A lot of my creativity comes out of this spirituality and the questions I have about life. I’ve always worn an Ankh, an Egyptian symbol for life, as a daily reminder of the gift of life. I know I’m being heard whether I’m praying or just thinking out loud. I’m praising him one minute and ranting on about something the next. My mother says, “I know there is a God and I’m not him.” I talk to him every morning and evening. I’ve witnessed people being of service to their fellow man out of the goodness of their hearts, doing deeds. Especially now when a global pandemic has us “socially distance” but hopefully is bring us “morally close” to each other. It reminds me that we are all connected and responsible for each other as well as the planet we inhabit. God is everywhere and everything I see and experience, it is an art to me.īaha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, says “the essence of faith is the fewness of words and the abundance of deeds.” When I see acts of spirituality I see humanity recognizing itself. In my family, through various acts of love and giving that are sometimes beyond the words, I can write. In my students, who share their dreams and nightmares with me on a daily basis. Various cultures and classes of people, their stories, and rituals. I’ve found God in the people I met day by day in my travels, from all walks of life.
Ironically, I found God in places outside of the church. There wasn’t God in any of the things I saw and felt in some of these places of worship. The idea that certain people have “the gift” to communicate with God, therefore a congregation has to “worshipped” under them.
The idea that only certain people can speak to or for God. The titles man has given himself which I think has very little to do with God but with greed. I also experienced what I would call the organizational part of the church. Seeing God in her eyes and words and I became a believer. I marveled at how she can quote biblical scripture and apply it to her life and the lives of others. As a single mother, the things she was able to do and what gave her strength was her belief system. She believed making her children go to church service, fellowship with other believers, and thanking God for everything we had. If I am honest, I believe in God because my mother believed in him. The overall narrative of the bible I thought (and still believe) is so beautiful. The singing of the choir were voices of angels praising God. The call and response rituals of a baptist church reminded me of African chants, I love it. The rituals of religious service were always another story. The dogma, the hierarchy, the rules, and how it has oppressed people of color for centuries, not to mention gender. It was recently that I’ve been able to say publicly that I have a lot of problems with “organized religion”.
In Sufism a seeker abandons all notions of dualism and pursues nonndualism to ultimately reach a stage of "un-al-haq", I am God, meaning that a drop of ocean is a drop as well as the ocean,but the very moment its drop conciousness falls apart to realise its oneness with the vastness of ocean, it becomes the ocean, and the drop is no where to be found.“Religion is belief in someone else’s experience, Spirituality is having your own experience.” – Deepak Chopra The word sufi may also have originated from the Greek word Sophia meaning "wisdom". Sufism preaches the pursuit of 'pure colourless wool' or 'suf ' state of mind as opposed to the materilistic, never ending pursuit of colour, texture and design, which is nothing more than an illusion or 'maya'. Sufism’s greatest message is that we may be woven in different patterns, designs, textures or colors of our physical existence, but peace lies in never forgetting that deep down at the level of our souls we all are pure wool and that purity is worthy of all pursuit, hence sufism stresses on universal brotherhood and tolerance. The lexical root of Sufi is rooted in soof or " wool ", referring to safā or "purity".
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