Thursday, October 16, 2008

Headscarves and Bibles

Two articles that I ran across yesterday gave me pause.  

The first was Generation Faithful found on the New York Times website.  Here is an interesting article that discusses how the Turkish young people are living out the typical call to rebel, by returning to their faith.  Now some could argue that this breeds extreme ism. Yes, that does happen.  however, it also breeds young people who the pursue life in business, science, medicine, education, and families that are grounded is firm moral and spiritual roots.  Thoughts of the justness and righteousness of an action are weighed as much as the ability to complete the action.  Is this not a good thing?

The article took me back to my freshman year of college.  I lived in the all girls dorm.  Due to it having the largest rooms and best cafeteria.  Plus it was a great location, next to three of the buildings that housed most of my classes given my areas of study.  Anyways, also in the dorm were a cluster of girls I had been good friends with in primary and secondary school.  One had moved somewhere in the middle school years.  The other two remained in my circle of friends throughout high school.  When the four of us discovered we all were in the same dorm, we began to have regular meals together.  An odder set you likely would not see.  Fatima was becoming as involved int eh Muslim student group as I was in the Catholic student group.  Another friend, from Taiwan, was Buddhist, but mostly secular in her beliefs.  Then there was the eccentric one who was raised sort of Catholic but was heading down the atheist path.  Especially Fatima and I would have constant conversations about our faith and how that influenced our lives. She, like the girls in the NYT article, chose to wear the headscarf.  Her mother did not, I believe.  She saw it as a sign of her faith, as a sign of her choice to live according to that faith.  I understood.  I wore my cross daily and a Miraculous Medal with it.  We shared stories and found strength in each other's faith.  Both of us were parts of a faith that was predominantly led by a male hierarchy.  We were both trying to be faithful in a secular university where professors and students didn't always respect our choices.  We both were singled out by professors due to the physical signs of our faith.  I remember being verbally attacked by a philosophy professor due to my cross and medal I wore.  Petrified at the time, I now see that as a valuable life experience.  Fatima helped me through some of those freshman year challenges.  

The second will have to wait.  I need to get into the office.

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