque.  The blue dome, is the central dome.   The diagonal lines (that may look like scratches on your screen, are very numerous wires that suspend the numerous chandeliers.)  The central dome, is surrounded by for semi-domes, each of which is surrounded by thr ee smallersemi-domes.  It is almost fractal!


Here are a couple of slightly more detailed shots 
The interior is carpeted.  Here is a view of the region reserved for those wishing to pray – there were mostly men in prayer, but also a couple of 4-year-old boys running a round, a man in traditional garb taking photos and a couple of women.  (There was also a an area reserved for women to pray at the back, behind a lattice.)
Area reserved for prayer.  Note chandeliers, and the pillar, which is all of 5 meters, yes 16 feet in diameter.  (The pillars, lights,and suspension wires prevent enter most photos!)  Note also the stained glass windows.

The tulip did of course originate in Turkey.
There are about 160 windows.  Here are a couple of close ups.
The blue tiles between the windows, and around the  upper gallery, which seemed to be inaccessible, give the mosque its name. I’m sure they’d be amazing from closer.
Blue tiles on the upper gallery wall — note the carved railing.

Blue tiles on the top of pillar.
Over all an amazing building — photo’s don’t do it justice.  (I did find some better photos on wikipedia.  I like this one showing two arcades of the outer courtyard)

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Perhaps heaven will look a little like the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul

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hagia-sophia












Perhaps heaven will look a little like the Hagia Sophia.
This beautiful church was built by the Emperor Justinian in 537 AD and fell to the Turks in 1453.
Oh, desecration, I thought, reading its history. I am so Christian. My ancestors, from the small coastal town of Mangalore on the West Coast of India converted(or were converted) to Catholicism by the Portuguese in the 16th century. I grew up immersed in small town Catholicism—our friendships and social life revolved around church and parish–and then went to a boarding school, where we Catholics were brought up almost like nuns. I became a Mere Christian rather than a Catholic in my twenties. So I’m instinctively Christian.
So to think of beautiful Hagia Sophia, the most sacred space of Eastern Christians, becoming a mosque, the beautiful mosaics of Christ and angels, plastered over, feels a little tragic to me.

Picture of Fragment of Entreaty mosaic with Christ Pantocrator in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey

photo

But when I visited it, it did not feel desecrated.  It had strangeness added to its beauty. It’s still beautiful—just the strangest ex-church in Christendom.

        * * *
How vividly the clash of civilizations and religions is embodied in this cathedral.
Roy and I took a two term fascinating course in The History of Christianity at Oxford University Continuing Education.
The lecturer felt that Islam was the great enemy of Christianity in the marketplace of ideas, that the clash of these titans would only intensify.
Yes, it must. In their own ways, both religions are absolutist.  There is no God, but Allah, and Muhammed is his prophet, Islam says.
 “Muhammed?”Christianity asks. “Jesus says, I am the way the truth, the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
Both believe their way is the right way; both are vigorous proselytising religions—unlike, for instance. Hinduism, Buddhism, or Judaism, which are a whole lot more relaxed.
·      * *
 Well, if there is going to be an inexorable clash of religion and culture between Islam and Christianity, which will wax, and which will wane?
Well, I hope we won’t see too many replays of 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Turks, unaided by her Christian brothers–but who knows?
I do believe though that “victory” will be counter-intuitive. Whichever religion shows more gentleness, more mercy, more love, more goodness, will inexorably “win” in the long run.
Christianity has one of the most counter-intuitive symbols of victory ever. A lamb looking as if it has been slain, seated on the throne.
* * *
Turks are lovely. Friendly, very helpful, kind, smiley and good-humoured. Oh sure, we’ve been over-charged, but charmingly—as well as helped, kindly, freely.  I like them. If one has to be cheated when a naïve tourist, out of your depth, let it be as charmingly as here. A free cup of coffee, “in the house,” courteous chat, and then three times the usual price!!
One way God suggests we gauge his heart is to look at our nobler emotions and multiply them by the distance between the heavens and the earth. God tells Jonah, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”
If I am so charmed by the good humour and friendliness, the energy and bustle of the citizens of Istanbul, how much more then their creator?
When I travel in non-Christian countries, I feel impatient with the theology which would consign entire nations to hell on the basis of their religion. Fortunately, I do not hear Jesus assigning hell or heaven on the basis of faith alone (have a look at the luminous Matthew 25, the parable of the sheep and goats, among many, many other things Jesus said.)
* * *
And so I wonder if Heaven will be a bit like Hagia Sophia, a lovely, mystical holy place, inexpressibly beautiful and tranquil,
It will have beautiful Jesus and beautiful angels
But also will be beautiful in the way Muslims have appreciated and expressed beauty. It may well be syncretic as the Hagia Sophia, and everyone will feel at home there.
The inner most circle in the central dome of Haghia Sophia
photo

All Theocracies are Potentially Dangerous, whether summoned by the Muezzin’s Chant or Bells

By

Blue Mosque 


We are staying in the Sultanahmet Suites, Istanbul. The Gold Suites were next door to a mosque, but had 24 hour security. We chose them, well for the security, and someone to ask for help if the wifi died, anything in the apartment malfunctioned, we needed directions to shops, attractions, or the Bosphorus cruise I’d love to take.
But the muezzin’s call at dawn!! Goodness, how loud. How unbearably loud! Beautiful? Well, not to my ears which find Gregorian chant beautiful, but all aesthetic appreciation, of course, is an acquired taste.
But at 5.15 in the morning, to be rudely awakened, with sentiments which must seem platitudinous if you are awakened with them every dawn, and hear them at mid-day, mid-afternoon, at sunset and two hours after sunset besides….
And here a translation of the call, in a call and response form, possibly derived from Judaism and Christianity.

1 Allah u Akbar, Allah u Akbar 
— Allah is Great, Allah is Great
2-Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah – Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah 
— I bear witness that there is no divinty but Allah
3 Ash-hadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullaah
— I bear witness that Muhammad is Allah’s Messenger
4 Hayya la-s-saleah – Hayya la-s-saleah 
— Hasten to the prayer, Hasten to the prayer
5 Hayya la-l-faleah – Hayya la-l-faleah 
— Hasten to real success, Hasten to real success,
6 Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar 
— Allah is Great, Allah is Great
7 La Ilaha ill Allah 
— There is no divinity but Allah

The most annoying part is that the chant—which originally required the muezzin to climb his minaret and sing–is now recorded, and for all we know the muezzin is snug in bed, his earplugs on. So, even the poetry of the singing muezzin, awaking the dawn from his minaret is lost!!
* * *
I endured what felt like 20 minutes of this at dawn and felt it was so dictatorial, so demanding for non-Muslims, non-practising Muslims, and Muslims who would rather sleep to be awakened to listen to this.
In a secular society, this would not be permitted. For instance, earlier this month a Nottingham church was fined £360 for praising the Lord too loudly. That’s apparently noise pollution.
There was a vigorous debate in Oxford about the Muslim community’s petition to be permitted to issue these five times a day call to prayers from their mosque in Cowley Road.
Charlie Cleverly, the Rector of the charismatic St. Aldate’s, Oxford (and someone I viscerally disagree with on many things) opposed it because it is “nuisance noise affecting the inhabitants that have to hear it. I feel it is un-English.”
Come on, Charlie, I thought. (Remember what I said about visceral uneasiness and disagreement?) They are here because you were there. If England hadn’t colonised Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Malaysia, there would be no question of a mosque in the centre of Oxford. “English” is a racial term. Why should these Muslims behave like English people, for heaven’s sake!! Did the English behave like Indians in India or Nigerians in Nigeria?
Interestingly, I was corresponding with an Italian Twitter follower, Alberto Farina who works near the Vatican earlier this week. He wrote
 I work in fact so close to Vatican that each day there’s a deafening moment when I remember how the Bells always toll for me!
I answered that I hear bells throughout the day in Oxford, and think it’s magical.
To which Alberto Farina said, “I do love bells except when I can’t hear anything but! 😉
Amen.
Cleverly was asked whether bells aren’t similar noise pollution. He replied
“There is a world of difference. Bells are just a signal and have been around for 1,500 years. They are a terribly English part of our culture.”
Besides, “I don’t think the meaning of the Arabic in the call to prayer is neutral.
Well, okay, having 5 onslaughts of the call to prayer so recently has laid to rest any nostalgia for the early morning call to prayer I used to hear when visiting my grandparents in Bombay which competed with the rooster’s crow, and announced a day’s adventures and surprises.
I think I can do without it. I will stick to bells (which, incidentally,  I adore).
 * * *
And I do not think I would like to live in a theocracy, a Muslim or a Christian one. I read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale probably 25 years ago, but I don’t think her bleak, dystopian vision of a theocracy is entirely far-fetched. Once you’ve met a few power-hungry, stupid, religious bullies, you’ll agree!
What are the dangers of mixing God and statesmanship? Simply that one can make very stupid political misjudgements while believing that you are prompted to do so by God. George Bush rose before dawn to pray, read his Bible and Oswald Chambers, yet the misguided wars to which he felt led cost the US billions of dollars, thousands of lives, sowed the seeds of hatred in the Muslim world, and who knows what dreadful harvest will be reaped from it? And Tony Blair’s early morning Bible reading,  sadly, did not steer him out of Iraq.
Do I trust the conclusions politicians derive from their prayer and Bible reading? Do I want countries to be run, or foreign policy to depend, on what politicians think they hear in their sessions of prayer and Bible study?
No way! Hearing God accurately is an art. It takes a lifetime to master. Remember St. Francis hearing God say, “Rebuild my church,” and so rebuilding St. Damiano where he heard this with money purloined from his father? But, as usual, God was thinking much bigger than we dream.
I think I would rather be governed by people who use their spirits in conjunction with their heads, hearts and the advice of wise peers. Power often attracts the worst people, and I do not believe that power in the hands of very religious people, who believe they hear from God, would necessarily give us a better society than power in the hands of mildly Christian people (like Obama and Cameron) who are also highly intelligent, cool, level-headed and have good judgement.
I once worshipped in a charismatic church in which the Rector and his wife sometimes did foolish and abusive things—and blamed the Holy Spirit for them. “The Holy Spirit told us,” they’d say when embarking on a naked power play, or some patently advantageous, ambition-gratifying ploy.
Can you imagine a nation run like that? No, I guess I support the American Founding Father’s principle of the separation of Church and State.
I want to live in the Kingdom of God within me, and I would love to live in the Kingdom of God in Oxford, in England, in Europe.
And one way to bring this about is by establishing the Kingdom of God in the hearts and spirits of the inhabitants of these beloved places. And let it start with me!