Mosque Visit

The tiny room housing the library hardly contained enough space to hold the books bulging off each shelf, let alone our dozen plus two group and the counsel of Muslim men present to answer our inquiries.  We filled the chairs lining the bookshelf perimeter and stacked ourselves into windows of space between those already seated and the center table.

At the head of the table sat the imam of this small-town American mosque.  He sat forward in his charcoal t-shirt and faded jeans.  His brim-worn hat nestled over a grayed head of unkempt hair that ran into his scraggly beard.  He could have easily been mistaken as the husky brother of Uncle Si, Nam and all.  (No plastic cup of tea.)  Though his eyes faded under the glare of the reflection on his glasses, it was easy to see his life was one hard lived.

The slender Middle-Eastern man sitting in his white prayer cap to the imam’s right stroked his pointed, manicured black beard as he listened intently, occasionally and emphatically interjecting his views from a traditional, yet youthful, perspective.  As if for intentional comic relief, a rotund Afghani man sat two seats further, asking, “Next question?” half way through nearly every answer.  When he wasn’t anticipating the next question, he seasoned the imam’s answers by quietly and simultaneously sharing his own comments.

We discussed the lack of desire for democracy, the differing spiritual experiences of hajj, the uncertainty of Paradise and the command to respect mothers.  Politics.  Religion.  Science.  Family.  One topic after another we listened to their responses to our questions.  Some rejected.  Others half answered.  All so seemingly full of sincerity. 

My heart tore inside my chest. I wanted to burst with rebuttals and impassionate arguments and the Good News, but this was not a war.  Patience and wisdom in faith’s sometimes-agonizing journey defeated my impulse and turned instead to intercession.  Prayers spilled over my lips for the lostness of these men. Their communities.  Their children.  Their wives.  

Just moments earlier I’d sad through the weekly service with her.  To keep the men from being distracted during prayer and because of her inferior spirituality, the women bowed in a room separate from the men and the imam.  We could only listen over a garbled speaker as we sat, veiled in the darkness, but she fervently participated nonetheless.  As more women added to the room, she closened hard against me, and I prayed.  My back ached from the unfamiliar posture on the cool, carpeted floors, but I dared not move.  I wanted her to feel my Love.  I wanted to hold her close and breathe Life and Truth into her heart.  So for just those few moments, as we posed close like long-loved sisters, her prayers reciting to Allah, I lifter her before the Father and begged that she would find Him as she sought with all her heart (Jer. 29:13).

 “But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent?”  Romans 10:14-15

“Go! I am sending you…” Luke 10:3