Who am I really? (Part 9 of 40)

I'm a believer, yet an unbeliever...

To prepare students for the debate assessment that they will give on Monday, I shared with students this Point Counterpoint: Teddy Bear or Blankey? formal debate clip about a very important bedroom defense topic of which item better protects a child from the Boogeyman. To pre-empt the clip, I asked students if any of them watched scary movies. A few did. I then asked about the Boogeyman, but none of them knew who he was, and so I explained, the whole time giving the impression that I believed in the phenomenon 100%. Some of the braver students then recounted similar spirit beings in Omani culture, and the phenomenon that there are times when people die and their bodies become "like wood," in that the spirit has left the body and is still alive, but all that observers see is the corpse. Unknowingly, the family buries the body, thinking the person dead. However, the spirit continues to live and is sometimes seen walking in the village, yet unable to speak because his or her tongue has been silenced (or cut -- the student was struggling to find the right verb). In response to the student that explained this belief, other students poo-pooed it as being claptrap. Interestingly enough, though, at the end of class (when all the ladies had left), four boys eagerly shared with me their familial experiences with this same concept and wanted to know if I earnestly believed in the Boogeyman. I confessed that I did not, but as a child I did.

The night before, I spent some time with a religious group, listening to the testimonies of a few members and, with the whole group, listened to a holy man encourage us to keep the faith and offered scriptural comfort to two individuals who shared their testimonies. Throughout the evening, two shared stories -- one a personal one and one a recounting -- stick out in my mind. I share with you these stories:

Story A - 'Sandra' shared with the group that although she has been a committed servant to Christ for a long time, the man that she married is a man who is 'not a member of the church' -- namely a Muslim Omani national. When she married this man, her father disowned her. God has blessed her with four children (two sets of twins; all under the age of 4). She does not regret her marriage because without it, she wouldn't have the children that she currently has. However, she laments making a promise to her husband not to talk about Christ with the children. Maybe there are days when she feels that she wasn't a good servant in making the decision to marry outside the LDS church, but she prays and trusts that the Lord will be faithful to her children and that He and the restored Gospel be revealed to them despite her promise.

Stroy B - 'Robert' shared with the group a chance meeting that he had with an American service woman from the church that he met in Iraq. He asked her why she had been assigned to Iraq, and she said, "I wasn't assigned. I volunteered."

Robert then asked, "You're not married then?"

Servicewoman: Yes, I'm married. We have a 14-month old.

Feeling puzzled, and a bit judgmental, as to why this woman, with such a young child and without her husband, would volunteer to serve in Iraq, he asked, "Can I ask why you, a sister, would volunteer to serve overseas in your situation?"

Her reply, "My husband needed an operation, but his insurance wouldn't cover it, so I volunteered to serve in the military in Iraq so that he could be covered by my insurance."

Robert: And how is your husband now?

Servicewoman: The pain is gone.

Then Robert said to us all in the room (and I paraphrase), "In that brief conversation with that sister, she taught me a very clear lesson about the importance of not judging others."


Lord have mercy! The dignified manner in which these women carry the weight of their lives and their life decisions is commendable. How humbling and a punch to the gut it was to hear these stories related. How somber I felt, but yet at the same time, filled with hope for these women and the families that they nurture. Lord, in your mercy, hear their prayers!

After the spiritual meeting ended, the group and I made our way to another room in the building to decompress the heaviness of the testimonials the way Christians have for centuries: potluck consumption. Certainly, God smiled upon us because there were brownies.

As I made small talk with different members of the group (many whom I had not yet met, but saw on occasion at the fellowship meetings or in public), I noticed a slight interactive pattern. At about the 2-minute marker in the small talk conversation, my interlocutor would say, "So how long have you been part of the church here?" To which I would reply, "Oh, I come about once a month or whenever my colleague tells me that something interesting is happening with the fellowship."

Then there's this slight pause, a squinting of the eyes, and then, "So you're not a member. You're just visiting."

Me: I normally go to the Protestant Church, yes. But I live here in Oman.

Interlocutor: [With a surprised and sympathetic, yet optimistic, look] Well, may the spirit work within you to know the Gospel. You're welcome anytime, and we're happy you're here.

Now, out of reflex, I want to say to them in Arabic, "Inshallah (God willing)," as I do with Muslims who verbally express their hope that I will accept the message of Prophet Mohammed (pbuh). But these folks are neither Arabic speakers nor Muslims, so I reign in the reflex and feel compelled to politely say, "If it is His plan."

It was in those socially awkward moments yesterday and in other cross-denominational interactions that I feel the way that I felt this afternoon when my students asked me if I believed in the idea of Mughayeb (spirit possession) -- the feeling of disconnected superiority mixed with nervous aversion. Or as my students articulate this feeling in simple English -- "Believe, but don't believe." In contrast to being asked if I accept the message of Prophet Mohammed or whether there is such a thing as spirit possession, I feel somewhat annoyed when someone verbalizes to me that he or she hopes I become a 'true member' of the church that is Jesus. My comfort when confronted with these different theological perceptions comes from 1 Corinthians 13:12

Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

We have no control over when this day of clarity will happen, so I won't worry about it, but trust that with each passing day and opportunity that the Lord freely gives, we'll be one step closer to this day of complete understanding. Until that time, let us not judge, yet encourage and foster the love that has so freely been given to us.