Lentamadan

We are now a week into Ramadan. A little less than that into Lent.

And already all of me – soul and spirit, joints and marrow – is inflamed with the richness of days marked by prayer, baklava, and sleep deprivation.

This is Lentamadan. A holy month of fasting when this quite Christian family in a fairly Muslim world brings the hems of their spirituality together in a strange tableau of faith. I grew up observing neither Lent nor Ramadan, and as much as my Church of Christ DNA pushes me to hold all religious rituals with an open-handed skepticism (well, “other” people’s rituals anyways), it is also the hunger pang that drives me to other tradition’s doors, eager to sample the flavor God takes on at their tables.

I once asked a Muslim friend how she would feel for me to fast Ramadan not only as a mark of solidarity with my neighbors but also as a spiritual discipline as a follower of Christ.  The answer was unequivocal. Of course! It would be almost more offensive for it not to be a spiritual discipline. This is a time we all draw closer to God and to each other. Fast. Pray as you do. You are welcome.   

Of course, like every society that weaves religion a little too tightly into their culture, there are places that chafe. The first couple of days of Ramadan are not unlike the holy days leading up to Christmas – a holy nightmare. Day one is usually full of goodwill and the milk of human kindness as everyone is bonded in their hunger and anticipation of the breaking of the fast that night, waiting in line for the best cut of lamb at the butcher or giving cheerfully to the usually high number of beggars threading through traffic jams. But by day three, those caffeine and nicotine withdrawals have amplified the growling stomachs to a fever pitch and you are just as likely to get the finger as you are a blessing.  

But by now, the days have settled into a routine as though the entire world has taken on a new circadian rhythm. Days inhale and exhale quietly as though sleeping. The nights pant with life.

Suhur comes early. Well before dawn the first call to prayer rings out and all who will eat or drink before the sun rises pull themselves out of sleep and down to the kitchen. Some families eat leftovers from the big Iftar meal the night before. Our family groggily slurps back some cereal and yoghurt. Russell and I shoot back some black coffee, willing it to slow-release over the next 12 hours. We go back to bed for another 40 minutes, stomach bloated with as much water as we can hold to last the day.

For our family, this is a ritual of only once a week. Maybe it would be easier to just embrace the full experience and take on all 30 days. Perhaps someday. For now, we have all given up something for Lent and taken on one day of fasting Ramadan-style.

I’ve loved hearing about our girls’ experience of this kind of fast at school. The third grader who is determined to participate but really hates the felt experience of hunger is usually given encouragement and pointers for beginner fasters by her Muslim teacher as she is escorted to a resting area during lunch period. The 6^th grader plays basketball with the Syrian and Tunisian boys during lunch because they are the others who are also not eating. The 8^th grader fasts with her girls’ Bible study group. And then comes home casually referencing the good conversation she and her friends have been having about prayer, especially in light of (and with) the Muslim classmate who recently had an old woman come to her in a dream and speak scripture over her.

Even on the days we are not fasting, we show up in the world differently. Though this is a fairly secular nation on the categorical curve, it is still respectful not to drink in public, snack or chew gum. Women are supposed to tone down the makeup. Almost every restaurant and all 27 million coffee shops are closed. Office hours are unpredictable. 

But in that last long hour before sundown the world starts to come alive again. Families take walks in the neighborhood and joggers take a quick run, everyone moving their bodies in the final space before rehydration. Gangs of boys play soccer in the street, easing languidly aside when cars pass on the way to a relatives’ house. Our corner bakery and vegetable stand are overrun with last minute shoppers, fathers striding out with half a dozen baguettes under their arm, women with a basket of fennel bulbs in one fist, the hand of a small child in a school uniform in the other.

Cooking a big meal deeply hungry is a such a simple yet stretching thing to do. Doing it once a week gives me enormous respect for those who do it every night for a month. No snitching, no licking spoons, no taste-testing. Just slicing and measuring, sniffing and kneading. Then, we gather around our table, the food steaming in front of us. When the weather is warm, as it has been this week, we leave the window open so we can hear better. Before each plate is a tall glass of water. On each plate a plump date. The Koranic reading from our neighborhood mosque will have been going on for a good 15 minutes. When it finally quiets we all strain our ears. The entire city waits with bated breath. Every street is empty. Every home is full. You can easily believe that the entire planet is quiet, weighted with expectation. And then in the distance – boom – a cannon goes off. The signal that the sun has now officially set. We can eat.

Bismillah. In the name of God.

We drink. We eat a date (Or three. Tradition says the Prophet only ate odd numbers of dates so you can follow suit. If you’re into that kind of thing. Which we kinda are.)

And it feels so good. Full helpings over lingering conversation. And then a sampling of sweets from the confectioners across the street: makrudh, basbusa, yuyu, kunefa, samsa. Tea. Maybe some coffee, even though I know I will regret that come 5am tomorrow. By nightfall the streets are filled with people on their ways to prayers, to coffee shops, to parties and gatherings. I literally got caught in a traffic snarl up on the way to pick up one of the girls from a birthday party at 10pm the other night (even little kids birthday parties become late night affairs!).

Fasting is a kind of reordering of the world, resituating the ordinary back into its rightful place of awe. As daughter number two said the other day, “Mama, I never knew that a glass of water was so good until I spent the day thirsty.” There is no joy so small and so deep as looking at the bright red apple in the fruit bowl longingly and then realizing, I can eat! This was made for me. I’m alive.    

Some Christians find Ramadan to be a very dark season. I don’t want to be quick to judge – I agree that it is a very spiritually dynamic season. And not all spirits are of the Spirit. My own dreams this week have reminded me of this. So I approach this space with humility and caution.  

But.

I also think poor missiology can sometimes be mistaken for spiritual sensitivity. Ethnocentrism and bigotry-lite masked as theological orthodoxy. I can only speak to my experience of Ramadan – no more, no less. And to me, it is not dark. It is alive. Ripe with potential. Whether out of the lazy cultural conditioning we all fall prey to at times (and which God is very capable of using for his own purposes) or very real spiritual hunger, the world I live in is seeking God right now. And historically, God has gone to some pretty extreme lengths to be found.

Oh, that we might grant others the same opportunity of finding the risen Christ amidst the detritus of their own deeply cherished traditions as we have found him amidst ours. If Jesus has the humility to allow himself to be found amidst the nationalism, violence, racism, exclusivism and utter greed of the religious systems I represent, I will not dare to suggest he won’t show his face amidst the beautiful and broken trappings of the religious systems my neighbors represent. God has little snobbery in his appraisal of the various stepping stools we use to reach him. Nor does he mind sweeping these stools aside as we grow to see how little we need them. All of them.    

Ramadan draws us into dependence on God. Lent reminds us we are but dust. Everything we have comes from the hand of God. We are all in need of healing.

All is gift. All will die.

But right now, we are alive. And hungry. We live in this God-haunted world where he speaks to us in dreams and in written words and in the voices of our children and neighbors and strangers. He calls us into life beyond our lives. Beyond these bodies that carry us through the motions of our faith. Rested or barely making it through the day, with bellies full or empty, as Maverick City plays against the backdrop of the chant weaving from the minaret down the road, we pray. And we keep seeking.