The meeting at Trinity Episcopal Church in Fayetteville was\nremarkable in many ways, as is typical of WTB meetings. Our thanks go to\nBarbara Lipe for her work in arranging for our meeting and to Pat Franklin from\nthe Labyrinth Guild for providing information about the church\u2019s labyrinth,\nmodeled after that of Chartres Cathedral in France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pat spoke about labyrinths and their history. The labyrinth\nis a metaphor for pilgrimage and has at least four levels: meditation; simultaneous\nengagement of mind and body; inspired thought (awareness of what comes to\nmind); and companionship (crossing paths with others). As we walked Trinity\nChurch\u2019s labyrinth, none of us had exactly the same experience, but we all felt\na continuity of spirit and a sense of forward movement and centeredness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After learning about labyrinths, we turned our attention to today\u2019s\ntopic, the first in a series comparing how different faith traditions celebrate\nthe cycles of life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Judaism\u2014Jeanette Powell<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Having converted to Judaism from\nCatholicism, Jeanette compared the two traditions and offered the following\ninformation. Catholics in general believe a child is born with original sin.\nJews do not. In order to remove original sin, Catholics perform baptism within\nten days of birth and welcome the child into the church. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Judaism is passed on through the mother. If the mother is\nProtestant and the father is Jewish, the child is not considered to be Jewish.\nThe child must go through a conversion process, where he or she is immersed in a\nritual bath, called a mikvah. Jeanette went through this process as a part of\nher adult conversion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Baby boys are circumcised (as are adult male converts),\nfrequently by a mohel (pronounced moyl), a man trained in the religious ritual\nof circumcision. (Although some Jews no longer believe in circumcision, Orthodox\nand most Conservative Jews do.) The child is welcomed into the home with a\nheavy emphasis on learning the Torah and understanding the precepts of Judaism.\nA naming ceremony for a girl or boy child may also be held, depending on the parents\u2019\nwishes and beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The adolescent Jewish child, at about age 13, will have a bat\nmitzvah (for girls) or bar mitzvah (for boys) upon completion of a required\namount of learning. The child leads the congregation in prayer, reads from the\nTorah, and is welcomed into the community as an adult with great ceremony and\nfamily support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Protestantism\u2014Jan Garman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jan spoke about Protestant traditions from the perspective of\na liberal Methodist. She said every child is a gift from God and is born with\n\u201coriginal blessing,\u201d not original sin. When a child is born, the pastor is\nusually there; the church family has anticipated the birth. Informally, the\nchild has been a part of the church since conception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The formal baptism is performed when extended family can be\npresent, and the child is received into the fellowship of the church. Holy\nwater may be sprinkled on the child\u2019s head. Questions are asked of the parents\nand congregation regarding their desire to raise the child in the Christian\ntradition. The congregation is asked to help the parents and nurture the child.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n In order to receive confirmation, one must either have been\nbaptized as a child or be baptized as part of the confirmation. Baptists\nbelieve in total immersion in water. It is the job of the congregation to\nexpose the child to as much information as possible so as to allow the child to\nmake an independent decision whether to be confirmed in the parents\u2019 church or in\nanother of his or her choosing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Islam\u2014Danya Wellmon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Danya brought her perspective as a former Methodist who had converted\nto Islam. A Muslim child is thought to be born pure and without sin. Muslims\nbelieve that a child\u2019s soul enters its body while in utero, and that children\nhave an inner knowledge of being of God. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A child\u2019s birth is anticipated and celebrated by the\ncommunity. Adman, the Muslim call to prayer, is spoken into the child\u2019s right\near as soon after birth as possible, preferably before the child hears anything\nelse. Circumcision is performed according to God\u2019s covenant with Abraham, who,\nin submitting to God\u2019s will, circumcised himself as well as his sons Ishmael\nand Isaac. Female circumcision is still performed by Coptic Christians, traditionally\nliving in Egypt and elsewhere in Africa; it is not a Muslim tradition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Seven days after birth, the child\u2019s hair is cut and weighed,\nand the weight of the hair in gold or silver is offered as a contribution to charity.\nThere is a celebration of the whole community. A lamb is sacrificed, and a big\ndinner is given to celebrate the birth of the child. One can choose to\nsacrifice one lamb, or as many as desired, or one can find out how much a lamb\nis worth and contribute the money to charity. The lamb must be ritually\nslaughtered by a butcher and is sacrificed in what is considered the most\nhumane way, by cutting the throat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The beginning of training for a child is around the age of 7,\nby which time prayers have been taught. A child is not accountable to God until\nadolescence. Even though Friday is the Muslim day of prayer, children in the United\nStates are given lessons about their faith in Sunday school; this is because\nthe United States is a predominantly Christian country. Muslim children attend\nSunday school from ages 5 to 15 or 16. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the age of puberty (the age of reasoning), children become\naccountable. Whether raised Muslim or having converted, a person must\nindividually decide to follow the path of Islam. For boys, the time for a\ndecision is when they begin to develop facial hair and other hormonal changes;\nfor girls, it is the onset of menses. Fasting during Ramadan is required after\npuberty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n An adult converting to Islam will shower (cleansing) and go\nbefore any Muslim to declare his or her belief in only one God and in the\nmessengers of God\u2014and thus become a Muslim. This is called shahada,<\/em> with emphasis focused on the intent of the individual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sharing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The small groups that met after the presentations talked\nabout labyrinths and life cycles\u2014discussions not likely replicated anywhere\nelse. You had to be there to see how walking the labyrinth lent itself so\nperfectly to the contemplation of our life-cycle series. The women who attend\nour meetings are all on their own life paths and, for whatever reasons, choose\nto involve themselves with WTB. More than 100 women have come to WTB programs since\nwe first started meeting after September 11, 2001. Many of these women have arrived\nknowing no one else in the group but wanting to meet women of different faiths.\nThe women of WTB seek to broaden their world by getting to know women traveling\non life paths very different from their own. WTB tries to present a forum that\nallows us to become more informed and to ponder our response to political\naction in our country and internationally. Deeper still, we strive to become\nmore aware of how political events affect our friends, neighbors, community,\nnation, and the world. We came together because it was so hard to understand\nwhy 9\/11\/01 happened. We come together now to ponder what we thought we knew,\nwhat we are learning, and how we want to change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Women from Trinity Episcopal Church in Fayetteville led us through their labyrinth, used for prayer and meditation, as a preface to our discussion of birth and adolescence in various faith traditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15,16,17,19,41,38],"class_list":["post-7787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-programs","tag-christianity","tag-islam","tag-judaism","tag-lifecycle","tag-spiritual-practices","tag-visiting-faith-communities",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7787"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8956,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7787\/revisions\/8956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}