She and her family had moved from the West Side to the East Side of Buffalo to get away from the more extreme weather that rolled in off the Niagara River. Originally they were from Yemen. I told her about a Muslim friend of mine, a deeply spiritual woman, who'd been my Mom's best, most loving aide in the nursing home. In response, the woman's smile grew wider and warmer. I found out that she too had a large family. But, she told me, voice softened and stressed, a beloved daughter had died in her twenties. She took out her phone and showed me the photo of a frail, beautiful girl. My eyes filled up. I told her that I too had lost a child, a forty year old son. Our gaze connected at the deepest level possible, our eyes rimmed with tears.
When she stood to go in for her appointment, I stood up as well. We clasped hands. Then impulsively I took her into my arms for a warm hug. Cheek to cheek, she whispered to me "For our children. They watch over us from Heaven."
Did you know that Muslims too believe in Heaven? I'd found that out from my other Muslim friend, who spoke of my mother being in Heaven when she gave a eulogy at Mom's funeral. In two cases now, shared grief at the death of loved ones has given me rare, surprising relationships with people who belong to a different branch of God's family - his Muslim children. So out of grief can come joy. The joy of my heart expanding to hold a deeper understanding of the infinite variety of God's loved ones.
When I was young, I fell in love with my Catholic Christian faith. During my youth and middle years, I learned as much as I could about my faith, especially in the area of spirituality, and deepened my identity as a Christ-follower. My heart sang, contemplating the awesome beauty of a God Who loved us so much that He sent His only-beloved Son to become one with us. Baptized into Christ's death, overflowing with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, I await my resurrection to eternal life.
But in my later years, God has taken me on another extraordinary faith journey: to meet and love those of non- Christian faiths who also have a glimpse of the goodness of God because He tells them truth in their hearts. I have learned about the great mystics in the three Abrahamic faiths: Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Christians are the only ones who believe in the Holy Trinity. But members of all three faiths reverence our God as Father and pray. And our Jewish brothers and sisters share much of the Old Testament with us. Knowing this widens my understanding of what a great and glorious God we have, Who meets people where they are and shines His light into their hearts.
The great mystics of the Abrahamic faiths all transcended the individual teachings and rules of their faiths to discover a God Whose greatest attributes are mercy and love. Because they understood that God is Love, their teachings converge and unite in a common yearning to be one with that God.
Grief over the deaths and illnesses of loved ones has awakened me to the spiritual truths found by these mystics on their faith journeys - and they have inspired me to continue my own. For example, Rabbi Abraham Heschel suffered multiple losses during the Holocaust. His mother was murdered by Nazis. His sister Esther was killed in a German bombing. His sisters Gittel and Devorah died in Nazi concentration camps. Reading his story, I was amazed that he kept his faith in a loving God during such tragedy. Yet he did - and his own sufferings softened his heart into greater compassion for all who suffer. He believed that the teachings of the Hebrew prophets were a clarion call for social action, and so he became involved in the '60s civil rights movement, and spoke out for the rights of African Americans.
"Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness," he writes out of his grief. Oh how well I understand the emptiness! The emptiness of soul that makes you feel like a ghost shrieking into the wind. The emptiness of the abyss you have fallen into, and the fear that you will never rise again. Prayer begins when you are so empty you know that only God can fill you and empower you to feel human again.
Yet, as I have, once God re-filled Rabbi Heschel's soul, he felt the joyous, otherworldly ecstasy that only God can give. What a miracle it is to experience joy when you thought that you could never feel again!
"The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests," he writes. "The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song."
How much this quote reminds me of the joyous prayer and song at a Pentecostal Worship service, in which the congregation thrives on sung praises to God!
Rabbi Heschel's words return me, again and again, to my mission in this world, even when repeated blows have struck me down. He confronts me with this insight:
"A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair."
In a similar matter, the celebrated Muslim mystic, Jalal ad-Din Rumi, has both challenged and enlightened me. He lived in the thirteenth century, and not much is known about his life. He was a celebrated scholar and spiritual leader who believed in unlimited tolerance, positive reasoning, goodness, charity, and awareness through love. He believed, most of all, that all human beings' great yearning is for union with God, our Beloved.
He must have suffered. How else could he have attained this wisdom:
"What hurts you blesses you. Darkness is your candle."
How similar this is to St. John of the Cross's insight "In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God."
Both men understood that in the darkness of grief, suffering, and temptations to doubt and lose faith, somehow there is Gift: God is leading us, refining us, purifying us, and His darkness is Light indeed.
I smile when I read these words by Rumi, which affirm God's love for us:
"That which God said to the rose, and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty, He said to my heart, and made it a hundred times more beautiful."
Pope Francis says "The Name of God is Mercy." Any soul which has grasped this truth has been grasped by God. That person understands the deepest message of Jesus the Christ. If he or she does not meet Jesus on earth, surely he or she will meet him in Heaven.
A merciful Rumi understood that even though, in our human frailty, we never quite "get God right," God honors the seeker. God leads us in our searching for Him. We call God by different Names. We have differing understandings of Him. But if we go to God in our pain, our suffering, and our joy, God will enlighten us in the ways we need enlightening, and lead us home. This holds true not only for human beings. Christians understand that all creation is meant to be re-born when Jesus the Christ comes again. Rumi understood that all creation comes from God's hand. So Rumi says
"Christian, Jew, Muslim, Shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique, and not to be judged."
Rumi also says "In His love, brothers and strangers are one. Go on! Drink the wine of the Beloved!"
I may never again see on earth one particular stranger, the Muslim woman I met in the chiropractor's office. But I will forever remember our shared tears, our shared hug, and our shared faith in our children who live in Heaven and watch over us. I also have faith that one day we will meet again in Heaven and introduce our beloved children to each other.