Alone and Together

For the past few years, my most searing question has been one of connection - what does it mean to be both an individual and part of something greater? There are days I ache with this question and all its unknowns and contradictions. There are days when this question sustains me, an infinite well of inspiration.

Of course I find my answers through living the question. Today I find them in quiet moments alone spent reading, feeling lonely yet full to bursting with the gift of others, all at the same time. I'm reading My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok, about a boy who is both an Hasidic Jew and a brilliant artist - a nearly unbearable contradiction. In my quiet moments with this book I am living his need to be who he is, and these moments caress all the other moments of my life, awakening them further.

This concept of artistic originality is truly compelling to me - what does it meant to bring the raw truth of who we are, in many ways rejecting what the world would impel us to be? How can it be that this very act of rejection is the most sure way to embrace and love the world we are in?

Some days I feel overwhelmed by these questions. That is when I write, seeking the connections.

Cultural Trajectories

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently read a couple of books about Islam:

Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, by Tamim Ansary

The Trouble with Islam Today, by Irshad Manji

Destiny Disrupted in particular was a revelation.

At the risk of appearing to oversimplify, let me say this: one of the things that impressed me about this sweeping history was how much and how persistently people are people, no matter where they live, what their culture or religion.

Here’s the theme that I saw in common with all the other histories I’m familiar with.

1. Someone has a really good idea. In this case, it was Mohammed. In other cases, it might be Jesus, or the founding fathers of the US, etc.  
2. People (in one aspect of their peopleness) are impressed by this idea, and align themselves with it.
3. All goes well for a while, except of course having to deal with the existing societal structure (i.e., power structure) that is threatened by this new idea. (The ruling class tried to kill Mohammed, leading to the Hijra; Jesus was crucified and his followers persecuted; and England didn’t take kindly to the colonies’ leaving the fold.) But by and large, this new idea actually works and things go well.
4. Over time, however, another aspect of the peopleness of people takes over, and the powerful find ways to infiltrate the new system and leverage it to their advantage. This leads to a corruption of the system, stratification of society, consolidation of power once again.
5. However, it also leads to a boom in culture. Once some people have the wealth to have leisure, all kinds of things like writing, education and study, music, philosophy, architecture, and so on, bloom.
6. And then it fades, often because of the weakening of the ruling class through the adoption of hereditary succession (not every son is as good as his father), or because someone more brutal comes in and takes over.
7. And then someone says, hey, this bad thing happened because we were not true to our original principles. We need to go back to where we started, to re-purify, and everything will be all right.  (Or, alternately, someone could suggest reformation to fix the problems.)
8. Then we start a perhaps smaller cycle as above.

It's a bit of a spiritual (and societal) conundrum.  The acquisition of power leads to some level of security, which in turn makes it possible to develop culturally, but also makes corruption pretty much inevitable.  And corruption is rather like kudzu - hard to eradicate.  The introduction of a powerful new idea can shake it up for a bit, but maybe not long.  The tension between the two is one of the ways we grow, both culturally and as individuals. 

And yet, eventually, the resulting culture becomes weak enough that another sweeps in and takes over.  Inevitably? 
The measure of safety/security and  reliable abundance seems to be critical.  At the point where we give up too much to get or retain those things, we lose something important.  ("It is only through ignorance that we surrender our freedom"; "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.")  But is that only true if we give up freedom to the wrong powers (that is, is it ok to give it up to the Catholic Church, say, or to the government of our own country)?  And exactly where is the balance?

Again - more questions than answers.  Dang.

Islam, History, Spirituality, Individuality - Questions

It is one of those days where, while highly peeved about having a cold, I am also grateful for it. Without the cold, and my resulting lack of energy to do much besides read, I don’t know when I would have gotten to these two books which have been on my reading list for months now:
Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, by Tamim Ansary

The Trouble with Islam Today, by Irshad Manji

I started with Destiny Disrupted, because it promised not just a look into what’s happening now, but an overview of the arc of the history of Islam and hence a deeper understanding of its course of development. And wow. Did I learn a lot.

I realized shortly into the book that my ignorace about Islamic history was nothing short of profound. I hesitate to admit it – but I didn’t realize that the Ottoman Empire was Islamic. I just thought it was Persian. I didn’t realize that when the Mongols swept down through that part of the world, that they settled in to an existing Islamic society – at least, what was left of it after their devastating invasion - and adopted Islam. In short, I was clueless about the importance of Islam in the history of the Middle East (not to mention northern Africa, southern Spain, eastern Europe, and much of Asia).

One of the most interesting aspects, for me, was the perspective on the development of the parameters of Islam.  From both books, it sounds like the structure of Islam has developed primarily through scholars devoted to the study of what Mohammed did in his time, and for new situations, the careful deduction of what he might be supposed to do based on his life.  Because there are generations of scholars who have devoted their lives to this study, the common person has no reason even to think about these things - and in fact is discouraged from such thinking. 

This is pretty much diametrically opposed to something like the Sweet Medicine SunDance Path (see the article on the acquisition of knowledge, in particular the 4th paragraph, or Why Do We Need Rites of Passage?), with the emphasis it puts on free-thinking and autonomy as the ideal for all people and absolutely necessary for spiritual evolution, or the highly decentralized Wicca (see http://www.religioustolerance.org/witchcra.htm), or perhaps any spiritual path that emphasizes individual experience of God or Spirit.  Some of this is almost certainly cultural: Islam emerged in a society where the cohesion of the collective was critical for survival; other spiritual paths came out of cultures that emphasized individuality more. 

Overall, the reading left me with many more questions than answers.  I now have many more books on my reading list.