“But now we see as through a glass, dimly.”

“Is all our knowing only reflection?
Let me trust, and see,
And let love’s eyes pursue, and set me free.”

So, I like to think that we’re all on a pilgrimage toward God, exploring the Mystery, living the questions, and understanding the love of God as the highest and fullest knowing. Since I’ve been here, our team has been wrestling with intense issues of religion, culture, and politics- and my ideas on God (which are not divine ideas, and must be shattered from time to time- thanks CS Lewis) are pulsing differently once again, living in creative tension between conviction and openness. I am wondering what the core of our faith is- following the teachings of Jesus, demonstrating the Kingdom of God, seeking union with God, and opening ourselves to God’s truth in all cultures, peoples, faith traditions? It is almost revolutionary to realize that if I were born in the Middle East, I would most likely be a Muslim today. Even so, I do not think of myself privileged because I am a Christian (“I’m in, I’ve got the truth, I’ve got Jesus”). Through the revelation I’ve received in Christ I hope I am living more as God intended, coming to bear the glorious Imago Dei. Still on my journey between exclusivism and universalism, I am moving further away from the bins of who’s in and who’s out and toward a more Christ-centered, dynamic understanding of the acceptability to God. My question is then, “how can we connect our lives to God’s life in the Kingdom on earth and follow Christ” instead of “what is the basis of salvation.” Do I have a narrow idea of how God’s living in the world? Over-aware of my American civil religion, I long to know the Jesus of history, the full-blooded Middle Easterner. The more I connect with Egyptian Muslims the more Islamaphobia and the national demonization of Muslims hurts me. The Muslims are our brothers and sisters! They are created in the image of God! We learned recently of the faith of “Muslim followers of Jesus” and I was intrigued by the lens through which they see Christ’s teachings and their insistent focus on demonstrating them. They do not have to abandon their Islamic and Arabic culture and practices to live the way of Jesus: Christ is in Islam. I am discovering how can we seek God’s truth within our traditions and relate upon our commonalities, because I see the redeeming values of Islam and want to be barrier-breaking. All truth is the Lord’s.

Ah, Lord hasten the day when our faith shall be sight!

“You will see the faithful in their having mercy for one another and in their love for one another and in their kindness towards one another… Be servants of God as brethren.”
– Hadith of Bukhari 78:27, 57

More Notes on Womanhood

So, perhaps it is nearer the truth that women are oppressed all over the world. My ideas on female progress and women’s liberation have been challenged by the non-Western view where women often feel empowered by the anonymity of the veil and question the Western woman’s focus on physical attraction. Body-image issues barely exist here where women are not constantly made to feel inadequate by the messages of pop culture. I also now see that I can be more in control of myself as a woman in a male-dominated society where harassment is constant by developing a sustainable response that conveys strengths and personal respect, not allowing myself to be a victim, and understanding the underlying reasons of class, nationality, and then gender. While Egyptian women minimalize their presence and are different people in the public and private spheres, I still choose to challenge the assumptions of how women should act while dealing appropriately with the cultural ethos. On a heavier note, female genital mutilation is still a strong (illegal) cultural tradition in Egypt practiced by Christians and Muslims alike. It naturally declines with education, but interestingly, when a Western NGO comes and tells the people not to do it they defend their tradition, resist imperialism, and the practice increases. So, it is a delicate balance! Overall, I am now slower to criticize things such as the veil and quicker to criticize my own perceptions of a liberating equality, femininity, and body-image.

Cairo pictures

It takes forever to download images to this blog at the internet cafe- so if you want to see some pictures, go to my facebook! Thanks guys, love you and hope all is well! Sorry it took me awhile to get things up on this...Cairo is chaotic and I'm riding it all the way!

As my friend Rebecca always says, “ADOPT!”

So, my weekly service project is at the Sisters of Charity orphanage in “Garbage City” and it is amazing. Awhile back, some of the small, unemployed Coptic Christian community decided to take care of Cairo’s garbage problem. The burning trash dump developed into a unique Christian city on the outskirts of town, and it is in this wonderful little place that the Sisters care for many orphans. Our service was to simply give TLC to the babies for their development. I actually felt close to God’s heart when I felt my own heart swelling to care for the sickly little babies. So far my eyes have been dim to God’s presence in Cairo, but in the orphanage there was no missing the abundance of God’s compassion for his children. So adopt. Seriously.

ALSO. Please pray for Garbage City, because several of their people have been killed in a recent rock slide (BBC as more information).

A Note on Being a Woman in a Male-Dominated Society

It sucks. Feminine humanity is limited. It is like walking around with half of yourself, partially outstretched arms, and a guarded heart. According to the BBC, 98% of foreign women visitors and 83% of Egyptian women reported experiencing sexual harassment in Egypt- wearing different kinds of dress! (But it is important to note that it is a small, yet obvious percentage of men harassing). The women on MESP have had to significantly alter their social lifestyles in order to accommodate. But I think that’s important, because other Western tourists look plain ignorant wearing shorts and tube tops in a conservative Islamic society. I think I’m struggling to balance hospitality toward Egyptian culture and not fearing Egyptian men when I must alter myself and ignore their presence for my protection. As to clothing, Egyptian women seem to have different motivations for wearing a headdress (“hegab”): cultural appropriateness, fashion, Islamic submission, or personal protection. Women wear anything from mini-skirts to full black coverings- but Cairo seems to be more conservative overall. When visiting a service at a local mosque last week, all the women on our MESP team had to wear hegabs to enter the separate (smaller, warmer, disconnected, and basically unequal) room for women. On the metro, there is a separate cart for only women, and it is amazing to see the differences in their behavior- they seemed more at ease, more talkative, more themselves. Basically, I hope my experience as a white, American, female will come full circle in this society and I will be more forgiving toward male harassers and more compassionate toward women’s issues.

"The very process of writing one's experience into ordered form is to seek meaning in confusion, to seek light in darkness- and the search itself illumines. The search becomes the ordering of love; that is, by means of love; that is, for the finding of love." - Madeleine L'Engle