The meeting at Trinity Episcopal Church in Fayetteville was remarkable in many ways, as is typical of WTB meetings. Our thanks go to Barbara Lipe for her work in arranging for our meeting and to Pat Franklin from the Labyrinth Guild for providing information about the church’s labyrinth, modeled after that of Chartres Cathedral in France.
Pat spoke about labyrinths and their history. The labyrinth is a metaphor for pilgrimage and has at least four levels: meditation; simultaneous engagement of mind and body; inspired thought (awareness of what comes to mind); and companionship (crossing paths with others). As we walked Trinity Church’s labyrinth, none of us had exactly the same experience, but we all felt a continuity of spirit and a sense of forward movement and centeredness.
After learning about labyrinths, we turned our attention to today’s topic, the first in a series comparing how different faith traditions celebrate the cycles of life.
Judaism—Jeanette Powell
Having converted to Judaism from Catholicism, Jeanette compared the two traditions and offered the following information. Catholics in general believe a child is born with original sin. Jews do not. In order to remove original sin, Catholics perform baptism within ten days of birth and welcome the child into the church.
Judaism is passed on through the mother. If the mother is Protestant and the father is Jewish, the child is not considered to be Jewish. The child must go through a conversion process, where he or she is immersed in a ritual bath, called a mikvah. Jeanette went through this process as a part of her adult conversion.
Baby boys are circumcised (as are adult male converts), frequently by a mohel (pronounced moyl), a man trained in the religious ritual of circumcision. (Although some Jews no longer believe in circumcision, Orthodox and most Conservative Jews do.) The child is welcomed into the home with a heavy emphasis on learning the Torah and understanding the precepts of Judaism. A naming ceremony for a girl or boy child may also be held, depending on the parents’ wishes and beliefs.
The adolescent Jewish child, at about age 13, will have a bat mitzvah (for girls) or bar mitzvah (for boys) upon completion of a required amount of learning. The child leads the congregation in prayer, reads from the Torah, and is welcomed into the community as an adult with great ceremony and family support.
Protestantism—Jan Garman
Jan spoke about Protestant traditions from the perspective of a liberal Methodist. She said every child is a gift from God and is born with “original blessing,” not original sin. When a child is born, the pastor is usually there; the church family has anticipated the birth. Informally, the child has been a part of the church since conception.
The formal baptism is performed when extended family can be present, and the child is received into the fellowship of the church. Holy water may be sprinkled on the child’s head. Questions are asked of the parents and congregation regarding their desire to raise the child in the Christian tradition. The congregation is asked to help the parents and nurture the child.
In order to receive confirmation, one must either have been baptized as a child or be baptized as part of the confirmation. Baptists believe in total immersion in water. It is the job of the congregation to expose the child to as much information as possible so as to allow the child to make an independent decision whether to be confirmed in the parents’ church or in another of his or her choosing.
Islam—Danya Wellmon
Danya brought her perspective as a former Methodist who had converted to Islam. A Muslim child is thought to be born pure and without sin. Muslims believe that a child’s soul enters its body while in utero, and that children have an inner knowledge of being of God.
A child’s birth is anticipated and celebrated by the community. Adman, the Muslim call to prayer, is spoken into the child’s right ear as soon after birth as possible, preferably before the child hears anything else. Circumcision is performed according to God’s covenant with Abraham, who, in submitting to God’s will, circumcised himself as well as his sons Ishmael and Isaac. Female circumcision is still performed by Coptic Christians, traditionally living in Egypt and elsewhere in Africa; it is not a Muslim tradition.
Seven days after birth, the child’s hair is cut and weighed, and the weight of the hair in gold or silver is offered as a contribution to charity. There is a celebration of the whole community. A lamb is sacrificed, and a big dinner is given to celebrate the birth of the child. One can choose to sacrifice one lamb, or as many as desired, or one can find out how much a lamb is worth and contribute the money to charity. The lamb must be ritually slaughtered by a butcher and is sacrificed in what is considered the most humane way, by cutting the throat.
The beginning of training for a child is around the age of 7, by which time prayers have been taught. A child is not accountable to God until adolescence. Even though Friday is the Muslim day of prayer, children in the United States are given lessons about their faith in Sunday school; this is because the United States is a predominantly Christian country. Muslim children attend Sunday school from ages 5 to 15 or 16.
At the age of puberty (the age of reasoning), children become accountable. Whether raised Muslim or having converted, a person must individually decide to follow the path of Islam. For boys, the time for a decision is when they begin to develop facial hair and other hormonal changes; for girls, it is the onset of menses. Fasting during Ramadan is required after puberty.
An adult converting to Islam will shower (cleansing) and go before any Muslim to declare his or her belief in only one God and in the messengers of God—and thus become a Muslim. This is called shahada, with emphasis focused on the intent of the individual.
Sharing
The small groups that met after the presentations talked about labyrinths and life cycles—discussions not likely replicated anywhere else. You had to be there to see how walking the labyrinth lent itself so perfectly to the contemplation of our life-cycle series. The women who attend our meetings are all on their own life paths and, for whatever reasons, choose to involve themselves with WTB. More than 100 women have come to WTB programs since we first started meeting after September 11, 2001. Many of these women have arrived knowing no one else in the group but wanting to meet women of different faiths. The women of WTB seek to broaden their world by getting to know women traveling on life paths very different from their own. WTB tries to present a forum that allows us to become more informed and to ponder our response to political action in our country and internationally. Deeper still, we strive to become more aware of how political events affect our friends, neighbors, community, nation, and the world. We came together because it was so hard to understand why 9/11/01 happened. We come together now to ponder what we thought we knew, what we are learning, and how we want to change.