The following log is being presented in a series of weekly installments. To read this document in its entirety, please visit philchurch.substack.com
DAY 8 (FRIDAY, APRIL 8) – Phil is becoming expendable. HM arrived at our home a week earlier with clothes freshly washed and cleaned at a laundromat close to his hotel. He now needs to wash his clothes again. Connie shows him how to use our washing machine, how much soap to put in and what settings to use. HM now knows something about how to run our house that Phil doesn’t know. Phil is beginning to feel a bit expendable.
DAY 9 (SATURDAY, APRIL 9) – A helping hand from church members. Phil and Connie send out a request to our church fellowship group for a chest of drawers that HM might use in his bedroom. Within less than an hour after our request “hit the streets” we have a call with the offer of a 3-drawer chest. It’s now installed in his bedroom. He can take it with him – along with our daughter’s unwanted student desk – when he finds his own place to live.
DAY 10 (SUNDAY, APRIL 10) – Another Afghan friend, HA, comes to visit. We learn that HA arrived in the first wave of evacuees with his parents and a brother and was housed at Fort Bliss. It has taken HA nearly six months since his arrival to get all his immigration paperwork processed and only recently has been able to find a job as a data analyst with an area company. He brings, of course, food from his family’s Iftar dinner the night before. More delicacies again to please our pallets at dinner.
DAY 11 (MONDAY, APRIL 11) – We celebrate today. HM has a job offer. Not much of one, because it’s a short free-lance contract arranged through an Internet-based company – www.upwork.com – that matches computer techies with small-company clients that don’t need or can’t afford full time IT staff. In HM’s case the work would be constructing a website for the owner of a new restaurant. UpWork has an international talent base and matches employers and workers in a range of business and engineering areas around the world. It just may be of interest to other arriving refugees.
DAY 12 (TUESDAY, APRIL 12) – HM takes over our kitchen. It’s another day of AARP volunteer tax advising for Connie so she will be home late in the afternoon. (Only a few days remain till the tax filing deadline.) Phil normally “cooks” these evenings, that is he goes to get Chinese or Thai take out. When he suggests this option to HM, however, he gets pushback. There is still plenty of Iftar meal ingredients provided by his Afghan friends on hand so he suggests that instead. Phil has no counteroffer so HM takes over the kitchen and has a full meal ready when Connie walks in the door. She is delighted. Phil can’t complain. We three break (HM’s) Ramadan fast together. Phil even has trouble carrying out his normal kitchen duty – rinsing plates and putting them in the dishwasher. HM insists he must also do that. (Has HM’s mother back in Kabul encouraged him to be so helpful?) Whatever, Phil is really beginning to like HM. Connie already.
DAY 13 (WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13) – Another family relative emerges. After Iftar dinner together Phil shows HM an Opinion Page article from the day’s Washington Post about the need for the western countries to press the Afghan Taliban government on its promises to keep secondary schools open for girls. The article is written by Roya Rahmani, the former Afghan ambassador to the US (2018-2021) who is now also a refugee in the US and currently is a visiting fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security. HM declares Rahmani is a relative on his mother’s side. He knows her personally. Another layer of HM’s family-and-friends background emerges.
DAY 14 (THURSDAY, APRIL 14) – More variety in our daily meals. Today Phil and Connie schedule our Iftar meal to follow our Maundy Thursday evening church service. HM chows down as soon as we return home with food that still another friend, HK, has brought to share with him – rice, of course, along with chicken biryani and Qabuli palau, a tomato-based vegetable dish.
This blog post is the expressed opinion of its writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tysons Interfaith or its members.
Members of Tysons Interfaith and their families had the honor to join a special tour of the Washington Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 21, led by our colleagues David Smith and Irene Bortolussi.
We learned about the unique purpose of such sacred spaces for the sanctification of marriage and affirmation of faith, most notably through the performance of baptism and other rituals on behalf of ancestors. The quiet majesty of the temple interior evoked a solemn sense of peace and holiness and inspired spiritual reflection. The soaring exterior and beautiful grounds opened our hearts to the wonder of creation and God’s eternal presence.
We are truly grateful for this opportunity to visit this sacred space, open now through June 11 for public tours for the first time in almost half a century. https://dctemple.org/
This blog post is the expressed opinion of its writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tysons Interfaith or its members.
The Jewish holiday of Passover occurs every spring, as surely as the daffodils bloom, and it is perhaps the most central in terms of Jewish life and history.
The holiday begins at sunset (as do all Jewish holidays) on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Nissan. Because the Hebrew calendar is based on a lunar system, with 28 days in a month, corrected 7 times in a 19-year cycle by adding a leap month, the holidays can only move on the Gregorian calendar from late March to late April, this year beginning on Friday, April 15th.
Passover celebrates the biblical account of the Israelites’ redemption and escape from 400 years of Egyptian slavery. The story is told in the Book of Exodus, but many only know of the parting of the Red Sea. The story unfolds with the Israelites as slaves and the long attempt to be set free. Even before this freedom happens, in Exodus 12:14 the Almighty is describing a holiday and how to celebrate it: “This day shall be to you one of remembrance: you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Eternal throughout the ages; you shall celebrate it as an institution for all time. 12:15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the very first day you shall remove leavening from your house ….”.
The unleavened bread is Matzah and is central to the celebration of the holiday.
Passover is celebrated with a special meal called the Seder, where family and friends gather to read from the Haggadah which relates the story of Passover, the Israelites leaving Egypt and going from slavery to freedom. On the Seder table is a special plate which contains food, symbolic for the holiday. There you will find a roasted lamb shank bone symbolizing a sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem, a roasted egg, a sacrifice brought by the pilgrims, parsley symbolizing spring, Charoset (made from apples, nuts and wine) symbolizing the clay that was used by the slaves to make bricks for Pharaoh, horseradish symbolizing the bitterness of slavery and romaine lettuce, another bitter reminder. In addition to telling the story, there is singing, a bountiful meal and the warmth and closeness only family and friends can bring.
This blog post is the expressed opinion of its writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tysons Interfaith or its members.
Just about every spiritual path celebrates spring in a special way. For those of us who follow the Sikh way of life, in spring, we celebrate our most auspicious holiday, called Baisakhi. This year, Baisakhi is celebrated on April 14th.
The Sikh way of life was established by ten successive Sikh Gurus in India. Each of them was a pure channel of God’s love and wisdom. They inspired people to live lives of devotion, service and joy – to live in God-consciousness. “Sikh” means “student of Truth.” Guru Gobind Singh Ji was the tenth Sikh Guru in human form.
In mid-April, 1699, at the spring festival called Baisakhi, Guru Gobind Singh Ji initiated a special baptism of the most devoted Sikhs, in which he prepared and served a divine nectar called Amrit. Through this baptism, the deeply devoted Sikhs became Khalsa, or pure ones. After the Guru baptized the first five Khalsa, he had them baptize him as well. Guru Gobind Singh Ji declared that whenever five Khalsa gather in his name, he would be there with them.
Baisakhi is the highest celebration for Sikhs. It is a time of rededication and renewal of our faith. Many people take part in this special baptism to become Khalsa at this blessed time of year.
This blog post is the expressed opinion of its writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tysons Interfaith or its members.
With a snap of our fingers, the Christian Lenten journey is coming to an end as Holy Week is quickly approaching. This time of solemnity that is remembered between Palm Sunday (April 10th) and Easter morning (April 17th) is meant to be a time where we journey with Christ through the final moments of his earthly ministry.
Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday and the celebration of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Both disciples and onlookers alike celebrated his final return to the holy city. Waving palm branches and laying their cloak on the ground, the crowds gathered there that day and showed their respect and praise for Christ. On Palm Sunday, Christians imitate this ancient tradition as we too wave palm branches and sing “All Glory, Laud, and Honor” in celebration of the fateful journey Christ made for us into the walls of the city one final time.
The week continues with Holy Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. This year on these days, we keep in mind the lessons offered as Jesus curses the fig tree, cleanses the Temple, and confronts the authorities. Maundy Thursday marks the beginning of what we in the church call the Paschal Triduum or the Three Days. On this day of worship, we gather and hear the story of Jesus’ final night with his disciples before he is arrested. We are reminded of the selfless example of love and service Jesus shares with his disciples as he kneels before them washing their feet and shares one final meal together. It is custom that we, too, wash one another’s feet on this night, but with COVID, there will be other ways that we remember and celebrate this practice. The evening concludes with the stripping of the altar, lectern, and pulpit as a symbol of Christ’s impending suffering and death.
On Good Friday, we gather in silence. We come together to partake in the Tenebrae Service or Service of Darkness. On this night, we hear the account of Jesus’ final hours – his trial before Pilate, his mockery and abuse at the hands of the guards, his journey to Golgotha, and his last painful moments on the cross. We are left, like the first disciples, with immense heartache. Wanting to know what’s next, where do we go from here. We depart that night in the same way we arrived – in silence. We are left reflecting on the ultimate sacrifice Christ gave for us.
We prepare to conclude our Holy Week observances with the observance of Holy Saturday. On this final day before Easter, we wait in hopeful anticipation. The celebration of this day is practiced in many ways across the church, but at Redeemer, we will gather early Saturday morning and while carrying the cross through our town, we practice the Stations of the Cross and remember the journey Christ took for us.
Holy Week concludes with the joyous, magnificent, and marvelous celebration of Easter! We sing and say with our voices raised – Christ is Risen, He has Risen Indeed! We gather and celebrate that Christ overcame death and the grave and offered for all the promise of life eternal! Most local Christian churches have websites and/or Facebook pages where one can find announcements about plans for Easter worship. Please check announcements, bulletins, and website for more details on each.
This blog post is the expressed opinion of its writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tysons Interfaith or its members.
Ramadan is expected to begin at sundown on Friday, April 2. To our Muslim friends, we say, “Ramadan Murbarak.” And we bring to you, with our gratitude, this blog post written by Zaiba Hasan of the McLean Islamic Center:
It is almost the holy month of Ramadan, and I have a confession to make to you all – I am not the best fasting person. I really feel like I am Zombie Zaiba all day. Someone permanently hangry, if you will. I am not proud of this title but in an effort to be authentic I try to share the good, the bad, the ugly.
Ramadan for me has always been a mixed bag. I feel excitement along with trepidation mixed with anxiety for weeks before the holy month begins. My children start talking in hushed whispers –fasting mama is coming, with slight fear in their eyes. However, in an attempt to fix my attitude I want to focus on five lessons I have learned during this holy month, and that I hope to carry lessons with me for the remainder of the year. I pray – especially if fasting (and all that goes with it) isn’t easy for you either – that these lessons help you stay the course during the Ramadan and beyond.
Family: Nothing brings a family together faster than saying, “It’s almost Maghreb.[1]” My house sounds like a herd of elephants stampeding through the jungle before I can even get that last word out. As we sit around the table, in our dazed, hungered state, we share stories about the day, laugh at silly jokes my second grader loves to tell, and talk about some of the issues going on in the world today. I realize in our crazy schedule of work, school, practices, homework – we don’t do enough family dinners. My hope for when Ramadan ends is that we can continue to take a break from our hectic lives and make a point to connect as a family around the dinner table and in other ways.
Gratitude: Nothing gives you the most sense of gratitude then that first drink of ice cold water at sunset after you’ve been sitting outside in 90 degree weather at your son’s baseball game for three hours. After a long day of fasting I have the luxury of being able to break my fast with a delicious meal, a beautiful roof over my head, surrounded by the people I love most in this world.
The fact that two percent of the world’s population are homeless and close to 20 percent lack adequate housing isn’t lost to me and as I take that first sip of water. I am forever grateful that I am able to break that fast when others don’t know where their next meal is coming from. We all, those of us privileged to be able to break our fast with adequate food and drink and enjoy shelter, cannot be grateful enough.
Charity: The definition of fasting really means to abstain or to do without. Nothing heightens your sense of giving than to feel physically what it is like to do without. During the month of Ramadan more people are apt to donate their zakat [2] or give sadaqa [3] since this is the month of fasting, prayer and charity. However, why only give in Ramadan, or only give as generously as you do during this holy month? The act of charity should continue into the rest of the year. Whether you are donating your dollars or time, it never hurts to give to others. (Here are nine charities you can support in Ramadan and beyond through your volunteer hours, with monetary donations or both. Still looking for a good charity? Here are eight more!)
Prayer: I have another admission to make. I am not the best at prayer. I do them quickly or sometimes forget to do them at all. (I know. This is terrible). However, Ramadan brings a new sense of spirituality and connection to something bigger than myself. When you feel the pangs of hunger and thirst, it is a physical reminder of your devotion to something bigger than yourself. To take the time out of our crazy days to stop and take a break for salah, means to take a breather, have a conversation with God and readjust our attitudes to the world around us. If I can continue to do this with regularity and focus, I feel like I can only benefit from this the rest of the year.
(Here are four ways to get better about your five daily prayers and other simple spiritual goals to center in Ramadan and beyond.)
Patience: Part of my personal mission this year was to maintain my patience when my patience was at its thinnest. When your head is pounding from lack of caffeine and your children (or hubby) are grating on your nerves, it’s easy to yell out in frustration. My goal this Ramadan was to limit those outbursts as much as I could. To not let my hangry self lash out at the others around me. Like my daughter loves to tell me, “You are a grumpy fasting person.” Ouch, but it’s true. I will instead focus on gratitude, charity, prayer, and patience for the rest of the year and if God allows me to see another Ramadan, my hope is to be a better person than I am today. Until next time….
This blog post is the expressed opinion of its writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tysons Interfaith or its members.
[1] The evening prayer that marks the end of the fasting day
[2] za·kat /zəˈkät/ noun obligatory payment made annually under Islamic law on certain kinds of property and used for charitable and religious purpose.
[3] Sadaqah or Sadaka (Arabic: صدقة ,IPA: [sˤɑdæqɐ], “charity”, “benevolence”, plural ṣadaqāt صدقات( in the modern context has come to signify “voluntary charity”. According to the Quran, the word means voluntary offering, whose amount is at the will of the “benefactor”.
You are invited to “Pause for Peace” … to cause a “spiritual chain reaction!”
Just imagine if you invited everyone you know to invite everyone they know to “Pause for Peace” … just stop what they are doing for maybe 1 or 2 minutes (or more if they choose) and consciously choose to be peace. Their worlds will be transformed, and in the process, our whole world will experience a shift. Peace will prevail.
Our congregation at the Center for Spiritual Living Metro has chosen 12:00 noon each day plus any other time that the thought occurs, just “Pause for Peace.”
In addition, Tysons Interfaith invites you to immerse yourself for an hour in prayers and meditations for Peace from an array of traditions. This event will take place virtually on Sunday, April 3 beginning at 4:00 pm. To register, please visit: eventbrite.com
We hope you will join us as collectively we raise the consciousness of the world to Peace.
As we approach Holy Days in the Baha’i faith, we invite you to enjoy this repost of a blog from last spring:
Probably many people know that Easter and Passover occur in the spring, but spring is also a time of sacred observation for people of the Baha’i Faith.
March 20- 21 are the Baha’i Holy Days of Naw-Ruz, the Baha’i New Year.
Naw-Ruz coincides with the spring equinox and is an ancient Persian festival celebrating the “new day.” For Baha’is it marks the end of the annual nineteen-day fast and is one of the nine holy days of the year when work is suspended, and children are exempted from attending school.
Also in the spring is the Festival of Ridvan. This annual Baha’i festival commemorates the twelve days when Baha’u’llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, publicly proclaimed His mission as God’s messenger for this age. Elections for local, national, and international Baha’i institutions are generally held during the Festival of Ridvan. The first day (April 20 or 21), the ninth day (April 28 or 28), and the twelfth day (May 1 or 2) are celebrated as holy days when work is suspended, and children are exempted from attending school.
To learn more about the Baha’i Faith, please visit: https://www.bahai.org/
Next to Chanukah, Purim is probably the holiday to which Jewish children can most relate. There are costumes, carnivals and Hamentaschen (preserve filled cookies in the shape of a triangle). When the story is told, they get to make lots and lots of noise with groggers (twirling noise makers) in hand. But surely there is more to the holiday than that.
In the Hebrew bible, in Kethuvim (the Writings), appears the Book of Esther or Megillat Esther. In this short book, the story is related about a Persian king, who by historic timing might have been Xerxes I or Artaxerxes I. His first wife has the audacity to disobey him and she is banished. A call is put forth for a new wife and fair women from throughout the kingdom vie for this opportunity. Among them is Esther, a Jew. She wins the contest, but never reveals her background.
Concurrent with the wife plot is the plot of Haman who hates the Jews. Like generations before and after him, he couches his hatred by saying “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces in your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in Your Majesty’s interest to tolerate them”. (Esther 3:8).
Esther, from her position within, takes the risk of revealing her Jewishness to the king, and then exposes Haman’s plan to destroy her and her people. The king cancels Haman’s plans and Haman is executed.
Purim, like Chanukah, is traditionally viewed as a minor festival, but elevated to major holiday status as a result of the Jewish historical experience. Over the centuries, Haman became the embodiment of every antisemitic leader in every land where Jews were oppressed. The significance of Purim lies not so much in how it began, but in what it has become: a thankful and joyous affirmation of Jewish survival against all odds.
This blog post is the expressed opinion of its writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Tysons Interfaith or its members.
While serving at a church in Pennsylvania, I got stuck at a light on my way to the joint Ash Wednesday worship with the neighboring Episcopal Church. And I mean stuck. As the stop lights cycled multiple times through for everyone else, the light in my lane remained red. Just as I was about to do something I shouldn’t, the light finally turned green, and I arrived right on time.
Ash Wednesday, as the start of Lent, is like that. Ready or not, it’s time to pause and make note of the brake lights and the stop lights. Ready or not, it’s time to travel through the wilderness, take the slow lane or even a different route, knowing that in forty days (minus Sundays), we will still arrive right on time, exactly where we need to be.
The Christian season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter Sunday. It is a season of prayer, introspection, and for some, fasting or giving up of certain earthly pleasures. During Lent, Christians reflect on events of the life of Christ leading up to and including his death and resurrection. Forty days of penitent reflection is indeed inspired by the Jesus’s own forty-day experience in the wilderness, accounts of which are found in the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke.
Now we may not find ourselves led out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit this Lent, as Jesus did. We may not face a talking serpent or the devil face to face. But in the wildernesses that we find ourselves in, be they physical, emotional, or spiritual, we too find our identity tested. We are constantly tempted into thinking that, as we are right now, we are not good enough to be children of God.
Most of us are aware of our limitations and our hang-ups, and the tempter takes every opportunity to remind us of where we fall short. But from my faith perspective, Lent is not for sacrificial self-improvement to be more holy come Easter Sunday. Lent instead takes us through the wilderness to reflect on our own shortcomings, in order to remind us to let God be God. Not so that we can feel guilty at where we fail. But so that we can get out of our own way and be nothing less than members of God’s family. Anecdotally, when Martin Luther felt tempted by the devil to despair, he would shout in response, “I am baptized!” Not “I was”, but “I am.” Present tenses. True in this very moment.
The trip through Lent every year takes us from a garden to a wilderness and back again, from human sin and transgression and death to resurrection, from the ash crosses of Ash Wednesday to the shadow of the cross on Good Friday, through the Garden of Eden, to the garden of Gethsemane, to the garden that contained Jesus’ empty tomb. Every year, we tell the story, to remind ourselves who we are and who we belong to. “I am baptized.” Present tense.
We Christians wear the sign of the cross in ashes on the outside to remind ourselves of the work that God is enacting on the inside of us. The confessing of our sins. The embracing of our brokenness. The naming of our grief and disappointments. And this the slow and painful process of the transforming of our dusty and broken hearts into clean ones, better able to love the other dusty hearts out there in our lives and in the rest of the world. That transformation probably takes more than forty days. But forty days is a good start.
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