Back in Istanbul for a visit to the city’s Jewish Museum

Our first day back in Istanbul was a day of contrasts and an ethical challenge for me.

We spent most of the morning window shopping in the high-end market district and square called Taksim. This was the area I had visited the week before. We stopped by a couple of churches, including a Catholic Church named for the Franciscan, St. Anthony of Padua.

A major highlight of the morning for me was our stop at the Karakoy Jewish Museum. We reached the museum by taking the Funicular tram down from the hilltop shopping area, and then walking to a major traffic and light rail intersection at the end of the Galata Bridge.

The museum was hidden away at the end of a side street with no exit.

The museum consisted of two floors, and contained two Torah scrolls and a number of other religious items, but more importantly, it present a series of elaborate posters explain the history of Jews in Turkey. As I believe I mentioned in an earlier blog, Turkey is 99% Muslim. There are only an estimated 100,000 non-Muslims in this large country with a population of 80 million. The 100,000 non-Muslims comprise 25,000 Jews and 75,000 persons who are Christians or me3mbers of other religions.

The most important piece of information I encountered was something I already knew, but of which I was glad to be reminded. In 1492 when the Catholic Church was burning Jews and non-believers at the stake, and when it expelled the Jews from Spain, the Sultan of what is now Turkey not only invited the Jewish expatriates from Spain to his own land, but actively worked to bring them to their new home, where, it seems they have lived happily, if anonymously for half a millennium and more.

As I was leaving the museum I encountered the guard at the front door. He didn’t speak English and my Turkish was too small to be of help, but through sign language I asked him if he was a Jew. He nodded. I then gave him one of our blue pins with the symbols of Judaism, Islam and Christianity sitting in the company of what we know as the peace sign. I pointed to that peace sign and said “barish” the Turkish word for peace. This man who a moment earlier was very quiet and reserved suddenly became animated. He put the pin on. I asked if I could take his photo and he again gave an affirmative sign, but motioned for me to wait. He rushed into his office and returned while putting on a tie. I took his picture and then he disappeared again returning with two other men associated with the museum. Soon Kenan arrived and served as interpreter for the four of us.

The men thanked us for coming, and thanked Kenan and the members of the Gulen movement for bring foreign visitors to view this important piece of world history. They encouraged the Gulens to continue to bring guests to the museum, in the same way that the Sultan had invited the homeless, no, country-less Jews to come to Turkey in the year that Columbus rediscovered America.

Then we departed for lunch and a visit to a museum celebrating weapons anD Turkish military might, a visit that raised serious questions for me about my stance toward even tacit endorsement of war.

Should I trust Allah or tie up my donkey?

First a correction. In one of my earlier blogs I said that the Bosphorus Strait connects the Black Sea and the Aegean. that was not accurate. The Bosphorus connects an almost entirely enclosed body of water called the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea.

I also swhould say a word or two about the extraordinary group of people traveling with me.

We all met to begin our journey on Friday, July 24 at Hotel Anka in Istanbul. One of our two leaders, Kenan, picked me up at Hotel Eres. We gathered my luggage to take the train to the new hotel, but first went to lunch at Simit Serayi (as noted earlier, Turkish fast food). Kenan was anxious to make Friday prayers (Friday is the equivalent of Sunday for Christians)and he offered to leave me at the restaurant. I asked to go along. The mosque we went to was of the local neighborhood variety. Not historical. It was only about 200 meters from the waters of the Golden Horn.

Two interesting things happened at prayers. First, at one point I decided to get down on the carpeted floor with the men who were prostrating themselves as part of the prayer ritual. I got down, but discovered that my left wrist was still not strong enough to get me to my feet and it took several men to help me up. I felt really embarassed.

Second, there is always preaching by an Imam on Friday, and this time the Imam preached on a text i had heard before.

Kenan told me he had spoken about the end time (something that Christians and Muslims have in common as the Day of Judgement). But the text he chose to speak about is, I believe, a Hadith, or saying of the Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him (PBUH). According to the tale, a follower of Islam asks Muhammad if he should tie up his donkey when he comes to prayers, or trust Allah. Muhammad looks at the man for a long time and say, You should trust Allah, of course...AND tie up your donkey!" As Christians say, God helps those who help themselves.

That evening we were driven to a lovely contemporary restaurant in the suburs of Istanbul for supper and the opportunity to introduce ourselves to each other.

I introduced myself and passed around to each participant a sheet of paper with information about Interfaith Paths to Peace, and about me. I also distributed the small blue pins I have that bear the symbols of the Abrahamic (including Sarah and Hagar)religions and the American/English peace symbol.

Then the others introduced themselves. Our group included Hasan Ozturk, a Ph.D. candidate in political science3 at UK, and my friend Kenan, who just received his masters in electrical engineering from the University of Louisville. Kenan hopes to move to Tennessee Tech this fall to begin work on his doctorate.

The other participants include:

Anthany Beatty – Assitant VP for Public Safety, University of Kentucky, Former Police Chief of Lexington

Eunice Beatty – Retired Professor, University of Kentucky's Bluegrass Community and Technical College

Carey Cavanaugh – Former U.S. Ambassador, Director of Patterson School of Diplomacy, University of Kentucky

Chase Cavanaugh – Senior at Notre Dame University, just back from a year of study abroad in Paris

Alan DeYoung – Educational Policy Chair, College of Education, University of Kentucky

Sakah Mahmud – Professor Political Science, Transylvania University in Lexington who is originally from Nigeria.

The Dormition of Mary and a Challenging Encounter with Muslim Men and Women

We left Istanbul on Sunday morning on a flight to Izmir, a coastal city a one hour flight from Turkey’s second largest city. The Izmir airport is actually located closer to our first destination for that day than to the city itself where we would be spending the night.

Our first destination was the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus (known locally as Efes). These ruins stretch over nearly half a mile, and sidle down what was the main street of Ephesus and include a stadium shaped bowl where the city’s governing council met, a public restroom with still visible toilets, and the façade of what had been perhaps the second largest library in the world in the centuries before and immediately after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. And of course most of us know the name of this city because of a biblical letter written to the citizens of that city who practiced a new religion we now know as Christianity.

The day was blazingly sunny and blazingly hot: by our conversion from degrees Celsius to Fahrenheit, we figured the temp topped out at just under 108 degrees.

Our next stop was an extra-Biblical legendary site, the home of the Virgin Mary. This small hut is located on a high hilltop, not easily accessible even by minivan. When we arrived after a half-hour drive from Ephesus, what I found was so obliquely plain that it struck me that this might really be the spot to which the Beloved Apostle, John ferried Mary after the crucifixion of her son. I was deeply moved by the fact that this place was swarming with people, not just Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians, but an equal number of Muslims, and many of them women.

The fact that by Catholic tradition Mary never died but rather fell asleep (in an act called the Dormition) came as a surprise to several members of our group. They were just as surprised to learn that as a matter of Catholic dogma, she was assumed body and soul into heaven. The Assumption was made an official item of Catholic dogma in the early 1950s. The great psychologist Carl Jung called this proclamation perhaps the greatest religious event of the Twentieth Century. Why? Because, in a sense, the Assumption of Mary into heaven restored the feminine to the Godhead.

Whether Mary actually died or was assumed into heaven was a matter of conversation at an outdoor dinner held for us later that night in a wooded locale about an hour and a half drive from our hotel in Izmir.

When I mentioned to one of our host’s the idea that Mary never died, he assured me that Fetullah Gulen could tell me where she was buried. I smiled and said I would write Gulen and ask him.

Our hosts included more than a half dozen men who support the Gulen movement, their wives and a good number of children. We had lots of barbequed food to eat. We munched on for a couple of hours until finally the men pulled their chairs into a half moon at one end of the table where we sat. Then we introduced ourselves and we began to talk about issues related to interfaith cooperation. At some point I became aware that our women hosts were gathered as a group in chairs behind the men, and very obviously were there as observers, not participants in our dialogue.

This bothered me. I felt they should be part of our interaction, but I also wanted to make sure I didn’t offend our male hosts.

So I grabbed a napkin and scrawled on it the words, “Is there some way we can RESPECTFULLY include our women friends in the conversation?” I passed the napkin to Kenan (one of our leaders) who read it and without pausing passed it back across the table to one of our male hosts who seemed to be in charge. He read what I had written, and immediately turned to the women and invited them to join the conversation circle. The men pushed their chairs apart and the women pulled their chairs forward. We asked them questions and they answered and asked us questions of their own. Especially about America and why the lone remaining superpower was not focusing on helping the world instead of engaging in wars.

But these women, who had seemed to be sad and silent, came to life and beamed. The men too seemed to relax and the conversation became both more animated and humorous. It certainly was friendly.

We concluded the evening with shared gifts and hugs.

As our group drove back to the hotel I felt we had made a powerful interfaith breakthrough, but I also was reminded later, that we need to think about why such a small change would be seen as a breakthrough. Why aren’t women full participants in the spirituality of most religions, including Christianity (in many forms), Judaism and Islam. And let’s throw in Buddhism and Hinduism to boot.

Ultimately this evening encounter made me think about all the things I take for granted in my own spirituality and religious practice. I need to be challenged, too.

The Turkey trip continues: Chruch to Mosque to Museum

Later on Thursday I took myself on a walk up the hill in Istanbul from my hotel past Topkapei Palace along the light rail line to the area where the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia sit side by side. I had decided to try to find a mozaic museum I had seen the day before near the Blue Mosque. I visited the museum which contained dozens of Roman mozaics from the time of Constantine; they were dusty and faded. Looked unrestored. Typical Roman scenes from myhology and daily life.

Then I visited Hagia Sophia (pronounced eye-uh sof-yuh) which in some ways symbolizes what our trip is about. This Medevil church was later converted into a mosque, and most re3cently has been designated a museum by the government...and so belongs to everyone.

Later in the evening I had the opportunity to join a group of Rumanian tourist for a cruise on the Golden Horn and Bosphorus. This two our evening cruise afforde3d me my first major inter-cultural interfai8th encounter of the trip. I discoved tht only two of the Rumanian group spoke English. One was the tour director who sought me out for a conversation. Even though he identified himself as a non-believer, he said he thought it was funny6 and interesting that the Virgin Mary is mentioned more times in the Qur'an than in the Bible.

Perhaps more interesting was an encounter I had at the beginning of the water excursion when an elderly orientalo man sought me out for conversation. I learned that he is a citizen of China who normally lives in Beijing, but is spending five years as a Christian (Nazarene) missionary to the formerly (still?) communist nation. We had a pleasant conversation. His English is better than mine. As I sat at the bow of the boat on the upper deck with a cool ocean breeze bathing my face I watched the Chinese missionary make the rounds of the Rumanians, presumably asking these supposedly atheistist Eastern Europeans if they had yet given their lives to Jesus.

“Tea Sugar a Dream” and “Your Shoes”

Turkish, according to my friend Kenen, who hosted me on my first day in Istanbul, is an almost unique language. The only other tongue on the planet that it is related to is Mongolian.

I am trying to pick up a few phrases and learned these two. When I asked the hotel concierge how to say thank you he told me that an easy way to remember the Turkish is to say the English words, “Tea Sugar a Dream.” And when I asked my friend Kenen how to say, “Wee you later, his reply sounded just like the American expression, “Your Shoes.”

After Kenen and Fatih picked me up at Istanbul Airport on Wednesday, I was given the opportunity to rest for a couple of hours at the place I have stayed the last two nights: Hotel Eris (pronounced air-esh). The hotel only costs about $35 per night, and it is Spartan (pun intended) with two single beds, a tiny bathroom, a TV and a phone. But is located in a wonderful locus within walking distance of the main cultural sites in the city. I am literally a five minute walk from the Topkapi Palace, and an additional five minutes from the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia (pronounced eye-uh soaf-yuh). From my room, as I said before, I look out over a train station to the “Golden Horn” and to the old international center of the city across the water.

On Thursday, after a traditional breakfast (bread, cheese, olives, tomatoes, boiled eggs, frit etc) in the hotel’s top floor small dining room I spent time blogging in the hotel lobby before being joined by Kenen and Hasan, both of whom will be our leaders on the formal portion of the trip. I blogged in the hotel lobby because even though the hotel has free Wi-Fi, the signal isn’t strong enough to connect tom netbook when I’m in my room on the 4th floor.

Kenen and Hasan met me about 10:30 and we walked to a commercial area about five blocks from my hotel. Kenen hadn’t had breakfast so we stopped at a Turkish fast-food restaurant that specializes in a savory pastry called “simit.” Interestingly this Turkish place for eating on the run was nestled between a MacDonald’s and a Burger King.

We ate pastry and drank tea for about an hour, and then Kenen went off to finish the details for our upcoming trip while Hasan guided me3 via light rail train across the Golden Horn and to the top of a hill in a section of the city called
Beyoglu (pronounced bay-oh-lou). This area, especially the neighborhood at the t op of the hill, was for much of the 19th century the international quarter.

We took the funicular train through a tunnel to the top of the hill and then walked the streets window shopping on our way to the Galata Tower, an historically significant building that rise3s two hundred feet above the hilltop, affording a few of all of Istanbul, Asian and European from its top floor observation windows.

Modern Turkey: A Nation of Paradoxical Hope

I arrived in Istanbul yesterday (Wednesday) at about 10 a.m. after taking flights from Louisville to Cincinnati, Cincy to New York’s JFK airport, and then a 9 ½ hour ride across the Atlantic and Europe to this Western-most city in Turkey.

Western-most is perhaps an apt, though somewhat misleading, word to use in describing this city. It is of course at the far western edge of Turkey, but more importantly, the city stands with one foot in Europe and the other in Asia. Literally. The modern suspension bridge that spans the Bosphorus links the two parts of the city and thus the two continents.

The Bosphorus is a narrow, river-like body of water that links the Aegean and the Black Sea.

The Bosphorus Bridge serves as a fitting symbol for modern Turkey, and for the man, Fetullah Gulen, whose ideas and work have directly and indirectly brought me to this 98% Muslim country for the first time.

Just as its largest city stands with one foot in Europe and the other in Asia, so this country stands with one foot in history and tradition and the other trying desperately to get a foothold in the modern West. Turkey holds many antiquities and there are signs up at the airport asking tourists not to carry these ancient treasures home with them when they leave.

But Turkey is a country embracing modernity and working diligently to gain admission to the European Union, a membership so far denied this nation. Turkey is so far the only Muslim nation that is a member of NATO, and even though its population is so overwhelmingly Muslim, it has a secular government that fervently strives to keep itself and its practices free of Islam or any other religion. In fact, in the not too distant past when an Islamic political party took legitimate control of the country politically and began a modest agenda of Islamic reforms, the military stepped in and forced the government to resign.

So what happens spiritually when a country and its people struggle with a divided identity that seems so paradoxically self-contradictory? The answer seems to come in a social movement that does something that the West so far has failed to do: moderate the excesses and poisons of modernity with a spiritually based ethical effort that embraces peace and justice.

The answer arrived in Turkey in the last several decades in the form of the Gulen Movement which strives to instill the deepest mystical values of Islam with the healthiest features of modernity.

In my next blog entry I will talk more not only about Gulen, but also about what I have seen in my first 24 hours on the ground.

Two “Thank Yous” to Rev. Ken Pagano

You may remember that about two weeks ago Rev. Ken Pagan held a “wear your gun to church” event at his New Bethel Church in Valley Station, Kentucky, near Louisville.

My organization, Interfaith Paths to Peace (IPP), in cooperation with 19 other churches, peace groups and individuals, hosted an alternative event at Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church in Louisville on the same day and at the same time. We called our alternative, “Bring Your Peaceful Heart…Leave Your Gun at Home.”

Related to Rev. Pagano’s event, I want to offer him two thank you’s, one with a touch of humor, the other with real seriousness.

First, I plan to present Ken with a thank you gift, because he, more than any other person on the planet, has communicated to millions of people around the world IPP’s name and mission. How did that happen? Just about every time Pastor Ken’s gun event was mentioned in the news media, the story also contained information about our alternative event, and the fact that we found the idea of wearing guns to church very troubling. Stories about the two events appeared in the New York Times, USAToday, the Associated Press, the BBC and so on and so. These stories were read by literally millions of people. So, Pastor Ken, we thank you for helping us gain worldwide fame.

But now, a more serious thank you. I spoke to Ken a few days before his gun event to let him know that we would be hosting the alternative. I told him that we held no ill will toward him or his congregation. Our conversation was very friendly. At one point he asked me when and where our event would be taking place. I told him, and he responded by saying that he would announce our event at the one he was hosting. I must confess that I didn’t believe him.

But during our Peaceful heart event a reporter from one of our local TV stations who had just come from Pastor Ken’s event, interviewed me. As we were preparing to go on camera she told me that Ken had mentioned our event to his congregation at the gun event. She then added that he also told his congregation that if he didn’t have to be at his own event that night he would be at ours. I was deeply moved, and I shared Ken’s words with our picnic-ers. They responded with awe.

I was reminded of Gandhi’s admonition that we must never seek to destroy or vanquish our opponent or enemy. We should engage our opponent with respect and dignity. For whatever reason, Ken did that in dealing with us. And I hope we did that with him

And I am hoping in the days and weeks ahead, Ken and I (and his congregation and my friend), can continue a dialogue about guns and other topics in a spirit of dignity and friendship.

Please visit the new web site for Interfaith Paths to Peace at http://paths2peace.org/

What is a Religion?

To further my interfaith work, I am enrolled in an intensive online course about the Baha’i faith. This course is offered by an educational arm of the Baha’is in the U..S called the Wilmette Institute.

One of the first assignments in the course asked the participants to read an article entitled, “The Concept of Religion” by Moojan Momen. Even though I deal with representatives of the world’s great religions on a daily basis, I don’t often stop to think about what constitutes a religion.

The article reminds us that the definition really depends on the religion that is practiced by the person answering the question.

For example, the article states, “For present day Christians, a religion is a set of beliefs. Christians are asked to subscribe to one of the various creeds that have been produced in the course of Church history.” The article asserts that, “Islam is a religion that is centered around a Holy law that lays down in great detail how one’s life should be lived.” Hinduism, as one of my Hindu friends has told me, is actually more of a culture or way of living than what other folks would define as a religion. Buddhists, by my understanding, are neutral about the idea of whether or not there is a God. We could go on and on in isolating the “distinctives” in defining what a religion means to the practitioners of the world’s great religions.

The author of the article I am writing attempts to find a working definition that can be used in a way that accounts for those distinctives. He sets out three interdependent aspects:

1. At the individual level, a religion is something that offers to a human an experience of the holy or sacred.

2. At the conceptual level, a religion asserts that “the most important activity for human beings is to establish and clarify their relationship with…” what the author refers to as an “Ultimate Reality.”

3. At the social level, religion aims at social cohesion and the healthy integration of individuals into society.

I have my own three-part definition of religion. Mine is based on something I learned in my study of Buddhism. Buddhists refer to “The Three Jewels” of their practice: The Buddha, The Dharma, and the Sangha. Put simply, the Buddha is the central figure and teacher in Buddhism. The Dharma is the set of laws and teachings about how to live a healthy, successful, and happy life. The Sangha is the Buddhist community. When I first read about the Three Jewels in a book by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, I realized that these three jewels are present in just about every religion. The way I would put it is that most (if not all) religions have:

1. A deity, person, or entity, to revere.

2. A set of principles or laws to guide the way people live.

3. A community of believers or practitioners.

While all three of these are important, the third is especially significant. Because without community, we don’t have a religion; we just have an individual spiritual practice.

There is much more that can be said about what constitutes a religion. I find my version of the Three Jewels very useful. But if we want to reduce a definition of religion down to one simple sentence, the author of the article does he good job when he writes:

“Religion is humanity’s response to what it experiences as holy.”

To learn more about the Wilmette Institute, click here:

http://www.wilmetteinstitute.us.bahai.org/

To learn more about the Baha’i faith, please visit:

http://www.bahai.org/