A Different Take on the postModern Problem

Leave it to Speaking of Faith to give us a broad and insightful show on Ramadan. A week or so ago they had a show with Muslims talking about their experiences of the Ramadan fast that just came to an end. What struck me as an excellent parable of the postModern experience for many was the way one of the speakers explained her story.

She made sure that she came back from a trip to Jordan before Ramadan began so she could experience it here- in the United States.

Samar Jarrah: I just got back from Jordan actually last night, very late last night, and my family was telling me, "Why can't you just stay a bit longer and spend the week from Ramadan in Jordan or in Egypt?" I said, "You will never understand this, but the best Ramadan I ever spent in my life is always in America because I feel sometimes I'm the only person fasting."

It's more strenuous. I feel like every day is a Jihad for me, the struggle to maintain my faith, maintain my fast despite the amazing food around me and the smell. If I go shopping or if I go to the mall, there is food everywhere. Everybody is eating except myself and this brings me amazing strength. I wake up very early in the morning. I can be lecturing, I can be driving to my class a hundred miles each way, I can be feeding the homeless, I can be doing amazing stuff that I would not be doing if I were living in a Muslim country because the whole country would be fasting and I would be one of many.
--Transcript

It reminded me of what friends who lived in what was then East Germany used to reflect when they visited us in the United States. They would always comment on the way we mix up faith and nation and how easy it is to be a Christian in the United States. Their experiences in an Eastern European country at that time highlighted the difference when making the decision to be a Christian and got to worship was an act of courage.

That is what Samar Jarrah was talking about. Her awareness of her faith was far greater when in the US since she was surrounded by non-faith the way she practiced it. That does not mean she felt like a persecuted minority. That isn't what she said. It is the amount of temptation that would call her to break her fast - or perhaps not even start it in the first place. This can be called assimilation- giving in to the temptations of not being quite so different.

Being different doesn't even mean being visibly different. No one could tell whether Samar was fasting or not. But she did. And God did. Which is what it is all about. It is a way of going into one's closet and praying in secret. Even when the culture is calling.

In the postModern concept that is one of the difficulties of faith. It is being challenged on all sides by non-faith or anti-faith or even just pure indifference to faith. How do we people of faith of all types keep our faith in the midst of that? How do we maintain our conscious contact with our God when the cultural static is so alluring? How do you do it?