Today we attended a luncheon and prayer service at a local mosque. A lovely experience--learning about the faith and practice of our Muslim friends. Bonny wrote a lovely summary
of her impressions. I found the most provocative part of the visit was joining the women in midday prayer. We covered our heads with scarves, knelt on the lushly carpeted floor, and observed. The women's space was far off to the side from the main mosque room. The men's room was richly adorned with curtains, symbols, and the like. The women's room was completely plain except for a small cupboard with some well-worn books stacked in haphazard piles and a small stash of folded white polyester headcoverings for women who'd forgotten theirs. From where we sat and stood, we couldn't even see the speaker who voiced the prayers.
On the drive home from the mosque we encountered this cloud up ahead:
Then, as we got closer we saw this:
And then this:
And this older gent shaking whole bags of crumbs out of crumpled bags in his grocery cart. It was obvious that these birds knew this man--their numbers were far too large for this to be a chance meeting.
We circled around the block to watch this spectacle until it was over. He balled up the empty bags and headed down the street alone.
And John and I resolved that when we are old, we will feed the birds.
4 comments:
The birds were pretty amazing huh? I was wondering if you guys had a camera with you and if you would take pictures. I was wishing that I had my camera with me. It was a pretty fascinating site. I have this weird obsession with pigeons. I think it is because no matter what part of the world I have been in during my life, they are always there. I remember feeding them in so many different cities all over the limited amount of the world I had traveled, but my favorite time was when I was on Balboa Island and one jumped on my lap and went in for the Balboa Bar that I was still consuming.
I had fun yesterday, and was really glad to go. Thanks. =)
My grandfather raised homing pigeons. He became ill when I was small so I only have vague memories of him showing me the birds he kept in his coop behind the garage. Seeing the birds yesterday was a great opportunity for me to share that memory with my kids.
One of the things I like about Quaker Meeting is watching the birds (many are pigeons) swooping around the Santa Ana skyline. It's a lovely and inspiring sight--it reminds me so poignantly of the scripture that says that God cares about the life of the tiniest sparrow. I can worship such a God. :)
Did anyone later bring up or discuss the differences you noted in the prayer service?
Tea:
There wasn't much discussion after the prayer service--the talking was beforehand. So we didn't discuss the differences. But honestly, I probably wouldn't have brought it up to the Muslims, simply because they were already being pummeled with difficult questions from other folks (this was a gathering that included some rather dogmatic Christian ministers and such).
I felt, though, that I could draw some analogies to the way that LDS women are treated. The Muslim man who explained Islam to us before the prayer, told us how women are revered in the Koran and by Muslim men, and that the veiling of women is only out of respect for women and for their protection. That it had nothing to do with sexual discrimination. Sheesh, where have I heard that before?
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