Building Reliever

Reliever (Al-Basit)

Wherever water flows, life flourishes:

wherever tears fall, Divine mercy is shown.

–Rumi (Mathnawi 1:817-820, tr. Helminski)

In desert environments, water sources are treasures and oases are havens.  I tried imagining the terrifying hopelessness of being lost in an endless wasteland of burning sand, then the utter relief of topping a small rise and discovering a beckoning pool of cool water.  I’m more familiar with the imagery of the woman at the well in the New Testament, offered the Living Water by Christ; the stark contrast between the harsh and unforgiving landscape of hopelessness and the utter relief of a saving oasis gives this metaphor many more layers of depth and meaning.

The woman is looking for truth, and Christ delivers it; all of us are looking for a path to free us from the pains and heartache of day-to-day living and the consequences of our own poor decisions, and Al-Basit delivers.  Rumi’s reflection shows the readiness of our Creator to deliver, “wherever tears fall, Divine mercy is shown.”

What kind of relief is given, how is the mercy shown?  Visiting with Imams and other Muslim friends, there is an undercurrent of an idea informing the Muslim view of adversity which ties directly to an appreciation for God as Opener, Al-Fattah.  Yes, miserable things can happen – we lose a job, a family member passes, we get sick – however, every door that is closed in our life gives opportunity for another door to open.  And this new door opening is exactly what we need at that moment.  This concept enriches our understanding of Al-Basit because it helps us understand that Divine Relief is not just to ease pain and cool the burning, but is actively opening new and positive opportunities of experience and growth.  The relief is an active and energetic healing, as if after an operation the doctor says, “Not only will this fix your old illness, but now you can do all these new things, too.”

For this sculpture I was drawn to medicine cabinets and oases.  The back of the cabinet is etched with a stylized acanthus leaf.  Much of the Western United States was settled by pioneers kicked out of every decent place back East and overseas, so families with all their meager worldly possessions and supplies crossed vast reaches of harsh, unrelenting landscape with no hope in sight.  When a stand of cottonwoods was seen in the distance, it was taken as a sign of Divine Providence because the cottonwoods marked a much-needed water source.  The acanthus leaf is also an ancient symbol associated with Divine Benevolence.  In the Arabian Peninsula where Mohamed was born, no natural open water source remains all year round; the acanthus grows above water sheltered by a layer of sand, so a traveller parched and dying of thirst saw the acanthus as a sign that his Creator was mindful of his dire situation and wanted him to live.

A seven-pointed star is also etched into the back.  This particular star is shared by many faith cultures, and also resonates through the ancient sciences.  For alchemists, the heptagram represented the seven heavenly bodies, the seven metals, the seven energy centers of the human body (many Eastern cultures referred to these as chakras) and other sets describing the functioning of the observable world.  One point I particularly enjoyed learning is while Western alchemists used changing base matter into gold as a metaphor for personal growth and development, Muslim alchemists also saw as the ultimate goal of their work to produce the Panacea, or the perfect medicine to heal all ills.  The vial contains burn ointment, which I made with alchemical techniques using a medieval recipe, and sealed with beeswax.

The date palms on the floor of the cabinet represent a cooling oasis filled with the Living Water, and the doors and sides are covered with stylized floral imagery to remind us of the vibrant growth and bounty in Paradise.  Originating from within a desert environment, this kind of vegetal imagery used in Islamic work even further underscores the rich, endless vitality of Heaven.  The door pulls are brass beads looking like petroglyphs of the sun.  Whenever I think of how to symbolize the true timelessness of Divine things I realize the futility – how to appropriately express that God and His works are before and throughout all time, that time as we appreciate it has no bearing for an Infinite Being?  Seeing petroglyphs around the world fills me with a sense of my own mortality, and makes me aware that however important I think my life may be, it will be less than a mere blink in the history of the universe (and God is still aware of it!) – using the petroglyphs doesn’t do justice to the timeless nature of Divinity, but alludes to it.

Burn ointment and an oasis – what every wandering soul needs to find relief.

Woman at the Well, Carl Bloch (Detail)
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Exhibit Challenges Stereotypes of Muslim Women

Muslima Smile
Image from Wikimedia Commons

My friend Ernest at Alpha Omega Arts shared this online exhibit with me – with four daughters, I enjoy learning about women’s empowerment, especially through art.  From Voice of America:

The Arabic word ‘Muslima‘ means a woman who believes in God.

The online Muslima exhibition, by the International Museum of Women, highlights the individuality of Muslim women and the rich diversity of their thoughts and contributions…  (Read the full article here, and visit the exhibition)

Very cool.

Building Greatest

Greatest (Al-Mutakabbir)

Photography by Hawkinson Photography

How long ago did we humans first begin gazing at the stars?  There are at least 100 hundred thousand million stars in our galaxy alone, and at least the same number of galaxies in the universe.  Each of these stars has life cycles from millions to billions of years.  And all this was created for us to enjoy.

Hubble View of the Milky Way
Image from Wikimedia Commons

These were the thoughts coming into my head as I was reading about and contemplating Al Mutakabbir, The Greatest.  How did my ancestors react when they began to appreciate the heavens and the stars?  A lot of work went into making structures like Stonehenge and Teotihuacan, and building their components to line up and celebrate the cycles of the heavens.  There is a wealth of symbolism and story as the ancients of many cultures recorded their astrological and astronomical observations, cataloged the effects stars and their emanations have on terrestrial existence, and theorized regarding their findings.

The structure used is a dodecahedron, the Platonic solid representing the fundamental medium of existence, aether, or quiddity.  I then layered alchemical and allegorical symbols representing the role the stars, the constellations, and their associated emanations have in our lives and etched them onto the inner surface of each face.  Around the rim of each facet are etched petroglyph-style depictions of the sun, stars, and cycles of the moon.  Pigments of purple and blue to suggest the rich indigo of the night sky were mixed, then painted on each panel after etching the surface and protecting points representing the stars of twelve zodiac constellations as would be seen from the inside of the structure.  As I was etching, painting, and tying the pieces, I tried to imagine and appreciate the wonder people through the ages have felt as they were lost in the night sky.

I found three wonderful quotes from others who had very similar thoughts:

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.

–Martin Luther

God who is eternally complete, who directs the stars, who is the master of fates, who elevates man from his lowliness to Himself, who speaks from the cosmos to every single human soul, is the most brilliant manifestation of the goal of perfection.

–Alfred Adler

And perhaps my favorite:

Look out into the universe and contemplate the glory of God.  Observe the stars, millions of them, twinkling in the night sky, all with a message of unity, part of the very nature of God.

–Sai Baba

(All quotes found on Brainyquote.com)

Swan Nebula
Image from Wikimedia Commons
This and other images may be found at European Southern Observatory

It is simply impossible to comprehend how ancient and vast the universe is.  It is astounding to contemplate how all this was made for humans, unique among the thinking creatures.  And it is amazing to know God has pinned such marvelous hopes in us, beings made of mere clay.

Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart

Search me, O God, and know my heart:  try me and know my thoughts:  and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

–Psalms 139:23-24

The horrible events disrupting the Boston Marathon continue to ripple through the country, and knowing the perpetrators considered themselves Muslim has caused many concerns regarding faith and religion to return to the surface.  This subject is raw and uncomfortable, and my heart joins with my 300 million fellow Americans in praying for the welfare of those involved and their rapid healing.

However, I also wanted to learn something from those who share my right to religious freedom, and hear what they have to say for themselves.  Were these wicked men claiming a faith that wasn’t theirs, or were they simply misguided?

First, I spoke with a friend of mine who is the Imam for the largest private Christian university in the US.  “Islam does not need to defend itself,”  he said.  “It saddens me when I am immediately approached and told I must defend my faith.  What happened is absolutely horrible, and I and my congregation join with millions of Muslims across the country in praying for the healing of all involved.  There is no way to defend what those two men did.  Even if they were Muslim in the beginning, the very instant they determined to hurt an innocent being they ceased to be Muslim in their hearts.  At Final Judgment, they may very well seek to defend their actions, but even God will not recognize their claim to Islam.  Their actions prove they are not Muslim, so we have no need to defend our faith – it was not shared in any way that counts by the perpetrators.”

Second, I visited with a friend who retired from the Kuwaiti air force and lives in the US.  “It breaks my heart that people were hurt so badly, and it grieves me that the perpetrators claim my faith.  God declares in the Qur’an that to harm even a single person – to hurt an innocent, a noncombatant, a bystander – is to hurt all of mankind.  To kill an innocent is to kill all of mankind.  (Qur’an 5:32)  I am grateful for the first responders and emergency personnel, for God declares in the same breath that to save even one soul is the same as saving all mankind.  Why do these people who do such terrible things not even read the Holy Book they are claiming to follow?  They were not Muslim by any measure, regardless of what they called themselves.”

Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri of Minhaj USA speaks very strongly against violence perpetrated for the sake of faith.  Immediately after 9/11 he wrote an extensive fatwah condemning all terrorism and faith-based violence.  I heard him speak last Spring, introduced by his friend and long-time admirer Allen Scott Bachman, Chair of the Salt Lake Interfaith Roundtable.  During his remarks, a passionate Dr. ul-Qadri iterated, “We are all of us created by God – how can we, acting in disregard to the laws of society, take the life of a fellow being and expect God not to be angered?”

And my friend Dean Obeidallah, comedian, documentarian, and writer for CNN, recently wrote his reaction to the religion-focused backlash of the tragic events.  Dean is a Muslim, and he hates terrorism – in all its forms and iterations.  He points out that US Muslims and Muslim organizations continually denounce terrorism, and although less than 3% of Americans are Muslim (The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life estimated only 0.8% in 2010) 7 out of 10 recent Al Qaeda plots in the US were foiled by tips from the American Muslim community.

My conclusion?  Evil people are evil.  The religion an evil person may claim to follow is evidence of his delusion, not an indictment of the religion.  Gandhi said, “If a few drops of water in the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”  And it is much less of a burden on each of us to allow a Higher Power to do the judging, rather than assuming that one and a half billion people share the evil delusions of a few.

The only good Muslim, in my experience, is almost all of them.

Whether ye hide what is in your hearts or reveal it, Allah knows it all

–Qur’an 3:29

Building Humbler

Humbler (Al-Mudhill)

Photography by Hawkinson Photography

As I began focusing on the 99 Most Beautiful Names of God, I reached out to scholars and clergy who write and teach about the Names.

One of my fears regarding this project is that Muslims will be offended that a Christian is trying to learn about their faith and express what he learns through art.  I thought that my motivation would be misunderstood, that somehow it would be perceived I was trying to “Christianize” their treasured beliefs or, worse yet, come as an unlettered scholar and announce I knew Islam better than Muslims.  However, I found very quickly that my sincerity and honest desire were accepted at face value and those I approached went out of their way to help me on my path of appreciation and understanding.  One Imam was grateful when he saw I was also trying to find ways to apply the principles of 99 Names traditions in my own life, and find parallels with my Christian beliefs.  Imams, Mawlanas, and Sheiks of many different paths of Islam responded.  One teacher in Egypt had written a book on the 99 Names – he found one of his congregants who knew English, and had him translate and email the book to me.  A Sheik in Azerbaijan, who also didn’t know English, had one of his congregants translate the blessing he gave to me to guide me in the work.  There have been, and continue to be, other stories of people opening their hearts as they realized I was sincere.

One friend, Besim Bruncaj (who works with World Interfaith Harmony Week), connected me with the internet arm of WISE University in Jordan, Qibla (known as SunniPath at the time).  I was told they were just considering a class focusing on the 99 Most Beautiful Names when they learned about my project and they took it as a sign – they gave me a scholarship to study Islam theology and the 99 Names for a semester, which deepened my appreciation immensely.  The teachers and students were incredibly supportive of my work and I actually did a pretty decent job in the class.

With this learning, a few principles in Islam really struck chords with me.  One is the concept that as infinite as the universe is, it was all created for us.  Another is although we can only see a small portion of reality at a time, we are all part of something much greater and we all have a necessary role to play – it is our purpose of life to discover what our role is, and to play it well.  These principles rolled nicely into meditations on Humbler.

This Name has two faces, as it were.  One is the role God has to help remind us that He is the only One justified in His pride, and it is dangerous to our souls when we inflate our own worth at the expense of those around us.  The other face is the fact that we are constantly surrounded by the evidence of the Creator’s magnificence and love for us, and awareness of this helps us realize we are literally nothing without His grace.

The sculpture is a dodecahedron, the twelve-sided Platonic solid representing aether, or the medium within which all things exist.  In each face I used hermetic geometry techniques to find a ratio of circle to pentagon which felt and looked appropriate.  Sources were online directions for constructing pentagons (one of my favorite here) and one of my favorite books, A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe by Michael S. Schneider.   I used his book and the Little Wooden Books Sacred Geometry by Miranda Lundy, The Golden Section by Scott Olsen, and Ruler and Compass by Andrew Sutton to evenly space the two to thirteen tying holes around the larger center hole in each face.  The holes on the edges (to tie the structure together) were spaced far enough from the edge to provide maximum strength when tying.

Each side is painted indigo to remind us of the night sky and space, and each facet is tied with stars of differing numbers of points.  In the center is a small clay bead to represent the human element.  This serves as a reminder, as Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said, God didn’t make us because He needed to, but solely because He wanted to.

Building Compeller

Compeller (Al-Jabbar)

Photography by Hawkinson Photography

In the Windows of Dzyan exhibit, I had made a few sculptures reflecting on what I was learning about Islam, but felt a more systematic approach was needed (for an introduction to the 99 Names Project please go here).  After weeks of studying different avenues which could provide a “spine” for the project, I realized I kept coming back to the 99 Most Beautiful Names of Allah.  That would make for a huge number of sculptures, but the intimate scale of each work made it seem more manageable.  I went online and looked at various sources for reference on the 99Names, being careful to find sites written by practicing Muslims and verifying what I was learning through conversations with Muslim friends and clergy.  Director Virginia Gray-Henry of Fons Vitae Publishing recommended one of her titles, The Name and the Named, as well as giving me advice on how to explore other faiths with respect and civility.

In each of a set of four sketchbooks, I wrote 25 Names referencing the list from Sufism.org.  One of the first things I learned is that there are a number of different traditions of 99 Names which overlap greatly, with subtle differences.  I also learned very quickly that the Names are not names like we would think to use in calling to each other, but are eternal, timeless Attributes.  There is also the appreciation that God is and infinite Being, and the 99 Names are only an “index” of the Divine Attributes.  For each “Name”, there is an understanding that God is the Beginning, End, Ideal, and Perfect Example of each Attribute, along with an awareness that in each Name we are only glimpsing a tiny portion of its fullness.

I drew sketches for each Name, read in the Qur’an and other books regarding what Muslims thought about the Names, and found corresponding ideas in Christian scripture and from Christian luminaries.  The point was not to “prove” to Muslims that I “got it”, but rather to find what resonated within me and give that particular frequency a form.  The first sculpture that really started to coalesce was Compeller (Al-Jabbar).

Each of us, I believe, have a specific purpose or point to our creation.  Our “job” is to discover what that purpose is.  This idea echoed around inside my head, alongside other English translations of Al-Jabbar – Restorer, Repairer, Irresistible.  If each of us have a point to our being here the Creator will find a way to lead us to it, unless we are completely unwilling.  And the journey for some of us, it seems, is much longer than for others.

It dawned on me that a perfect example of the mixture of these concepts was the life of the Prophet Jonah.  He was given a mission, to preach to the people of Nineveh:

Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

–Jonah 1:1,2

This was his purpose; but he ran away.  He got into the first boat he could find and took off, trying to go as far as he could.  After realizing his selfishness was jeopardizing the safety of the vessel’s crew, he had them toss him into the sea and he took a trip back to land in a whale’s stomach.  Finally he got to Nineveh, did his duty as he saw it, and waited for the city to be destroyed; through a series of teaching moments, Jonah finally learned his path, accepted it, and the city was saved.  All sorts of things happened to Jonah to help him discover his purpose, and in the end the things that drove him restored his commitment to his faith and made him a complete person.

The sculpture is a reflection on the story of Jonah.  The shape is an Icosahedron, the Platonic solid that symbolizes the element of water – because Jonah’s first thought was to flee across the sea, water in my mind became symbolic of his journey to and that God’s awareness of us is entirely undiminished over time or distance of any sort.  In the center of the shape is an orange and yellow gourd, which reminds me that in the midst of our journeys or attempts to “escape” Divine Will remains the comfort of Divine Love.  Surrounding the gourd are seven antique fish, representing the traditional Seven Seas.

The glass used is GNA or German New Antique, a beautifully pure glass with a slight variation in surface texture reminiscent of the brush strokes which come from a glass worker brushing a freshly blown cylinder of glass flat.  A friend who is a rare book conservator shared with me traditional knots and materials common to medieval bookbinding, so the 20 panels of glass are sewn together using hemp and traditional knots – a reference to the importance of the Qur’an to Muslims.  Each of the holes in the glass panels are drilled with a rotary tool and lined with a scrapbooking eyelet, and the sculpture is built to the height of 11 1/4″.  This height is for three reasons, which remain consistent through the whole project.  First, the process of contextualizing and learning another’s path of faith must by its nature be personal and intimate, and I wanted viewers to participate in my personal journey.  Second, the sculpture height is five eighths of my cubit – the cubit or distance between tip of the longest finger and elbow was the traditional measurement of sacred building in many scriptures, and the five and eight refer to the Five Pillars of Islam and the eight points of the Compassionate Breath star, or the eight angels which will carry God’s throne at the final Judgment (Qur’an 69:17).   And finally, the height is symbolic of the first Qur’an I received and began to read with an understanding heart.

I did a number of color tests to come up with several shades of blue, and I drew several different patterns based on Islamic organic floral patterns from around the world and several time periods; Islam is a universal religion applying to all, and I started generating designs to reflect this cross-cultural and timeless nature of the faith using cosmology of design and mixing cultural indicators rather than copying any specific patterns.  I beveled the triangles on a flat-bed grinding wheel, holding the pieces and praying the angles were right so the structure would hold together and support itself when tied.  Drilling the holes really sucked.  When I started, I was able to get the glass to avoid breaking seven out of eight times; with 24 holes in each of the 20 panels, I ended up making over 35 panels in order to get twenty to survive!  The paint is a mixture of mason stain and finely powdered glass, an entirely unconventional mix for glass workers (because mason stain won’t fuse directly to the glass) which reticulates beautifully and gives a certain water color affect reminiscent of manuscript illuminations.

Something I learned – when working with gourds, make certain they are completely dry before including them in any sort of long-term project.  If not, be warned that the smell is astounding.

The prophets, those amazing men and women of scripture, exemplify to me much of what this Name eludes to.  They were people just like anyone else, but were compelled by the natures of their callings to push beyond their comfort zones and frailties to become astounding figures, earth-bound angels called to perform as agents of the Divine Will for others.  If someone like Jonah can do the job he had, then others can, too, like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and Fethullah Gulen – and the rest of us.

Interesting note.  While doing research working on the 99 Names Project I learned something else about Divine Names.  When Jesus gave his last mortal prayer, he called God “Eloi” (Mark 15:34).  Speaking with several ancient scripture language experts, I discovered that “Allah” is the Arabic spelling of the Aramaic “Eloi”, the same word for God which Jesus used.  Learning the different Names of Allah have helped me discover different facets of Divinity which echo across all faith paths, and rather than diluting my belief enriches it.

And as a Christian, I figure if it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.

Jonah at Nineveh, Rembrandt (Detail)
Image from Wikimedia Commons

What’s With the Headscarf? Muslim Women on the Hijab Question

Iftar in Patterson, New Jersey
Image from Wikimedia Commons

“Dad, do we have to wear this?”

We were on our way to visit a Shi’a mosque in Salt Lake City, Utah,  a number of years ago, and my 10- and 12-year-old daughters were asking about the scarves I had invited them to wear.

“No, absolutely not,”  I said.  “The only reason I gave those to you is in case you wanted to.”

“Why would we want to?”

“Out of respect.”  I did not know much about the scarves or their use, just what I learned earlier that week about its history.  “We’re visiting another church, and there many of the women wear these over their hair.  They’re called hijabs.”

“Oh, we heard about these.”  Both girls then told me many of the things they had ‘learned’ from their friends at school, about how Muslim men force their women to wear clothes to hide who they are, and the word ‘subjugate’ kept coming up.

“Let’s ask when we get there,” I invited.  “Since it’s someone else’s church, I thought it would be nice to show respect and wear it, to help them feel more comfortable with us being there.”  The girls decided that was a good idea, and ended up making a wonderful first impression.

The hijab has come to be (mis)understood by Western media as the visible indicator ‘proving’ Muslim subjugation of women.  It is impossible, a friend from Morocco explained, to say that such a thing isn’t true for every Muslim in the world (a quarter of the world’s population).  “With such a huge population, even a tiny percentage will contain a large number of real people, but regardless of whether or not such people call themselves Muslim, subjugation in any form is against the teachings of Islam,” she told me.  She and her friend were both in the US studying microbiology and genetics, she did not wear a hijab and her friend did, and the women in both their families were split pretty evenly as to who chose to wear hijabs.

From our Western point of view, expecting a person to cover his/her head as part of religious observance is not unusual – the nun’s habit, for example, immediately comes to mind, as does the yarmulke for my Jewish friends.  And for the majority of Muslim women the headscarf means something completely different to what we ‘understand’ from various media.

Mohamed began receiving the revelation of the Qur’an in 610, on the Arabian peninsula.  This era, explains Dr. Sophia Pandya from California State University Long Beach, was particularly harsh for women.  A family’s cattle was better cared for than many of the girls and women in a family, and a young woman felt to be a drain on resources could be buried alive in the desert sands without fear of reprisal or reprimand.  The length, color, and luster of a woman’s hair was used to judge her breeding potential and overall health in a similar way to how the potential health of livestock is judged by the appearance of the animals’ hides.  In contrast, by covering her hair a man was forced to address the woman to her face and acknowledge her identity as a fellow human being.  A typical Western response is our immediate rebuttal, but doesn’t the Qur’an say a husband can beat his wife?  Yes and no, Dr. Pandya says.  “The Arabic word many have translated into ‘beat’ has over thirty other meanings, including variations of ‘separate’ which are more contextually valid – so Westerners find it problematic to say the least to fully appreciate the Qur’anic scripture.”  (Comments made during her lecture on Women in Islam at Pacifica Institute Utah, February 8, 2013)

Now asking a Muslim what the hijab ‘means’ is like asking Christians their views on particular subjects; just as Christianity is a rainbow of points of view, so is Islam.  My friends at Pacifica Institute Utah, a Turkish-American service organization, have a unique perspective.

During the Ataturk government, a system of enforced secularization was observed – religion in the workplace or professional environment was frowned on.  Muslim women who insisted on wearing their headscarves were banned from higher education and serving in public office.  Within the last decade or so that has radically changed.  Like the Amercian colonials adopting ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ as their own (sung by British troops to tease the Americans), many Muslim Turks feel that it is a symbol of their religious freedom to wear their hijabs.  I asked my friend Hulya to visit with the women who make up Utah’s Pacifica Institute and tell me more.

“I asked the ladies of Pacifica, and most of our answers (about wearing the hijab) are the same.  We come from all parts of Turkiye:  Ankara, Giresun, Istanbul, and Erzurum.  All of us are well educated, and we have college degrees in various areas:  Turkish Language, Economy, Biology, Education, and Computer Science.  I have a Masters Degree in Biology Education.  Most of us are teachers in different schools.

“Why do we wear hijab?  Inner peace and harmony, solidarity and peace, and the perseverance of society.”  (Modest Dress in Abrahamic Traditions, The Fountain Magazine)

Other Muslim women whom I’ve asked about this subject have very similar responses.  Those who wear or don’t wear are never judgmental about the sister who chooses differently, and will enthusiastically defend the choice whichever it is.  And they consistently tell me that to wear the hijab is a sign of devotion and modesty.  One poet I spoke with, who wears a full burqa, said it is wonderfully liberating.  A Western convert to Islam, she said that reciting her poetry in full burqa gives her unimaginable freedom – “Everyone only listens to the words I’m moved to give, and the message is pure and  undiluted.”

And I love this video, interviewing several Muslim women of Charlotte, North Carolina:

Meet the Muslims of Charlotte – Hijab Question

“And If He Walks Towards Me, I Rush Towards Him”: Finding the Face of God

Jesus Healing at Bethesda, Carl Bloch
Image from Wikimedia Commons

This morning I woke to learn that Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu was awarded the Templeton Prize.  His response, of course, was that when one stands out in a crowd “it is only on the shoulders of others.”  His lifetime of service and giving to others makes me reflect on a quote attributed to Victor Hugo.

One of my favorite authors, his heartbreaking and ultimately transcendent work Les Miserables has grown from the crucible of endurance for high school kids of my generation to a star-studded, award-winning media event.  He was careful and thoughtful in his writing, slowly building every element of a complex story over a daunting number of pages (the Belgariad by David Eddings, the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, and Gene Wolfe‘s Book of the New Sun and Book of the Long Sun all come to mind).  I recently came across a beautiful observation of his:  To love another is to see the face of God.  This really struck me, particularly in light of some touching passages in Les Miserable (the candle sticks and the priest, for example), so I asked some friends of mine to respond to Mr. Hugo’s statement.  These are ministers, scholars, and leity from many different paths of faith, but all seem to share a certain serenity in their answers; among the respondents are a Muslim scholar, an Agnostic writer, a Quaker, a Baha’i, and a Universalist Minister.

When I called on my friend Dr. Omid Safi, Professor of Religious Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, he sent me a link to a beautiful article he wrote at Huffington Post addressing this idea.  For Muslims, although figurative art is not prohibited it is highly inappropriate to represent our Creator with human form, and in many paths of Islam it is very disrespectful to represent the prophets and dignitaries of Scripture.  These artistic restrictions are for a number of reasons, including the fear that these images might potentially be used as icons or idols.  The main reason God is never depicted is that the Creator is infinite and beyond our understanding as finite mortals, and any representation displays our ignorance and seeks to limit God’s illimitable nature.  So I was very interested in what he had to say.  From his article:

To reach out in love and service to even one other human being is the beginning of shattering the idol of the self, recognizing our shared humanity, and making room for the real God to enter the temple of the heart.

–Omid Safi

Andrew Bowen dedicated himself to living the life of the faithful of twelve different paths for a year, and wrote Project Conversion:  One Man, 12 Faiths, One Year (his follow-up work describing his unique process of spiritual understanding is now available, Life, Depth, and the Art of Immersion).   We spoke about his experience a month ago; his response to Victor Hugo’s observation:

Love is a manifestation of perfection: perfect submission, perfect humility, perfect projection, all coalesced into one expression. Limitless, boundless, unfathomable even to the well-acquainted. These attributes are also familiar to those who believe in God, so to love someone is to reflect God and to have God reflected back upon one’s self.

–Andrew Bowen

My friend Elaine is Secretary of the Salt Lake Interfaith Roundtable, and member of the Traveling Interfaith Sisterhood.  Her response:

Two of my favorite quotes explain the Quaker view of that of God in all people.  The Quaker view of that of God in everyone is why our testimonies of Peace, Equality (Community), Simplicity and Integrity (Truth) make up the core of who we are as opposed to set doctrines.

“Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations wherever you come; that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone; whereby in them you may be a blessing, and make the witness of God in them to bless you.”  (Statement of 1656, from The Works of George Fox (1831))

“There is a principle, which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names.  It is, however, pure and proceeds from God.  It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from anywhere the heart stands in perfect sincerity.”  (John Woolman, 1774)

–Elaine Emmi

My Baha’i friend Shari:

If I had to try to summarize a Baha’i response to Mr. Hugo, I might say:  God is an unknowable essence, yet He created mankind out of His love for us.  The way we can know God is through the knowledge of the Manifestations of God, Who act as stainless mirrors of all God’s attributes.  Once we know of God we wish to love and serve Him, and this can best be accomplished by loving and serving mankind.

–Shari (more on Baha’i history and faith)

And my friend Reverend Amy Long, Director of Universal Life Church Seminary:

God is love.  When you see love – loving actions, loving words, loving thoughts, or just the spirit of love shining through another – that is the face of God.

–Rev. Amy Long (for Daily Kind Words)

This reminds me of a Hadith Qudsi (Divine saying spoken through Muhamed), regarding God’s desire to be near to us:

And if he remembers Me in his heart, I remember him in My heart. . . And if he walks towards Me, I rush towards him.

And finally,  the response of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu:

God says (to us) I create you because I want you, not because I need you.

–Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

Pages of the Knower

Faith and Reason

The Stars Above

The Heavenly City

Writing

Cover

Cartography

Seven Sacred Grains

Engineering

The Four Humours

Number

Little, Big

The Alchemical Marriage

The Council of Birds

Pages of the Knower

Photography by Hawkinson Photography

When I started Knower, the thought that kept returning to mind was to make something symbolizing the ability of transmission.  The ageless saying ‘Knowledge is power’ also buzzed between my ears endlessly.  I started thinking about ways to transmit knowledge and those aspects of knowledge which ‘stand’ behind everything – the hidden information, as it were, that governs how things are.

Many cultures have story tellers and teachers who share vital information about the history of the culture, why things happen the way they do, and what governs our sense of reality.  In some cultures this is transmitted orally and in others this is written; since the most important source of this kind of information for Muslims is the Qur’an, the symbol of a book felt appropriate for this sculpture.  Binding it with a traditional medieval knot-tying technique, modified for glass, was also important.  I felt it needed to feel displaced in time, to give a sense that the knowledge being represented is also outside of time, or unbounded by time’s constraints.

The shape was derived from visiting with a couple experts on cross-cultural aesthetics.  It is based on the Golden Section, a 1:1.618 ratio rectangle; Dr. Scott Olsen, an expert on what is called the Phi ratio, said that one of the things eerily consistent across all cultures is the way we gravitate to this ratio in art.  Dr. Lisa DeLong, an expert on Muslim art at The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in the UK, said the awareness of this ratio governed much of the traditional Muslim aesthetic.  The pages of the book are Golden Section rectangles, and I used my observations of how hand-made copies of the Qur’an are laid out to guide where the elements were placed on each page.

The number of pages was a bit more problematic.  With one page representing an aspect of knowledge and God being the Knower of All, this would lead to an infinite number of pages which in turn would take quite a long time to put together.  I settled on thirteen for a couple reasons.  This is the number of lunar months in the year, a month reflective of the awareness of life, its processes, and its interconnectivity.  Also, thirteen is five plus eight; five is the number of ‘ The Pillars of Faith‘ in Islam (Declaration of Faith, Prayer five times a day, Fasting during Ramadan, the Paying of Tithes, and the once-in-a-lifetime commitment to travel on Hajj to Mecca) and eight represents the bridge between Heaven and Earth of the Qur’an.  In architecture, an octagon is typically used to bridge the cube of the earth-bound structure with the circular, heavens-reaching dome, and the eight-sided figure can be found in both Christian and Muslim art reflecting the awareness of the metaphorical ‘bridge’ between humanity and God (this ‘bridge’ being Jesus for Christians and the Qur’an for Muslims).  In the Qur’an, eight is also the number of angels who will carry God’s throne at the last judgment – a reminder for Muslims of personal responsibility.

About twenty different page ideas were explored.  I thought the Trivium and Quadrivium of traditional schooling would be good, then I thought of all the different paths of knowledge we study, and finally it felt appropriate to narrow the pages down to how we, as humans, observe the construction of the universe.  Not how we  believe the universe was made, but how we perceive the evidences of God’s hand in everything.  So the pages, more or less, tell the metaphysical story of creation and the universe.  Each page has a passage from the Qur’an, and a complementary passage from another book of scripture, etched in the languages they were written.

Cover.  The cover page is from tile patterns at the Alhambra, the elegantly astounding symbol of Moorish Spain.  This society was the most egalitarian Europe had ever seen, with at one point a Jewish doctor being the court-appointed Surgeon General to the Muslim Caliph.  The front is a geometric pattern, and the back uses an interlacing of organic forms; this dichotomy of structure and freedom reflects the Muslim understanding that freedom exists most expansively when seated within Divine law.  One Imam told me this concept is like flying a kite:  The kite (a human soul) will go as high as the sky when the string (the Commandments) is used, but when the string is cut the kite will come crashing down.

The Heavenly City.  The City of Heaven, described by both Paul and John in the New Testament.  An expert on the Taj Mahal told me that it is believed the Mughal (Indian Muslim) emperor who built it based the floor plan on Paul’s vision from a copy of the New Testament the emperor owned.  This diagram has been used by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim artists for centuries as they seek to understand Divine concepts of balance, order, and governance.

Faith and Reason.  Mohamed challenged the spiritual understanding of those who followed scripture like ‘dogs’ (meaning only with the heart) or like ‘monkeys’ (meaning only with the mind).  The Divine gift of reason helps us to function as human beings in society and order our thoughts; the Divine gift of faith draws our hearts closer to the true purpose of existence.  Each without the other is unbalanced, and both are Divine gifts – when used together, reason is tempered with faith and faith is balanced with reason.  God made us with both capacities so we can use them both, and learn through the process.

The Council of Birds.  A Persian poet said that, of all the animals on earth birds are closest to humans; the difference is that our wings are wings of spirit.  Farid ud-Din Attar wrote an epic poem describing the search for enlightenment by a council of all the world’s birds.  Thirty representatives were selected, and they spent many, many years traveling across mystical landscapes in their quest to find enlightenment.  At the end of their journey, they came to the reflective pool of the Simourgh (Persian for phoenix), and seeing themselves transformed the Simourgh appeared.  The center is a Phoenix, done in a Persian style and as a petroglyph, and this is surrounded by thirty birds drawn naturalistically (for the species mentioned on the quest in Farid ud-Din Attar’s poem) and in the style of cave carvings, petroglyphs, and rock art from around the world.

Number.  The red star is made of the even numbers two through twelve, and the star behind it is made of the odd numbers one through thirteen.  As humans we use number to describe, catalog, and correlate what we see, and Westerners owe a large portion of our understanding of numbers to the Muslims who transmitted their appreciation of all things math.  In the book the Wisdom of Solomon, it states that God constructed all things through measure, weight and number, and this view of the universe resonates through every culture giving number a certain reverence and mystical weight.

Little, Big.  An ancient Hindu saying is, ‘The wisdom of all the universe is contained in a single grain of sand.’  All things relate to all, and the Creator is mindful of the smallest particle in the midst of governing the orbits of galaxies.  This is a model of the smallest discovered sub-atomic structure and a map of the milky way, and serves as a reminder that the Creator of All is also intimately aware of our own personal situations.

The Stars Above.  There is an ancient phrase, ‘As Above So Below.’  This is a reminder of our interconnection as elements of Creation, but also is a reference to the idea that stars and the heavens are there to guide us in our activities, and that our souls are designed to reflect the Celestial balance and music of the heavens.  This is what led the Magi to the Christ child, and what drove Johannes Kepler to discover the laws of planetary motion, trying to find that peculiar resonance which links humanity to the heavens.  This is based on the astrolabe – Muslims were masters of astrolabe design and construction, because it was always a priority to find where they were in relation to the stars.

Seven Sacred Grains.  The ability to cultivate food and provide for ourselves is linked to our human identity.  In the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), the first humans were commanded to till the earth, and these seven cultivated grains (amaranth, barley, corn, oats, rice, rye and wheat) are the things that made survival, and civilization, possible all across the world, from the dawn of humankind.

Writing.  One story holds that Adam, seeing bird tracks across wet sand, had the inspiration to begin writing.  This is a calligrapher’s layout grid, with the first and last letters of the alphabet in the center.  The grid is filled in with the most ancient symbols for God, sacredness, and peace, intermixed with the footprints of birds native to the Arabian peninsula.

The Four Humours.  From the most ancient of times, medicine has been a mystical profession.  Imhotep, the famous Egyptian architect and doctor, wrote the oldest treatise on medical treatments – providing a model still in use by doctors today.  Musim health professionals derived treatments for their patients which treated not just the symptoms, but the whole person, often calling for change in diet, environment, and religious habits, designed to make the entire person healthy, happy, and well.

Cartography.  Muslims were masters of map making, it was vital to always know the direction of Mecca.  Mecca held the symbols of God’s concern and love for mankind; by always being aware our current position in relation to these symbol’s of God’s love, in one sense we are always keeping God in the center of our life.

Engineering.  Learning how things fit together is something we identify as being human – when another animal does it, we always see this as a ‘human’ trait.  This is wonderful in building things designed to make life easier and more beneficial, but also helps us in our awareness that all things fit and interlace together, that everything we do ripples across the pond of existence and impacts others in ways we can’t comprehend.

The Alchemical Marriage.  This is the marriage of balance, or yin with yang.  The cold would never be cold without the hot, and the sweet would be impossible to enjoy without awareness of the bitter.  These are not opposites in the sense that they are inimical to each other, but rather are sides of the same page or coin – one cannot be fully realized without the other, and creation happens in the energetic tension between them.  Our unique position as thinking creatures leads us to find the balance, as we walk the path using the gifts of both faith and reason.

Expressing Faith: Islam Inspired Art at Duke University

Bismallah, Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim
Image from Wikimedia Commons

For the first 2 1/2 weeks in April this year, Lilly Library at Duke University is hosting the exhibit Expressing Faith:  Islam Inspired Art.  One of my favorite calligraphers, Dr. Huda Totonji, will be displaying her work, Dr. Carl Ernst of UNC Chapel Hill will be giving a presentation on the intersections of faith, art, and Islam, and my friends at the Duke MSA invited me to show sculptures from the 99 Names Project (and did all the heavy lifting).  As I wasn’t able to make it, Pres. Nabeel Hyder of the Duke MSA picked up the bubble-wrapped sculptures and he and his friends set the whole thing up.

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Dr. Totonji is an educator, consultant, entrepreneur, researcher, fine artist, and amazing calligrapher.  The several galleries on her website include her work in calligraphy and painting to her public art and installation.  Dr. Enst is a specialist in Islamic Studies, and his presentation will be insightful and engaging.  I’m grateful to Dr. Antepli for pointing Pres. Nabeel towards the Project, and I’m very happy and grateful the Duke MSA did all the work!