Lent, Ramadan and Facing the World

Interfaith events that get beyond kumbaya...Can South Africa be a light unto the nations?...My spiritual practice...Durban and 9/11.

I write from Durban.

Fascinating city for many reasons, just one below. About to hesitantly go back to Usonia.

How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this place.

A few weeks ago I spoke¹ at the first of several Iftars here. Gift of the Givers connected me with Masjidul Quds in Cape Town and I shared how when I was in Quds [Jerusalem] years ago, wanting to go to the Dome of the Rock and the Haram Al Sharif, gun-toting Israeli soldiers demanded: “Are you a Muslim?” — indicating that if I wasn’t, they wouldn’t allow me there. As if they should have a say in the matter.

So I said: “There is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet” — so I think I technically became a Muslim thanks to the imperial Israeli military.

I also stayed with a Muslim family for a while this Ramadan, waking at 3:00 a.m. to eat and pray. I couldn’t quite bring myself to bow towards Mecca, but that likely had more to do with the nature of the “custodians” than anything else. But the fasting of food was genuinely meaningful.

This particular Iftar was an interfaith event. Most interfaith events I’ve been at in the US are all airy kumbaya, but not here. There was a distinctly political, anti-Empire edge to virtually every speaker.

I partook of that of course but I also shared my own spiritual practice of the last several years:

If I’m in the “Northern Hemisphere” — I face South, outstretch my hands and think of all the lands and people and creatures and cities and rivers and things there…

Then I face West and do the same, then North, then East.

Then I thank the ground beneath me, the sky above, again outstretching my hands, and breathe that into my heart center.

Here’s an early version of my practice, influenced by my artwork:

Here’s video of me doing it on the shore in Durban, one handed — and beginning by facing North of course — since, I’m in Durban.

As it happens, when I was in line to eat at the Iftar and break the fast, I was next to Rev. Sikawu of the Central Methodist Mission Cape Town. We chatted and he invited me to speak to his congregation the following day.

The reading was about Satan tempting Jesus to bow before him and all the nations would be at his feet. Both Rev. Sikawu and myself spoke to that. How such corrupt power seeks to bend the nations to its will, so of course I spoke of Trump’s phony “Board of Peace” — going beyond hypocrisy.

And I spoke of the possibility of Uniting for Peace — whereby the United Nations General Assembly could band together to overcome such evil.

How it is that South Africa may be a light unto the nations.

And the prophecy of possibly the greatest work of art from Usonia by James Hampton, a janitor — a deeply spiritual work with the words “FEAR NOT” atop it:

The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly

One reason that Durban is significant is that just before 9/11, there was a major conference against racism here.

The NYT wrote on its front page: “The United States and Israel walked out of the United Nations meeting on racism here tonight, denouncing a condemnation of Israel in a proposed conference declaration and lamenting that a meeting intended to celebrate tolerance and diversity had degenerated into a gathering riven by hate.”

Put that in your timeline and smoke it.

1. I’ve got audio of most of my talks but insufficient time and technical capacity to organize and post them.