Mutual Misunderstanding
Mutual Misunderstanding
I came from a nice little church
Tucked under a nice little steeple
And filled with nice little people
At least,
They were nice most of the time
Unless someone didn’t follow their little book
Then my nice little church wasn’t so keen
To let them off the hook
I was sad that the little book
Didn’t let women love women
And I was mad that the little book
Though women couldn’t lead any but women
So I went knocking
Looking for God
To see why he didn’t understand
That women could be strong too
But when I went knocking
All I found was sand
My church is filled with nice little people
That don’t look beyond their little book
When they saw the towers crumble on TV
All they saw was a need to hole up in their nook
With their own little book
I don’t think many in my nice little church
Really understand what happens
Beyond their nice little steeple
They don’t understand why
I want to research
If God is hiding somewhere else
I wonder
Would they understand me?
If I went to
A nice little mosque.
I wonder, only
Maybe nice little mosques
Don’t understand nice little churches
Any better than nice little churches
Understand nice little mosques
This poem was inspired by Mohja Kahf’s Little Mosque Poems. My poem follows her rhyming scheme and gentle critique of religious institutions. In my poem, I elaborate on this idea of religions in their little world. For my church, I think there is a real problem that so many people take their faith on the word of their pastor or parent, follow what they know of their Bible, and never look beyond that to question whether their idea of God is correct. One of the consequences of that is that antiqued traditions such as female submission to husbands and bans on homosexuality persevere. As Kahf deplores, many similar restrictions are places on people within Islamic religious institutions.
I think another consequence is that Christianity doesn’t understand other religions well. A major theme in this course has been the illiteracy towards Islam from Americans. I think one cause is that too few people study another religious seriously, and too many pour over their own without ever questioning it. I saw this at my church before I deconverted, and I was guilty of it myself. This cycle of looking at one’s own religion endlessly and following without question the rules therein may be good if that religion is true. But whether the religion is true or not, this cycle has the unwanted consequence of stifling true understanding of one’s fellow man.
I suspect that this cycle goes two ways. As I mention in the last stanza, I think that Christians don’t understand Muslims because they never think to go and try to understand. Rather they look inwards, see the highly public acts of a minority of Muslims, and don’t ever have a chance to understand the larger group. I suspect that a lot of Muslims in Muslim countries have a similar problem towards Christians. They see the highly pubic minority, such as Hollywood, and never understand the broader representatives of another religion.