Hybrid Soul

I fished the piece below out of several hundred pieces of paper that fill notebooks, folders and spirals near my workspace. I wrote it back around 2001 or 2002 in response to a call for submissions for an anthology on modern, young women's perspectives on spirituality.

The publisher was (is?) a West Coast press with a small list. The submissions were to be lighthearted, pop-flavored yet informative, hip and perhaps even a little glib and sarcastic. I sat down, thought and gave what I had. My truth.

My submission did not end up appearing in the collection, but I like it because it is one of my first attempts at composing a black and white concrete meditation on a topic that's actually more sterling silver and fluid. What appears below is a slight expansion of what I orginally sent in.

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Most of the boundaries between traditions are artificial. Truth has no boundaries. The differences are mostly in emphasis. ~Thich Nhat Hanh, Reflections from Living Buddha, Living Christ

I am drawn to examine (and re-examine) the Old Ways, the Old Beliefs. To link up my own feelings with inquiries, faiths, passionate dedications which...sometimes startle me by popping up from deep in my subconscious. I think, irresistably, of magic, of blood memories, of God, even of Christ. It is a matter of roots, of place...a search for the essence of my people found in my own blood. ~Alice Walker, from the preface to Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems

Not long ago, I decided to take public transport to work and happened to sit near two people who, before the end of my ride, would engage in something of a religious debate.

He was a middle aged African American Muslim dressed from head to foot in Eastern garb. He was a cool brother, Last Poets-type that I will call Abu. Directly across the aisle from Abu was a young woman whom I guessed was in her mid-twenties. She was also black. Their seats were the ones nearest the doors, seats with the backrests against the train walls so that Abu and the young woman sat facing each other. Sitting nearby in a parked stroller was the woman's daughter, a toddler engrossed in a story told in the pages of a large picture book. Young Mother wore glasses and was neatly dressed in a style very similar to Abu's. However, I doubted that she was Muslim; her head was covered, but her arms were bare.

Abu craned his neck so that he could speak around the bodies of the communters who streamed in and out of the canyon-like space, easing into conversation with Young Mother by commenting on Baby Girl's apparent fondness for "reading." I couldn't help but tune in as he used smooth sly-chology to begin to question Young Mother. He began by soft-pedaling and asking whether or not she was a student of Islam. Her polite reply was that she didn't follow any organized religion. Next Abu, apparently appauled, let go of a barrage of questions: Are you a Christian? (At this question, I wondered if he'd fallen momentarily deaf when the young woman said that she didn't follow an organized religion or whether he viewed Christianity as chaotic, as opposed to organized, religion.) Are you monotheist? Do you believe in God? Do you believe that God created all of the planets or that they just appeared through happenstance?

The interrogation ended with Abu offering that the Prophet Muhammed, peace be upon him, was quite liberal in his views of women and that Islamic sharia, as it related to women's dress, was a protective measure. It was only put in place to protect women from men's bestial nature. All of these were reasons, Abu pointed out, that Young Mother should strongly consider converting. At this final statement, Abu turned to a young Levantine/Persian/Desi-looking woman sitting across the aisle from me and asked, "Isn't that right, Sister?" The woman gave a polite, faint smile but looked clearly annoyed by Abu's attempt to get her to help in his mission.

Unruffled, Young Mother held her ground and gave matter-of-fact, pleasant replies to his questions: Yes, she believed in God. Truth is contained in all religions. She had no idea when or how the universe was created and dared not speculate.

I don't know exactly when and how their conversation ended, but after getting off at my stop, I realized that unlike Young Mother whose composure, wisdom and responses reminded me of Scheherazade of A Thousand and One Nights, I was irritated by Abu's aggressive nosiness. It called to mind conversations that a Muslim friend of mine with Louisiana roots would have where he'd laugh and say (in the very Southern way that he had) that minding one's own business is a full-time job as well as a gospel song that I used to hear as a child that advised folks to sweep around their own front doors. Abu's self-serving concern reminded me of numerous encounters I'd had with men, as well as women, who claimed to have the my soul's best interest in mind when they sidled up on publc transport, in elevators, at school or at work. I've been eyed warily and asked whether I am Rasta, Hebrew Israelite, Unitarian. I have even been accused of being a "witch" and can remember being warned by a West African evangelical Christian that despite my being a "good girl" I had a confirmed reservation to hell if I didn't start going to church every Sunday.

I think that for people like Abu, those of mixed spirit are as troubling as people of mixed bloodlines are to some, despite the fact that we're all mongrels. Within our families are some variaton of The Roman Catholic grandma whose rituals and practices speak to secret Jewish roots, the uncle who sold bean pies and Final Call newspapers back in the '60s and twenty years later converted again to orthodox Islam, the cousin who studied abroad in Asia and came back with an appreciation of Buddhism and tai chi. All of these people contribute something to our spiritual understanding.

All this being true, I do still recognize the necessity of giving due respect to one's spiritual roots and that these roots have a strong tie to ones history and culture. Spirtual leaders like the Dalai Lama have spoken to this point. As has Thich Nhat Hanh when he eloquently writes, "After one retreat, a young man told me, 'Thay, I feel more Jewish than ever. I will tell my rabbi that a Buddhist monk inspired me to go back to him.'" So, in a nutshell, it is best for seekers to come to terms with the spiritual beliefs of their ancestors, perhaps picking up tools and techniques of other traditions to shed new light on their spiritual inheritance. Ignoring one's roots puts the seeker at risk of having a kind of identity crisis of the soul. It's like being grounded by one's sense home, family and place yet still showing respect and receptivity to one's neighbors and larger community. As absolutely true as I feel this insight is, I know also that for people with complicated histories it is difficult to figure out what qualifies as being one's spiritual True North.

The particulars of the history of people of color is often convoluted (or fluid, depending on how one sees). I am, for instance, a black woman born in the American South during the 1970s to a common family of modest means. Many of aspects of my history have been obscured or forgotten. In some cases, the amnesia was forced. In other cases, memories and ancestral wisdom were thrown overboard because they were too heavy to carry forward. Most of my ancestors, as far as I know, came from West and Central Africa. Looking at the weathered pictures of long-dead family members makes me also see that we carry the blood of the Native American. In my pale skin, eyes and English name I see traces of the European. I am descended from recent ancestors who were mainly Baptist and Methodist with a few Catholics. I am also one who cannot forget those other ones who were taken from the "wilds"of Africa and hustled into stone-cold churches on islands like Goree, christened with new names like Adam and Eve, exported to ports like Charleston and New Orleans and Santo Domingo and Mantanzas and Salvador. I must honor the Native American whose ways I was never taught, the European ancestors who belonged to the peaceful bands that Marija Gimbutas and Monica Sjoo have written about because there are also insights to be gained through them.

My walk with God has involved holding fragments of truth to light trying to see the ways that the various myths, legends, stories and beliefs fit together and how they, in turn, hold me together. I know that dominant traditions are built upon smaller structures. What may have, for instance, been an ancient shrine or feast day for an ancient diety gets a few bricks added and becomes a cathedral, temple, mosque or in some other way labeled as a new tradition. The Old Ways are the silent spaces that exist in our lives without much comment, while the heralded religion is the printed note that is actually written upon the scale. We need both to make the song.

I was born to a mother who loved the seaside and the moon, who would burn incense after cleaning the house and who pays close attention to what her dreams tell her. Courtesy of my family members, I own at least three Bibles and keep them on a bookshelf beside my bed and take a lot of comfort from the Word written down within them. I came to understand these Bible stories as much from hearing my minister grandfather deliver sermons from his pulpit as I did from listening to long-memoried reggae musicians tell stories of faith, history, struggle and love. My ancestral memory begins to stir when it hears bata drums, muezzin calls and jubilee choirs. I have spent blissful days having outdoor Sabbath at the home of a friend whose yard brimmed with green things because he is a master gardener and true lover of nature. I appreciate goddess traditions (because I know that in order to beget any fathers and sons, mothers and daughters must be given due respect) and yearn for their to be a more solid connection between abstract spirituality and day-to-day education and action. And as uncomfortable as it may sometimes make me feel, I also know that there's a lot I don't-- and never will-- know or be able to explain about the mysteries of Creation.

I like what Jorge Amado once said about Brazilians being ones who revel in syncretism. He said, half-jokingly, that when comes to religion they believe in covering all of the bases. Brazilians also joke that God is Brazilian, probably meaning that there's no escaping the fact that contains multitudes as well as contrasts.

One of the many pictures that my mind holds of the Divine is that God is the grand story. We each hold pages of the mysterious and magnificent text and must use the scripture as the light by which we get to know our highest and most incorruptable Self.

Above image from The University of Arizona Spiritual and Community Resources page