My (earnest, irate) thoughts

One recent morning, as I was pulling into a BP gas station and I saw a horrible sight in the middle of the road. A small brown bird had been hit by a car or landed in a puddle of oil or something, because its wing was bent at an unnatural angle and seemed stuck to the pavement. A dozen identical birds were flapping their wings, chirping and screeching all around, and seemed to be trying to help. But every time a car got near, the other birds had to fly up to the electrical wire or over to the grass to avoid getting hit, and the injured bird stayed trapped, struggling wildly.

I felt sick, watching it. I thought about helping, but I had no idea what to do. Cars came by every few seconds or so, into the gas station or out of it. The hurt bird was in the middle, so the cars passed by about a foot away on either side. Back and forth went the birds, committed to rescuing their friend. Back and forth. A wave of flapping wings knowing just when to depart, when to return. All the while chirping and screeching (advice and directives?) in their language. I went into the store to get coffee. When I came back out, all trace of the birds was gone. There was no blood or guts on the ground, no chirping birds on the wire or in the nearby sky. Not even one feather remained. They had done it, they had rescued him. I have no idea how.

I have begun to pray the obligatory prayers again. Yusuf, probably thinking it would inspire us, set up the ezan machine, a plastic mosque that sings a recorded Arabic call to prayer at the appointed times. The times are slightly off, because our city is not major enough to have its own setting: you have to be a New York or a L.A. to warrant that. When it yelled Allahu ekber Allahu ekber this morning, I jumped out of my skin.

I am used to being wrathful at the beep-beep-BEEP-BEEP of my ’70s-era alarm, and then, as I remember why I am waking up in the dark, I push my ‘just five more minutes’ nefis aside to head for the bathroom. Then, as it dawned that I was furious with what should be a lovely, if mechanical, call to prayer filled me with enormous guilt. ‘Why did you set that?’ I demanded, irate that guilt was my first emotion of the day. My husband looked taken aback. Then I noticed he was wearing the knit prayer hat I hadn’t seen in months. ‘Are you praying?’ I asked. Probably sarcastically, because it had been me going it alone these last few weeks. ‘Last night I did,’ he said softly, still looking shocked. I got up and washed and prayed, an extra two rakats — perhaps I was seeking absolution. Then I fell back asleep sort of fitfully, without explaining my behavior. I was blushing in the dark, unable to understand why my heart was beating so fast. Then I remembered why, one morning months ago, I had taken the batteries out of the ezan machine. We weren’t praying then, and the noisy five-times-daily reminder of the obligation I was shirking sent my guilt into overdrive. It was better, I had thought, to wake up to the alarm, feel a prick of guilt for not having set it early enough, and then go on with my day. But I couldn’t understand why its unexpected sound still evoked the same flood of guilt, since I was getting up to pray.

Honestly, and I swear there’s no judgment here, but I don’t know how folks who don’t pray live in Muslim countries, where the call to prayer rings out every single day whether you want the reminder or not. The guilt would kill me, I think. I’d have to start praying, or run away to a non-Muslim-majority country, where the faithful go to noiseless churches once a week, where the dead go silently to nondescript funeral parlors, eerie places with flowers and low lights and grave men in gray suits. The noises of Turkey — the ezan, and the funeral prayer ringing out for the recently deceased, washed and wrapped in white cloth and prayed over before going directly into the earth — must be an uplifting blessing for the faithful, and a crushing burden for the faithless.

When my husband said, ‘I don’t understand you’ I thought, ‘I don’t understand me, either.’

Like in Istanbul, when my non-Muslim stepfather greeted us at breakfast at our tiny hotel near the Blue Mosque, and as we gorged on fresh bread with cherry jelly, honey and white cheese and cup after cup of hot çay, he said, with a look of surprised happiness on his face, ‘I heard the ezan this morning through the window.’ And I would smile and say, ‘Me too’ but I would blush furiously, because the sound had woken me from sleep and briefly, but pointedly, made me mad. I envied his ease, how the sound was novel for him, the way wearing a headscarf at my nikah had been, a foray into something foreign, not a lifestyle to be lived.

It’s like this weekend. I went to visit my grandmother on Saturday, bringing her lentil soup and a chopped salad with my experimental attempt at vinaigrette. We made conversation, and of course it devolved into listening to my grandmother pass on hearsay and judgment about people I do and don’t know. She’s a devout Christian, but born and raised in Georgia, and for a great many Southerners, gossiping comes as natural as breathing. Afterward, I was wrecked. I felt exhausted from playing the ‘dutiful granddaughter, who behaves so selflessly now that she’s Muslim’. And ashamed that my good deed came didn’t seem to come from my heart, that I had to push myself to do it, push myself to get through it, and then try not to complain about it incessantly afterward (I failed at the last one). On Sunday, I visited my deceased grandmother’s best friend, bringing her a lobster sandwich from her favorite restaurant. And, though I thought I had absolutely no expectations from our time together, afterward I felt exhausted, again. Maybe from playing the ‘personification of perfect, contented Islam’ role, which — yes I know — is absurd. Maybe because I wish good deeds gave me that thrill of a job well done, like they seem to for my mom, whose nur shines on her face after she plants flowers in my yard or helps Yusuf study for the GRE.

My brain knows Allah loves me, and that religion is forgiveness, not guilt; Muhammad is a prophet of comfort, not gloom. Why doesn’t my heart know this?

I vaguely remember Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, saying in one of his writings that sometimes with delicate, sensitive people, Satan whispers to them that their ‘bad’ thoughts are proof that they are not really Muslim, because if they were ‘really’ Muslim, their thoughts would be pure. Is that what this is? Is this just Satan being a bastard, or is this ugliness the real me? … Another question: Must right thought precede right action, or does right thought stem from right action?

I was having the worst headaches. Every day from morning till night, and sometimes even in my dreams. Pounding or dull, they never really went away. At first I tried to be stoic. But deep in my heart I am a pill-popper. I started allowing myself one Excedrin at work and two Advil at night. I read once that women feel pain more than men, and respond better to medication. Sounds made-up, but I’m going to pretend it’s true. My husband, being naturally suspicious of all pills (even vitamins), made me go to the doctor.

I always want to burst into tears when I go to the doctor — something about my weight being written down, and an acquaintance listening to me, with concern, as I talk about myself. It’s very moving. Sometimes I do cry a little. Sometimes the doctor then tries to prescribe me an anti-depressant. But after a brief, torrid affair with Paxil in 2002, I just say no. (Paxil made me think it was OK to make fudge a couple of times a week. And eat it by myself. Thirty pounds later, my low self-esteem was good common sense.)

The doctor listened with concern. Tears idiotically sprang to my eyes. I wanted to talk forever. I simultaneously wanted him to leave me alone so I could sob. I struggled to limit my symptoms to one or two. When I start to talk to a doctor the way I talk to a friend, veering crazily between laughter and tears, the doctor is always like, ‘whoa.’ It’s like when I tried therapy. After knowing me exactly thirty minutes, the psychiatrist wanted to write me a prescription for Lexapro. Doctors, they’re all the same. A bunch of drug pushers. But it’s understandable. Western medicine has evolved on the assumption that the human brain is the be-all, end-all of this entire universe. Doctors don’t understand that a little insanity, a few neuroses, are vital to tell a good story. And that this is what I do for a living. I’ll take my contemplation with a side of crazy, thanks.

Anyway, this doctor politely overlooked my teariness and took me through the results of my blood work. No surprise: high blood pressure. I’ve been overweight and sedentary since college. And until I got married, 50% of my caloric intake was Mountain Dew. But I’d really been trying to turn my life around. I gobble up salads, and go for walks — maybe not every day but more than before — and I no longer drink or smoke, and I’ve really, really cut back on soda and coffee.

But the doctor laid down a new law: No salt. This sucked. I was never really into salt until I married a Turk who eats sunflower seeds like regular people eat M&Ms. Suddenly, it came to me in a flash: sunflower seeds! My headaches were the worst in the evening, pounding all through the night. The saltiness of our nightly sunflower-seed-bonanza in front of the TV had sent my already-high blood pressure over the top, and given me hypertension headaches.

Now I’m under orders to exercise daily and eat no salt and a long list of other tasty things. And calm down. I’m really trying. But I have been a bad kid, as my husband would say, and it will take time to undo the damage. I want to treat my body as a temple. It really bothers me, actually, because I am so disciplined in other ways. Like when it comes to reading, considering, learning. Every night I read several pages of A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. (After I’m done, I will know everything there is to know about the Abrahamic religions. You can quiz me.) But when it comes to eating right and exercising, knowing the right thing doesn’t equate to doing it. My nafs is a jerk, and makes a good case for adding an order of Macadamia-nut cookies to my six-inch Gardenburger sub, or for watching Prison Break from the couch rather than the treadmill.

The worst thing is how these shortcomings have led to a skewed self-image that tears me up emotionally. In your prayers, please think of me, and ask God to help me with my struggle. In this world where so many people don’t have enough food, the least I can do is not eat their share.

After reading Rusty’s entry about introverts and IM (yeah, I don’t even have an IM program anymore) I wanted to see my whole Keirsey temperament profile. See, I adore taking quizzes. Especially when the results promise to delve into the mysterious depths of me. I’m not a medium (you’ll understand that reference when you get to the bottom of this description) but I do think this is a fairly good description of my personality, even though I’m only like 1 percent “J”. My favorite part is that I share this temperament type with Mohandas Gandhi. Which is basically pretty awesome. Find out who you are at www.keirsey.com.

I am an INFJ. I is for introvert, which means people who tend to need solitude to re-energize. N is for intuitive, which means people who tend to gather information in a ‘going with my gut/heart’ more than a ‘just the facts, ma’am’ kinda way. F is for feeling, which means people whose decisions tend to be ruled by their emotions more than their thoughts. J is for judging, which means people who tend to prefer order to chaos. Emphasis mine (for parts that are extra-super me.)

The Portait of the Counselor (INFJ)
The Counselor Idealists are abstract in thought and speech, cooperative in reaching their goals, and enterprising and attentive in their interpersonal roles. Counselors focus on human potentials, think in terms of ethical values, and come easily to decisions. The small number of this type (little more than 2 percent) is regrettable, since Counselors have an unusually strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others and genuinely enjoy helping their companions. Although Counsleors tend to be private, sensitive people, and are not generally visible leaders, they nevertheless work quite intensely with those close to them, quietly exerting their influence behind the scenes with their families, friends, and colleagues. This type has great depth of personality; they are themselves complicated, and can understand and deal with complex issues and people.
Counselors can be hard to get to know. They have an unusually rich inner life, but they are reserved and tend not to share their reactions except with those they trust. With their loved ones, certainly, Counselors are not reluctant to express their feelings, their face lighting up with the positive emotions, but darkening like a thunderhead with the negative. Indeed, because of their strong ability to take into themselves the feelings of others, Counselors can be hurt rather easily by those around them, which, perhaps, is one reason why they tend to be private people, mutely withdrawing from human contact. At the same time, friends who have known a Counselor for years may find sides emerging which come as a surprise. Not that they are inconsistent; Counselors value their integrity a great deal, but they have intricately woven, mysterious personalities which sometimes puzzle even them.
Counselors have strong empathic abilities and can become aware of another’s emotions or intentions — good or evil — even before that person is conscious of them. This “mind-reading” can take the form of feeling the hidden distress or illnesses of others to an extent which is difficult for other types to comprehend. Even Counselors can seldom tell how they came to penetrate others’ feelings so keenly. Furthermore, the Counselor is most likely of all the types to demonstrate an ability to understand psychic phenomena and to have visions of human events, past, present, or future. What is known as ESP may well be exceptional intuitive ability-in both its forms, projection and introjection. Such supernormal intuition is found frequently in the Counselor, and can extend to people, things, and often events, taking the form of visions, episodes of foreknowledge, premonitions, auditory and visual images of things to come, as well as uncanny communications with certain individuals at a distance.
Mohandas Gandhi, Sidney Poitier, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Goodall, Emily Bronte, Sir Alec Guiness, Carl Jung, Mary Baker Eddy, Queen Noor are examples of the Counselor Idealist.

I loved answering the questions, even when they asked the same thing in different ways, and I loved reading the results and pondering what it all meant. I think one’s reaction to the test is indicative of one’s personality. My mom, a Protector Guardian (ISFJ) loved taking the test — but couldn’t have cared less about reading the results. My husband, a Supervisor Guardian (ESTJ) was bored immediately with the questions — but loved reading the results and reaffirming things about himself.

Please leave comments (or send me an e-mail) to tell me about your uniquely wonderful temperament.

I recently learned about ’secret shirk’. Shirk, the Islamic term for polytheism or idolatry, is the vice opposite the virtue of tawhid, declaring that which is One, or monotheism. As I understand it, ’secret shirk’ is when you behave as if you’re in the midst of tawhid, for example by performing ritual prayer, but your intention is idolatrous because you strive to beautify those prayers for the sake of other people who are watching.

I like Islam because it is not simply a belief structure, but a way of life. Actions give form to intentions. Actions make belief — in itself an esoteric and intangible thing — a concrete thing.

That concreteness, of course, can also be dangerous. The structure can, over time, take the place of the thing it is supposed to merely contain and give form to. The actions take the place of beliefs, the rituals the place of the intentions, and you have become a hollow shell. That is when we find ourselves engaged in secret shirk — striving to appear holy to other people, rather than striving to be close to God.

On Judgment Day, it is said that God will ask us, “For whom did you pray? Not for me. So go and ask them for your reward.”

It’s so typically Jen, but I’ve always been the type that if I can’t do something perfectly, I throw it aside with great force, and go around telling everyone how unnecessary it is. But I can’t do that with salat. I know ritual prayer is one of the five pillars of Islam, one of, if not the, most important action of being Muslim. I could never tell other people it isn’t necessary. Especially when I can feel the difference in myself… my conscience isn’t pricked as easily, my tongue isn’t as guarded, my hands don’t move as quickly to help others, and, worst of all, my motivations aren’t as pure.

Nevertheless, I have been taking a hiatus from salat because my heart wasn’t in it. Though I prayed to God earnestly to make my heart soft and good, though I asked repeatedly for humility and wisdom, salat wasn’t making me closer to God. I performed the prescribed prayers quickly, out of duty, and my mind rushed on to other things, and I began to hate myself. I, and the prayers I performed, seemed hollow and empty.

Of course, not performing them hasn’t made me feel better or more fulfilled. That’s the big lie. First, the prayers go. Then other things go. Someone I used to know called this ‘the nose of the camel in the tent’. I’m not an expert on the personality of camels, but apparently if you even let their nose in, ultimately they eventually shove their whole body inside. You have to be on guard against the initial intrusion.

So taking this break has been damaging. Now I am without protective armor, more vulnerable than ever to devious whispering. Unbidden, the most vile thoughts come into my head: What a hypocrite you are, why do you wear a scarf on your head? You show everyone you are Muslim, but inside there is nothing. So then what? Take off the scarf? Then: You are so immodest, you don’t even wear a scarf. You’re not really Muslim at all. How absurd of you to talk about Islam. Why do you think about religion at all? And so on and so on, until I am stripped clean of this identity, picked down to nothing.

It is recorded that the Prophet Muhammad said, “Ruined are those who insist on hardship in matters of faith.” He said this three times. He also said, “The religion (of Islam) is easy, and whoever makes the religion a rigor, it will overpower him. So follow a middle course (in worship); if you can’t do this, do something near to it and give glad tidings and seek help (of Allah) at morning and at dusk and some part of the night.”

I feel myself being moved to pray what I can, when I can. To push myself slightly, but not too much. Like Turkish mothers, who always say to their children, Yavaş, yavaş: Slowly, slowly. For an adult, maybe it’s like: Don’t change so fast. Real change takes time.

The author Leila Aboulela wrote these words, which moved me to tears: The mercy of Allah is an ocean. Our sins are a lump of clay clenched between the beak of a pigeon. The pigeon is perched on the branch of a tree at the edge of that ocean. It only has to open its beak.

It’s no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am not well-suited to the typical American life. And, Kurt Vonnegut fan that I am, I can articulate why: the lack of an extended family. In God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian, Kurt Vonnegut writes at length about what women and men really want, and why our nuclear families just don’t cut it.

OK, now let’s have some fun. Let’s talk about sex. Let’s talk about women. Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything.

What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish people wouldn’t get so mad at them.

Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more people to tell dumb jokes to.

A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys.

But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it’s a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it’s a man.

When a couple has an argument, they may think it’s about money or power or sex, or how to raise the kids, or whatever. What they’re really saying to each other, though, without realizing it, is this:

“You are not enough people!”

I met a man from Nigeria one time, an Ibo who had six hundred relatives he knew quite well. His wife had just had a baby, the best possible news in any extended family.

They were going to take it to meet all its relatives, Ibos of all ages, sizes and shapes. It would even meet other babies, cousins not much older than it was. Everybody who was big enough and steady enough was going to get to hold it, cuddle it, gurgle it, and say how pretty it was, or handsome.

Wouldn’t you have loved to be that baby?

My two-year-old marriage to Yusuf has had more than its share of downs. Our conversations regularly lead to arguments, which ultimately lead to an icy silence. We spend a terrible amount of time feeling old and worn out, as if we’re 80 years old. And we haven’t even had children yet. Sometimes I doubt if we ever will. Life is so difficult already, and that would add this whole other layer. But then I wonder if, by not having children, we’re contributing to the dumbing-down of society; of those breeding, too many are really stupid. And I wonder if we’re making our own relationship worse; the loneliness piling up, causing us to increase the emotional demands we place solely on each other.

Yusuf and I are so different. For him, traditional gender roles are a fact, not an opinion; instead of laughing at his 1950s outlook, I am irritated by it. We’re both passionate overreacters, tortured souls who burn like Roman candles. In the thick of an argument, we have said terrible things to each other, unforgivable things, the sort of things people should never say if they plan on seeing each other ever again. We’ve vowed not to anymore, but it’s as if we’re sitting on this whole pile of hurled insults, a fetid dump of them.

Other times there’s a gulf between us of all the things we don’t say.

Divorce is permitted in Islam but it’s written that, of all permissible things, it’s the one God hates most. I imagine it is a last resort, for adultery or alcoholism or abuse — not for people who haven’t heaved anything except scorn. But if you have a sharp tongue, maybe you know what I mean: sometimes violent words cause more damage than a punch to the gut.

Anyway, Yusuf would be the first member of his family to get a divorce. I would be the first member of my family not to.

It’s one of a number of glaring differences in our outlooks, stemming from our earliest childhood memories in very different places. Yusuf has memories of playing kickball in the street, climbing trees to eat the sour cherries, telling stories to make his friends laugh. He remembers his older brothers disappointing his parents, and it left an impression on him. He made a concerted effort from a young age not to bother them: cleaning up his own messes, doing what he promised, never letting himself get worn down or sick. By the time he was a teen, he was practically grown-up already: dutiful and respectful toward his parents, who he considered wise.

I remember reading in my room, serials about the Sweet Valley twins (identical opposites with eyes the color of the Pacific ocean). I remember that sinking sensation of walking up to my friends, and realizing they’d just been talking about me. I remember being secretly happy when I got sick because my mom stopped everything to dote on me. I remember very few fights, except during my rebellious teenage years when my parents stopped knowing anything.

He never imagined marriage could be this hard. That’s one thing we have in common.

In marrying Yusuf, I gained an extended family. But they live in Ankara, and it will take years for my pitiful Turkish to allow me to have a conversation. Though even without my comprehension, their love for me was so vast that they stared all the time, grinning foolishly, chattering, gesturing wildly. I was jealous that I lacked their emotional security, their steadfast belief in their family’s love. I was lonely in my non-Turkish-speaking bubble, but surely I could learn enough not to feel left out if we ever live there.

In marrying me, he gained a family. And they live here, but only my mom has shown any interest in helping us with our marital woes, though she admits our situation is over her head. My stepfather stays out of it, my grandparents stay out of it, and my brother stays out of it; at first I didn’t assume this was total detachment and disinterest, but now I know that it is.

I attempted to force a family for us here, visiting my grandmother or inviting my parents for supper. But it always seemed so fake: talking about the weather like strangers, platitudes (”Nobody said marriage is easy”) and jokes. Members of my family always trying to lighten, to diffuse, to skip past unpleasantries, as if the point of life is to avoid frowning. I can’t make them real; being phony with them comes so easily that I wonder if I was ever real. And there’s the rub: in joining them in their phoniness, I’ve lost any desire to contact anyone. I remember one really bad fight, where I thought my husband and I were really getting divorced — this is it — and my brother and my baba looked into my sobbing face and said nothing, and didn’t reach out to hug me. They just looked confused.

Though there are many real things we could discuss, several members of my family can’t really understand my husband’s English (how hard are they trying, I wonder) and they’re introverted (better adapted to their situations than I) and there are simply not enough of them… our personal flaws glare dully for each other, unfiltered, not lessened by the more people I think we need.

I think this because of my family’s faces, all glowing happily the night before the Turkish wedding last summer. Hundreds of people smushed together in my in-law’s driveway, spilling out into the street, wearing their best clothes, happy tears streaming down their cheeks. My brother and Baba laughing as they danced in the street, Mom making good friends with a Turkish lady who appointed herself my mom’s bodyguard against the other hundreds of women who wanted to hug or shake hands. Even me, feeling ridiculous in my Aladdin costume, but serene as I surveyed the insanity surrounding me. As Baba put it, “I have never seen 500 people have such a good time without any alcohol.”

And I think of how things might have been, if we were African or Latino… or even if I were Turkish and we lived in Ankara near his family. Maybe one day we can. I have always been able to clearly picture my home with more people — more warmth and more hassles and more drama and more laughter. Once I got it, I’m sure I would want to kick myself for having wanted it. But I would also love it, because for me, more is always better than not enough. Especially for something I feel short-changed on: love.

A Turkish friend was saying to me one thing she likes about America: how people mind their own business. In Turkey, she was saying, family members give their opinions whether you want them or not, they really butt in. So I told her of the flip side to that privacy… that when they leave you alone, they leave you alone.

Maybe Western civilization will evolve out of the nuclear family, shedding it like we discarded other things when we found something better: typewriters for computers, cassettes for CDs. Maybe I can figure out a way to come to terms with my not being born into a family of ten, but I’m hardly hopeful. I am so defensive and prickly, always fretting that I look or sound stupid, overwhelmed by crowds, seeking time alone even though I am unbearably lonely. I worry that my occupation is so individualized and detail-oriented and that it’s making me autistic. This is not normal, but how to fix it?

I had a lovely conversation with a wonderful Christian lady yesterday. Though I was supposed to be the journalist, she was more talented at digging for information… she got me to tell my whole life story, including how I met my Turkish husband, Yusuf, in an ESL class and my journey into Islam. Tragically, I turned a heart-wrenching, difficult process into one long anecdote: “Yeah, my dad said ‘OK, you’re looking a little Arabicized’” and “Sometimes I wish I could tell people, ‘I’m not oppressed, I swear!’” She burst out laughing.

But it was nice, to joke around about stereotypes with someone I felt an immediate kinship with. She was such a good-hearted person, and so interested in what would cause a sunny-haired feminist of Irish ancestry to say La ilahe ill’Allah, Muhammad’ur rasul’Allah. I was embarrassed to be standing in her territory (a Christian indoor attraction for families), so I summed up my decision with an offhand, “It’s all basically the same, with one more book, one more prophet.” And I said, “The stuff we see on TV… it’s politics, not religion.” She looked overawed. I could almost see the veil falling from her eyes. We chatted about the sacrifice of Ibrahim (Abraham), the Torah of Musa (Moses), the Psalms of Dawud (David), the Gospel of Isa (Jesus), Yunus (Jonah) and the Whale, Nuh (Noah) and the Flood. After that, I was high as a kite, hopeful she would one day pick up a Qur’an and read it out of curiosity.

I was very moved by the Christians there. They were kind and good and curious. I could see the shining white light of God in their faces. And they were the well-traveled sort, discontent to stay put when others suffer, who have been missionaries in far-flung lands like Papua New Guinea, and who have translated the New Testament into little-known languages like Hawaiian Pidgin [if you’ve never seen Da Jesus Book, you have not truly lived. ‘Jesus chose his twelve apostles’ becomes ‘Jesus ben pick his 12 spesho guys.’]

Speaking of inter-faith dialogue, I watched a show on DVD last night, NOW with Bill Moyers on religious fundamentalism. His guest was religious scholar Karen Armstrong, a former nun who calls herself a “freelance monotheist” (I love that) because she draws from all three of the traditions of Abraham, her native Christianity, as well as Judaism and Islam. In fact, after her devastating experience in a convent, it was a trip to Jerusalem, and the uneasy, vibrant jostling of the faiths there, that renewed her interest in religion.

Armstrong is my hero. This woman is so well-read, so bright, so articulate, so brilliant in describing what the real issues are. I haven’t seen anyone of any faith, including Islam, describe the Muslim heart so well. She talks about good religion and bad religion (and she doesn’t let American Christian fundies off the hook). She explains the Muslim heart and mind as if she were a Palestinian refugee herself.

And the whole time Moyers has this pinched look on his face, saying ignorant things (”I keep hearing Islam is a religion of peace, but what about 9/11?!™”). And she’s so polite, she doesn’t even roll her eyes, she just shifts it back to how there is a religion [here], and there are 20th-century reactionary politics springing from fear of Western foreign policies toward the Middle East [there].

She explained that before the 20th century, the top intellectuals in the Muslim world were completely enamored of the West — and were calling for their own societies to embrace technology and democracy. Then Britain and France began carving up the Ottoman Empire and displacing Palestinians. Then America began funding Israel’s brand of state-sponsored terrorism. Before the 1960s, there was no such thing as Islamic fundamentalism, which is ‘bad religion’ springing from ‘bad politics’. I have seen the enemy, and he is me. Fundamentalism is everywhere, poisoning everything. It is not us versus them. It is us versus us.

The prophet Muhammad said, “The ultimate jihad (struggle) is to win our nafs (soul).” It’s like Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh said, “I see that the real enemy of man is not man. The real enemy is our ignorance, discrimination, fear, craving and violence.”

Another one of my favorite hadiths is this: “Spread peace, feed people and do some devotional practice, and you will enter Paradise without any trouble.” Karen Armstrong is truly a spreader of light and peace. May God uplift her spirit and shower radiant blessings upon her.

There is a pervasive emptiness to everything lately. Attempting to ward off the devils of insecurity and doubt eating at my soul, I finished reading a book, Believing as Ourselves by J. Lynn Jones, for the third time… and as always, I was amazed at how succinctly she describes it.

“It” is the American convert to Islam, who looks more Arabic than the Arabs, and is so eager to please and so desperate to fit in that she sacrifices her authentic self — the questioning, subversive self that propelled her to Islam in the first place — and is left with a hollow soul, unsatisfying prayers, and relationships that smack of superficiality. Lately, that’s me to a T.

Reading this book, I cried so hard that I wondered how it was possible to be in that much pain without an apocalyptic event beforehand. But recognizing the emptiness of my life — because I keep going away from God and back to other people to fill my void — brought me shame. The validation of others is so intoxicating, so powerful… like a drug. Even when I think I’m recovered from the addiction, there it is, calling me. And the holy month of Ramadan begins tomorrow. I hated myself. And I shook with sobs, because there is no worse hatred than the hatred of one’s own self.

Jones’ book is such a gift. Unlike most of the other books out there, that go on and on and on about all the glories of Islam and the shining wonders of being Muslim until you barf, she is honest and real. I am incredibly grateful to the friend who recommended it to me. Otherwise I might have ended up one of these jerky ex-Muslims I find sometimes on the Internet, who know just enough to be dangerous, but not enough to shed any light on anything.

Speaking of darkness… yesterday, the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedies, meant newspapers filled with waving American flags, rhetoric about security and safety, and as always, plenty of stories about “Islamic militants.” So many stories about these terrorists with guns and religious zeal that it would give pause even to a lifelong Muslim, not to mention me, still toddling along in my baby steps to God. I forced myself to read articles, briefs and letters to the editor — no one’s going to say I’m turning a blind eye for my faith, I thought perversely — and by the end of it, I was shrinking into myself, eyes welling with tears, and wondering why my co-workers haven’t plotted my death for the greater good.

My (Turkish) husband is fairly convinced about the zionist bent of American media. Having grown up in a country that contains both secular media and religious media, he has trained himself to look for the agenda behind every article. But for me, his theory of the global domination of media outlets and the international banking system by rich Jewish people and Masons who hate Islam, is not enough to explain why. I like conspiracy theories — I thrive on them, actually — but they’re too simple to explain what has to be a more complex truth.

Yes, western media continually confuse 20th-century political conflicts — why are Palestinians routinely called “suicide bombers” instead of “freedom fighters” anyway? — with a 1,400-year-old religion that preaches peace, and only allows war in self-defense. But that could be genuine ignorance. Or bewilderment at the amount of history, politics and religion one would have to know to be truly “fair” in an article. Or, perhaps, at the top, the slants could be attempts by the West to justify many centuries’ worth of unjustifiable actions in the resource-rich Middle East since the Crusades.

Here’s a thought: Why is it that, even now, the word Arab brings to mind fierce deserts and fiercer tempers, curved Saracen blades, and adjectives like swarthy, brooding and bloodthirsty? But the British Empire and its progeny, the American Empire, have in just a few centuries spilled more blood than all the Islamic empires combined. Not to mention destroyed countless native religions, cultures and languages, raped countless women and mutilated countless babies. And yet, the word Brit brings to mind tea parties, and adjectives like wan, reserved and timid. It’s absurd. I wish I could change our collective consciousness, and make Brit call to mind adjectives like sadistic and diabolical, just for the sake of equal time.

Anyway, J. Lynn Jones is my hero. She describes the inabilities, flaws and sins of Muslims and their relationship to Islam as being a bit like students in a geometry class who fail to apply its principles correctly. Their inaptitude may make them fail a test, or the whole class, but does not in any way tarnish geometry itself. Reading those words turned on a light bulb… there are evil and ignorant people in this world, and some of them are, or think they are, Muslim. They do incomprehensible things. This does not change Islam.

So back to my ongoing quest to be an authentic human being. Here are the things in my life that seem artificial, contrived and “byzantine” — thanks Rusty — the things I would like to change. Like the Sufi proverb says, “No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road, come back.”

• My daily namaz, the ritual prayer, is sorely lacking. Sometimes I forget where I am in the prayer, and despite myself the long string of holy recitations in Arabic becomes a long string of meaningless sounds. My mind wanders. I worry God is looking down at me and my pathetic prayers with increasing disdain.

• My wearing of hijab, though I doubt it’s ever easy for anyone, is becoming increasingly difficult. Twice in recent weeks, strangers have harassed me. Both times, it was hoodlums wearing wife-beaters in pick-up trucks. They drive right up on my bumper, then peel around it, incensed that I had the audacity to drive only 5 mph above the speed limit. They look at me as they pass, and I feel their shock that I’m wearing a headscarf. Their middle fingers raised high, they yell things I’m glad I don’t understand, mocking me because I “hate freedom and the American way of life.” These guys would be jerks even if I were as naked as other women. But man, does it bug me, that they insult my religion to my face. I have slowly become a scared version of myself, an agoraphobe. I am afraid of new places and meeting new people, wondering how the scarf on my head will affect the situation. Lately all I can think about are the things I never did — scuba diving, rock climbing, backpacking through Europe — things I probably never would have done, but now I feel incredibly bothered at having the choice ripped away. My husband thinks that I really am this sedentary, unadventurous person, and cannot fathom why I suddenly want to go hiking in the mountains, or why wearing a scarf cannot possibly be part of it.

• Though I do remember how every single Christmas since I was 14 years old had always made me wonder: What do presents stuffed under a fir tree have to do with baby Jesus?… I miss Christmas carols. I miss belting out O Holy Night and accompanying myself on the piano. I miss wine, too. I miss many things about the life of a nominal Christian, of being a part of the rampant commercialism, as nonsensical and theologically unsound as it all was. I guess because some of my new holidays — Ramadan, the 30 days of daylong fasts, for example — necessarily lack some of the, let’s say, sparkle.

• The burdensome reminders of hadiths and sunna practices of the Prophet Muhammad. Even right now in my rebellion I don’t want to write “peace and blessings upon him” because it all just feels like missing the forest for the trees. I worry there’s a hadith, a saying of the Prophet, or a sunna, a behavior of the Prophet, for every possible human situation. Early Muslims were meticulous in jotting this stuff down. But it’s starting to make me crazy. Entering the bathroom with my left foot, drinking with my right hand, saying elhamdulillah every time I sneeze… my husband’s chidings sometimes makes me want to stab him in the neck with my pencil. I remember one time early on when I was reading the Qur’an, just for fun. Yusuf saw me and said, “Do you have abdest?” Abdest is the ritual washing Muslims do before they pray, or evidently, read the Qur’an. I quietly placed the book back on the shelf, and never picked it up voluntarily again.

I don’t even know where to begin to get back on my right path. I figured the first step was getting this down, in the hopes that somewhere, someone might have useful, hard-earned wisdom to share.

A minor fiasco erupted at my house when our neighbor’s boarder decided to tinker with his Harley-Davidson on Sunday afternoon, while Yusuf and I were watching a movie, Blood and Oil: The Middle East During World War I. (Spoiler alert: the British and French succeed in colonizing the Middle East.) Just as we were learning that Sir Winston Churchill was in fact the devil, vroom vroom went the bike next door. My heart started to beat a bit faster, because my husband, Yusuf, believes fervently that his right not to be bothered by someone else supercedes the right of someone else to bother him, and he is not known for his mild manners.

Aside: Westerners tend to regard the rights of the individual as most important. The right of a person to seek his happiness, in whatever way he sees fit, is paramount. No other individual, group or government has a right to stop him, unless he’s trying to harm himself or someone else. Easterners, however, tend to regard the rights of the group as more important than that of its individual members. The right of a group not to be burdened by ill-behaved individuals is paramount. The group has the duty to correct the individual’s behavior or remove him from the group, in order for its members’ happiness to continue uninterrupted. Maybe this is why Western governments have had to create laws for countless situations, and why Western laws in general are incredibly ineffectual for deterring crime or “deviant” behaviors. Maybe this is why Eastern societies often have a strong “shame” culture, and the unspoken punishment for acting out (the disapproval of others) is the real deterrent. In Islam, there is a strong bent toward the Eastern view.

For example, the harshness of some of the punishments in Sharia (the comprehensive code of Islamic law that evolved from the Qur’an over the centuries). One of the most famous is that theft is punished by the amputation of the thief’s hands. Never mind the fact that this punishment was actually carried out only twice during the 700-year reign of the Ottomans. (And never was anyone punished for stealing food, like Disney movies would have you believe. Rather, the existence of poverty was a source of shame for the wealthy, who are obligated by Islam to give alms to the indigent.) For most people, the mere thought of losing one’s hands was so frightening that stealing ceased to be an option. Thus, the punishment acted as a deterrant, and stealing was rare.

Aside for an aside: Islam and democracy are completely compatible. Islamic states like Iran interest me as a curiosity, something I would like to see and judge for myself without the veil of criticism from narrow-minded journalists. Still, political Islam is a concern — not because of Islam, but because of the shortcomings of the people who would be responsible for interpreting Islamic law. Of course they should forcibly strip away hundreds of years of misogyny, patriarchy and cultural appendages, and go to the very heart of the Qur’an and the spirit of any law derived from it, before they ever hear a case… but what if they don’t? And though I don’t idealize European penal codes or modern Western society’s many social ills, modern “Islamic” states where men abuse their wives, women bear all the punishment of adultery or aren’t granted divorces, are also abhorrent. And all in “the name of” Islam — the religion that actually grants more rights and protections to women than any other society, culture or religion. Muslim women are often ignorant about the rights granted to them by God 1,400 years ago. So it’s particularly annoying that the subjugation of women is something that even some Muslim men strive for.

Over the course of an hour, I watched Yusuf become incensed. I admit, I couldn’t really feel his frustration. Though I certainly don’t like the sound of loud mufflers — especially since I happen to know that the noise Harleys make is a) for show; b) usually increased purposely by the rider; and c) totally unnecessary for bike operation — I accept the eccentricities of my neighbors completely and without reservation. Since it was daytime, I said all we could was ask the guy to stop, and not hold out much hope for that. The conversation started out something like this:

Yusuf: My friend, what is this noise?
Harley: I’m workin’ on my bike, man.
Yusuf: I am trying to watch a movie, but I can’t hear over your noise.

Now see, in Turkey, that statement would really mean something. The person making the noise would feel embarrassed for having bothered someone else, apologize for it, and stop. Actually, Yusuf informed me, no one in Turkey would ever have such a stupid, noisy hobby.

Harley: Look, man. I’m workin’ on my bike. And if you have a problem with that, I really don’t care.
Yusuf: So everyone here has to listen to your noise?
Harley: I work six days a week. This is my only day to work on my bike. So that’s what I’m gonna do.
Yusuf: So how long I have to listen to your noise?
Harley: How long? However long it takes, man.

And so on. The two of them were completely unable to understand where the other was coming from. For Harley, it was a matter of personal enjoyment and rights. For Yusuf, it was a matter of neighborhood etiquette and community rights.

What ultimately happened was actually hilarious, if I only could have stopped the heart palpitations I got from the shouting match in my front yard (I’m a sensitive, easily flustered person). First Yusuf threatened to call the cops. Harley told him to go ahead, shouting that Yusuf needed to learn the rules of America. Yusuf then grabbed his new Nikon camera to snap photos of him working on his bike. Harley offered to pose for more shots. Yusuf shouted that the pictures would be part of his evidence in court. Harley paused, suddenly uncertain. Then Yusuf did a very American thing… he opened the windows of his Honda and cranked a CD of Turkish pop to top volume. Harley demanded that he turn that garbage off. Yusuf said, “You like your noise. I like mine.” Then Lucille, the owner of the house, came barreling out and screamed at Yusuf to turn off the music. He screamed back that he was going to invite five hundred Turkish guys for a barbecue in the street. Lucille shrieked that he wasn’t American and should go back to Turkey. So Yusuf yelled, “What are you talking about? Your husband is Chinese.”

(Background: There is a sad, strange history between Yusuf and Lucille. We were here two weeks when Yusuf hurriedly parked in the street one day, with a few inches of his bumper protruding into the neighbor’s driveway. He hadn’t been inside five minutes when Lucille was shouting and banging on the door with her fists and feet. He opened the door, stunned. Red-faced, she yelled at him for parking there and demanded that he move it immediately. When he started to protest that it would only be a few more minutes — he’d stopped at home to pray before going back out — she shrieked that he couldn’t speak English and should go back to his country. Since he’d been in a praying mindset, he got his keys, moved the car, and went back inside to pray. Ten minutes later, a timid knock at the door. A meek Lucille offering her humblest apologies… her husband had commanded her to apologize, she’s normally not like this, she’d just gotten bad news from the doctor. When Yusuf told me this story, I pronounced her a lunatic and wrote her off. He was more forgiving.

A few months later, her dogs were regularly barking for hours every night in their backyard. This was driving us both slowly mad. Finally, he went over there at 10 o’clock one night, apologized for the late-hour disruption, but asked if they could please do something about their dogs, because it was keeping us awake. She apologized profusely. After that, a few yaps and the dogs were attended to. And in the year we’ve lived here, Lucille has sought Yusuf out on several occasions… when the three-doors-down neighbors were racing their souped-up trucks up and down our cul-de-sac, and when our two-doors-down neighbor was letting his dogs roam unattended in the wee hours of the morning, she ran over to tell Yusuf she agreed with him. On several occasions, she has cornered him to share chapters in her decidedly strange life story… 30 years of marriage to a weak Chinese man who hardly speaks, a transsexual son who doesn’t visit.)

So then Lucille actually called the cops, because Yusuf’s music was bothering her. O, the irony. When two sheriff’s deputies showed up, she ran toward them with the gratitude of a war-torn refugee. They said, “Hey, ma’am, slow down there. Hey, stop. Stop. What are you doing? Stop.” Then she said, “Thank God you’re here. I’ve been scared to death.” Yusuf smirked. The deputies looked her up and down, and looked at Yusuf up and down, and said to Yusuf, “So why did you call us?” O, the hilarity of snap judgments honed from years of dealing with miscreants.

The deputies listened to both of them tell their stories. Yusuf said, “She told me I’m not American. I am citizen, I pay taxes. How I am not American?” From my post at the window, I heard Lucille tell bald-faced lies in her defense: “What are you talking about? I never said that! I don’t know what you’re talking about right now!” One of the deputies remembered Yusuf from the last time he came to our street for a noise ordinance violation — where we live, amidst the redneck pastimes of engine-meddling and drag-racing, this is a weekly occurrence — and pulled him aside to say, “Next time, don’t crank them up. Just call us. You can’t reason with people like this.” He gave Yusuf a card with his name and number, and we went inside. As we did, I heard Lucille say, “I want to make a formal complaint about what he said about my husband.” I heard the deputy say, “Well, ma’am, he didn’t really say anything…”

After all was said and done and the deputies were gone… what struck me was the contrast between Yusuf and me. He felt relaxed, peaceful, calm. I felt tense. He said he wishes we could have a good relationship with our neighbors, as Islam requires, but he wonders how it is possible with people who don’t have “human” qualities like shame, with people who only see as far as their own personal freedom to do as they please.

He said, “What I can do? Let them bother me and not say anything? That’s what’s wrong with Americans. Americans pretend nothing bothers them. And it kills them slowly inside.” (When Yusuf says “Americans” what he actually means are Americans with good manners who pretend not to notice other people’s bad manners. I don’t know if possessing these dual qualities is rare or common. I just know that me, my family and most of my friends are like this.)

He said, “I want to be a good example, and be nice to them. But I have been a good example for a year, not bothering anyone on this street, only saying something if they bother me first. But they don’t understand. They think I am bothering them. They think, because no one says anything, that no one is bothered by their noise. They think they are alone in the world. But I think the other people are happy I say something.” I’m sure the 90 percent of our neighbors who never make excessive noise are relieved. I know I am. But all this has made me curious… how do other Easterners living in the West deal with the bizarre ways that some people behave in a culture “with no shame”?

The first thing I noticed was the color of the tomatoes. Selvi Anne had spread a breakfast feast for us on her round wooden table — chopped hard-boiled eggs heavily salted and peppered, diced cucumbers, large black olives, white cheese, golden honey, creamed butter, crusty bread and tea in tiny glasses with no handles. The tea was a beautiful rosy color, made from loose black tea in an ancient double kettle. But the chopped tomatoes were this insane scarlet color, the juice and seeds the kind that drip down your chin.

In my husband’s parents’ tiny kitchen, they have everything they need. The table is shoved next to the stone wall, between an antique turquoise Frigidaire and an open door. The room is completed with a sink carved from a room-length marble countertop, and wooden cabinets. Four short wooden stools are the only chairs, and meals aren’t necessarily eaten together at the table; rather, family members wander back and forth between the small rooms, or eat in shifts. A gas stove and a stainless steel sink are in the next room. Breakfast was unremarkable for the others, one of thousands of breakfasts they’ve chewed during the real purpose of meals — overlapping conversations. For me it was different.

Left out of the vast majority of conversations — Turkish people love so much to talk that the novelty of attempting English and laughing at themselves soon wears off and is replaced with rapid-fire exchanges in their native language — I was free to devour everything in sight. I ate, and ate, and ate, stuffing myself to the point of extreme discomfort at every meal. And I felt sorry for myself for being left out and not understanding what they were saying, though I did try to hide that. Turkish people worry and fuss over guests enough as it is.

All that eating gave me plenty of time to ponder the many differences between Turks and Americans. The modern Turkish people, descended from the nomadic tribes of the central Asian steppes, are curiously both eastern and western. Turkish people are found in Uzbekistan, where their almond-shaped eyes and glossy hair look Asian; eastern Turkey, where their features are dark; and the Aegean cities, where they are blond with light-colored eyes. Their lifestyle, coming from their early contact with Islam, is decidedly Middle Eastern, with the cultural preferences for modesty and privacy, and their society’s strong emphasis on traditional families. But they dress, enjoy meals and take vacations like Europeans. Yet they are not individualistic like Westerners, and are concerned with others in their thinking and behavior like those in the East. Like the shame cultures of Asian peoples, and the Japanese proverb: “the nail that sticks up is hammered down.”

I spent much of my time in Turkey thinking about the way cultures evolve over centuries, and how religion shapes that evolution. And when I returned home, I started reading a book that explores the theory of Jesus (peace be upon him) traveling to India during the “missing years” of the Bible, and again after he escaped crucifixion. Some texts suggest he lived and died there as an old man, being influenced by and influencing eastern religions, including Buddhism and Hinduism. It is, as it sounds, totally fascinating.

The book talks about how Westerners tends to view themselves as separate from God. As an American, I realize now that I had accepted this mindset completely, and subconsciously.

The Age of Enlightenment represented, in part, a rejection of the Church and its doctrines, especially those that were deemed incomprehensible, unbelievable or irrational — doctrines such as the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. With the exception of those philosophers who adopted Deism, most Enlightenment philosophers rejected religion altogether. That rejection was, however, more a rejection of Christianity and its specific doctrines.

This rejection of Christianity by European philosophers served to distance them from religion in general. This was ironic, because both the Church and the European philosophers — ostensibly at opposite poles of the religious/spiritual spectrum — had separated mankind from God and God from nature, the Church doing so as a matter of doctrine, and the Enlightenment philosophers doing so as a rejection of the supernatural. (”Saving the Savior: Did Christ survive the Crucifixion?” by A.B. Salahuddin, p. 81-82)

Like a typical Westerner, I even thought my conversion to Islam was entirely logical, not spiritual. In fact, I prided myself on this. I thought my decision was a reflection of my very rational rejection of irrational dogma in favor of a religion that made sense. And, in part, it was.

But my decision was also a spontaneous rejection of the flat-out wrong notion that spirituality is necessarily nonsensical, as well as a gradual acceptance of the interconnectedness of all things — man and nature and God. When I read “God is closer to you than your jugular vein” (Qur’an 50:16) I felt a spark that slowly grew into a new perspective. I felt like a child again, looking at the world in wonder and awe. Thinking about a bee making honey, for example, I could be lost for several minutes, pondering how a tiny insect spends its entire life making a delicious substance it personally will never use. I thought about its role in the divine play where all creatures are connected: Bees make sticky, sweet honey that humans eat; honey is delicious, and it also has curative properties, particularly for chest infections; bees work for God by working for man, and they are either content in this role or unaware of it. And how Western man, despite all his intelligence and progress, happily uses the honey but doesn’t ponder where it came from or why it’s there, and even may take a secret, evil thrill in killing a bee — not because it poses a threat, but because he can.

Unlike in Eastern religious philosophy where the presence of God in nature was never threatened by the introduction of ideas to the contrary, where humankind has always been viewed as an intimate part of nature, and where it is understood that a deep relationship exists between humans and nature and God, both Christianity and Enlightenment philosophers succeeded in excising cognizance of these relationships from the psyches of many Europeans, Christianity doing so through creating an external God, and Enlightenment philosophers doing so by rejecting God altogether. (Ibid., p. 82)

It sounds daft, but this made me feel better. Unlike every other book I’ve ever read that explores why Western philosophy is wrong or at least incomplete, this is the only one that doesn’t make me personally feel like an idiot. At least my perspective came from somewhere. At least we can understand why the Western world has gone this route.

This, in turn, led to the idea of nature as purely a resource to be used without regard to how that use might impact humanity, especially in the long run. As a result, science generally proceeded along the lines of a utilitarian notion of nature that precluded the idea of incorporating spiritual insights into the scientific method. (Ibid., p. 82)

The past several centuries have been dominated by the mechanistic thinking of the Enlightenment with its emphasis on the privatization and commodification of nature and man; detachment and isolation from the natural world; and a near pathological obsession with creating a secure, autonomous existence, independent of the forces of nature…

Analytical and rational modes of thinking, mechanistic views of nature, reducing phenomena to purely quantifiable standards of measurement, the neutrality of science, knowledge as power, self-interest as the motivating force in history, the invisible hand of the marketplace, and utilitarianism are among the critical intellectual assumptions that, together, provide a unified schema for the modern notion of an autonomous, secular existence. (”Biosphere Politics: A New Consciousness for a New Century” by Jeremy Rifkin, p. 2)

This more succinctly explains the Eastern notion of Western blindness. It scratches the surface of why the American-European rape of nature occurred and continues to occur, why our brand of capitalism has gotten so ugly, why fascist emperors continue to rise to power in our hemisphere, why science is hell-bent on conquering death and other things beyond human control, and why so many Americans and Europeans self-medicate, trying to ignore their soul’s longing for more than their brain can acquire, attempting to sidestep the human search for enlightenment.

And for me, it answers a question I’ve had for some time — why *all* my intellectual Christian friends, raised with viewpoints and philosophies similar to my own, have spun towards one of two directions: toward a rational atheism, or toward Eastern religions and philosophies. Several friends have even merged Eastern philosophy with Western religion, bothered by either extreme. And now I can better understand my own gravitation toward Turkish Islam, a perspective that is both Western and Eastern and satisfies the, I think, human need for both.