Greeted in Kabul with flowers.

 Contemplative Christianity

As I went on to college, I felt drawn to contemplative Christianity, a tradition that was willing to listen to and learn from other cultures and religions. I discovered Thomas Merton and Bede Griffths. I hungered for a Christianity that reflected the wide-open arms of Jesus, the Jewish rabbi who embodied God’s presence. I found no condemnation of the “other” in the Gospel. Jesus shocked friend and foe by his openness to the “other,” the alien, the “un-chosen,” and communicated a sense of truth through communion and compassion, not by imposing an ideology. Having studied Arabic and Islam in college, I put my interest in Jewish and Muslim traditions aside for decades as I deepened my immersion in the Carmelite tradition and the Christian mystics. But after 9/11 and a seismic shift in my own vocation, I longed to return to the teachings and history of the Torah, the Qur’an, the Hebrew Prophets and Muslim mystics. When Tessa Bielecki and I created the Desert Foundation and I found myself in a new house, a blank canvas, I dreamed about what Middle Eastern art might surround me in this new life. That same art accompanied me to my present Tucson home.

Spirituality and Matter

Is matter spiritual? Jesus loved lilies, good food and friendship, wine and walking under the sun and stars. According to John the Evangelist, Jesus incarnated the Word, and the Word loved these worldly wonders into being. I recall a poem, “Things,” by Spanish poet Gloria Fuertes: “These things, our things, / how they want to be wanted! / … the door asks to be opened and closed, / the wine to be purchased and drunk,…” I wanted my door to open to a world, to things that mean beauty to me, images that want to be wanted, that want to tell stories. I wanted to bring together beauty from peoples separated by confict: the sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah, my parents in faith. Even if for now we cannot or will not live together in peace and justice, I wanted the work of our hands to share a common ground, to suggest a premonition of reconciliation.

Solitude and Hospitality

The art I see when I sit in my living room includes an embroidered cloth hanging with shimmering red geometrical patterns on a black background, woven by women from Beit Jala, a village near Bethlehem. Its dominant colors are the same as the Afghan rug, and although Afghanistan is far from Palestine, and its culture is not Semitic, the patterns of their textiles share similarities. Many Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip cannot enter Jerusalem, so a nonprofit called Sunbula gathers Palestinian crafts for sale at a shop sponsored by St. Andrew’s Church in Jerusalem, where I found this embroidery. Above it hangs an ornate sign proclaiming ahlan wa sahlan in Arabic calligraphy, crafted by Shahna Lax, our Jewish friend in Crestone, Colorado, a gift from Tessa. It means, roughly, “these are your people and this is your land of ease.” The greeting may be Arabic, but it belongs to no single religion or scripture. It offers the hospitality that reigns throughout the Middle East with roots in desert Bedouin traditions. I want to offer that kind of hospitality in my home, even though I live as a solitary.

The wall includes a small Persian miniature of nine men meeting on a verdant hillside. A white pony stands in the foreground beside a stream. Like my rug, it reminds me of Afghanistan. I remember standing with my Afghan “brother,” Syed Ahmad, one evening thirty-seven years ago at a place called Bagha Bala (High Garden) outside Kabul. The heat of the day waned, a breeze blew through the fruit trees, the lights of kerosene lamps began to appear from within the flat-roofed adobe homes below us. The full moon rose, and I felt I was inside a Persian miniature, a landscape and atmosphere that, until that moment, would have seemed purely fictional to me, a son of the green flat farmlands of northern Indiana.

Pottery and Paradise

Three ceramic plates hang on the wall. Made by Christian potters in Palestine, one is glazed with the Our Father in Arabic. I have memorized the first Sura of the Qur’an; it’s time I memorized the Our Father in Arabic. A simple blue and black floral pattern covers a smaller dish, testifying to desert dwellers’ fascination with flowers and gardens: a reminder that our word “paradise” comes from the Persian word for garden. A stately white camel stands in silhouette against a floral background on the third plate. It reminds me of March 2000, when I rode a camel for two days in the desert of Wadi Rum, near Aqaba, Jordan. Seated high on the camel’s back, I wandered through a maze of sun-drenched and shadowed red cliffs on sands that shifted from beige to ochre to rust. Spring rains allowed tiny wildflowers to spring up in impossible crannies of sand and stone. Before and after my little expedition, my teen-aged camel driver’s mother sat me down next to her charcoal fire in her enclosed patio to drink sweet hot tea spiced with sage. But the camel also reminds me of the Jewish tradition, of the sojourn in Sinai, and Isaiah’s vision of the day when all nations will come to Jerusalem, drawn by the truth and light it radiates:

Then you will see and be radiant,
And your heart will thrill and rejoice;
Because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you,
The wealth of the nations will come to you.
A caravan of camels will fill you,
The young camels of Midian and Ephah;
All those from Sheba will come;
They will bring gold and frankincense,
And will bear good news of the praises of the Lord. (Isaiah 60:5-6)

Sanctuary, Not Separation

You also see a primitive image of the Holy Family on my wall, which reminds me of my time in Egypt in August 2004. It was a very difficult season in my life, and visits to Coptic churches and some of the oldest Christian monasteries on earth, as well as the generous companionship of my old friend Gary Nabhan, helped me find my way forward. That trip also introduced me to Christians living as a minority in a predominantly Muslim country. I sensed the tensions as well as the possibilities for reconciliation that come from centuries sharing a common homeland.

Finally, on the bookshelf behind my desk lies a worn and empty basket. It comes from the Egyptian oasis of Siwa, an ancient settlement visited by Alexander the Great before there were Christians or Muslims. The basket is tattered but tightly woven. I like to think it holds nothing but Promise. A wall can be a terrible thing. But I want the walls that people see in my home to be a sign of sanctuary, protection, and hospitality rather than separation. I want to show that beauty is not monopolized by one tradition but shared by all. I want to show you what Paradise might look like through the prism of my desert sojourns with Jews, Muslims, and Christians in our troubled family, the People of the Book.

Ahlan wa Sahlan art by Shahna Lax, Studio Moresca.