It is also a story about culture shock. About a woman's search for independence and freedom and with that the space that exists between hope and sad realities. It is a story about how in the midst of a religion based upon love, a shadow side emerges.
The temple was dim and had many rooms and was housed in a nondescript sixties style bungalow deep in the countryside. Upon entering we were welcomed and as per the custom in that place we had dressed appropriately, completely covering our bodies from head to toe. I had gone because I was curious about a culture and a religion that had much to offer. Graceful poetry, expansive theories about God and a fine sense of history all steeped in love and brotherhood.
I could be describing any of the monotheistic religions and perhaps I will leave it at that for the the bare nut of the story is experienced by women everywhere.
In spite of the building being so mundane from the outside, inside the building there was the feeling of the sacred. Temple is temple wherever people practice and believe. The hush, the circumspection, the dimness of light, the incense and the music were all beautiful.
As we gathered in the sanctuary we were seated on the floor, men in the centre on the carpet, women on the perimeter outside the ornate and fringed carpet. There might have been some 60 or 70 of us there with almost equal numbers of men and women. I found myself seated on the floor between two women, one in her seventies and one in her early twenties.
Gradually as the evening progressed I realized that this was not to be any short service, but rather a series of sacred events taking place over many hours.
Initially there were songs, and sermons, and more beautifully rendered singing, some breath singing and glorious worship. There was a pace to the evening slowly culminating in dancing as men linked arms and danced swaying slowly to the beat of drums. The men who performed wore vests and hats of red, green, brown and gold felt which set them apart from the worshippers.
There was a break for refreshments and during that time I found myself in conversation with the main priest. The conversation reminded me of those conversations with men when they have no interest in talking to you, when they see you as 'other', or 'nonessential'. At the time it was vaguely disconcerting, but it wasn't until we went back in for the second part of the service that the veil began to lift.
After a little more sermonizing and singing, the men departed to commune with one another in a separate room. A room to which women were denied access. The door was closed and shortly from the inside of the room came the now familiar strains of religious song and dance.
Meanwhile, in the sanctuary I began to have a small conversation with my elderly companion. She was or had been a beautiful woman. She told a story of coming to this country after leaving her first husband. Alone, without the language, she made a life for herself and her children, in this new land. She skipped over the details, but somewhere in that early leaving she had found solace with a priest who had encouraged her to leave her abusive home. She divorced that husband. But she had a bitterness mixed with pride in her early somewhat headstrong actions.
She confided to me that if she had known how hard life was to be, she might never have taken that risk of coming her with her children, all alone in the fifties.
She was proud that she and her children had survived and flourished eventually but the cost was dear. I could see she had some regrets. As she told the story the young woman seated to left of me began to weep, silently.
"Had she ever married again?", I asked.
All at once, the venom appeared, " I hate men." The answer came so quickly and violently I think it surprised even her, because all at once, she clapped her hands over her mouth, rose, and ran from the room. I never saw her again.
I was stunned. I worried for her but could see no way to make ammends.
The men poured back into the room almost immediately and began the singing and dancing again. The lights seemed to grow dimmer. As I turned to my left I saw the tears streaming down the face of my neighbour.
"Are you all right?, I asked. She shook her head and entered into private speechless crying. There was nothing I could do...for either of them. I had crossed some boundary within the culture and the walls were now up.
I left before the entire evening was over, for it was to go on long after midnight.
But on the way home in the darkness of night, my own cultural background rose up to greet me. Rage, pure and simple. Darkness not light had been the outcome at least for me.
I knew I could never go back. Somehow the entire evening was awash in the miseries of women confined by men. And a religion that had espoused such beauty and truth fell from grace. The place it had in abstraction was so clearly denied to the women.
It was then that I began to ask how is it that around the world women worship God privately yet publicly we are constrained from expressing that love. Our love for God becomes limited by exclusions of liturgy, and power. Yet I am reminded that in one case at least, women are central to God's purpose. But more on that another time.
After a little more sermonizing and singing, the men departed to commune with one another in a separate room. A room to which women were denied access. The door was closed and shortly from the inside of the room came the now familiar strains of religious song and dance.
Meanwhile, in the sanctuary I began to have a small conversation with my elderly companion. She was or had been a beautiful woman. She told a story of coming to this country after leaving her first husband. Alone, without the language, she made a life for herself and her children, in this new land. She skipped over the details, but somewhere in that early leaving she had found solace with a priest who had encouraged her to leave her abusive home. She divorced that husband. But she had a bitterness mixed with pride in her early somewhat headstrong actions.
She confided to me that if she had known how hard life was to be, she might never have taken that risk of coming her with her children, all alone in the fifties.
She was proud that she and her children had survived and flourished eventually but the cost was dear. I could see she had some regrets. As she told the story the young woman seated to left of me began to weep, silently.
"Had she ever married again?", I asked.
All at once, the venom appeared, " I hate men." The answer came so quickly and violently I think it surprised even her, because all at once, she clapped her hands over her mouth, rose, and ran from the room. I never saw her again.
I was stunned. I worried for her but could see no way to make ammends.
The men poured back into the room almost immediately and began the singing and dancing again. The lights seemed to grow dimmer. As I turned to my left I saw the tears streaming down the face of my neighbour.
"Are you all right?, I asked. She shook her head and entered into private speechless crying. There was nothing I could do...for either of them. I had crossed some boundary within the culture and the walls were now up.
I left before the entire evening was over, for it was to go on long after midnight.
But on the way home in the darkness of night, my own cultural background rose up to greet me. Rage, pure and simple. Darkness not light had been the outcome at least for me.
I knew I could never go back. Somehow the entire evening was awash in the miseries of women confined by men. And a religion that had espoused such beauty and truth fell from grace. The place it had in abstraction was so clearly denied to the women.
It was then that I began to ask how is it that around the world women worship God privately yet publicly we are constrained from expressing that love. Our love for God becomes limited by exclusions of liturgy, and power. Yet I am reminded that in one case at least, women are central to God's purpose. But more on that another time.
