I've needed these good tears for so long

October 8.

Life in Morocco is a series of constant ups and downs, highs and lows. The smallest disappointments are easily magnified, but so too are the smallest victories. Every day is filled with prayers for victories and smiles, because that just makes time pass more quickly.

The present moment is a good one, a great one, even. I walked home from school and watched a little girl sitting patiently on a stool while her mother painted intricate designs in henna on her hands. Tomorrow is Qadr, the holiest night in Ramadan, when it is said that the “doors of the sky are opened, and all prayers heard”. I listened enraptured this morning as Doha, my substitute Arabic teacher, told us all what to expect for Qadr.

“Children will be dressed in beautiful Moroccan costumes, little girls will have henna. Children seven and eight years old will fast tomorrow for the first time. Families will be in the streets taking pictures of their children.”
“The sky will open, and prayers will be more heard on the night of Qadr than others.”
“The night of Qadr is better than one thousand months.”

Listening to Doha, I felt the same excitement churning in my stomach, the same welling up of joy and expectation and awe as I do during Christmas at home. I am spellbound by the beauty and belief that I witness at Lessons and Carols at Christ Church Cathedral. Christmas Eve services at Christ Church hold a tremendous amount of significance for me on the fundamental level of identity; they remind me of who I am and what religion is supposed to be. They remind me of what it is like to be a child again, staring in awe at the twinkling lights of a Christmas tree, and not being concerned about the commercialization of Christmas, at the commodification of religion, at the problems of American Christianity..........

I’ve found myself frequently nostalgic about Christmas and my Episcopal upbringing here in Morocco. Perhaps its because I’m surrounded by a culture so different, but in its own way so thoroughly faithful, so full to the brim with belief and awe at the power of God and the mystery that it is to be alive. Perhaps it’s because I’m so far away from home, and Morning, Noonday, Evening Prayer and Compline are what keep me grounded, are what remind me that I can go to Arabic class, I can live abroad and still be me, I can be connected to my Kentucky identity and to those whom I love. Perhaps it’s just because I’ve been too long and too far removed from the childlike simplicity of belief in the good in people, belief in the purpose of religion, and belief in God.

Jesus. Sitting on the blue and gold couches in the salon of my host family’s home, I am crying. And these are amazing, refreshing tears. My mind is flooded by memories of Domain summer camps and healing services, of crying while hugging friends and watching the sun set through the windows of that old wooden Cathedral; of Happening weekends and washing my hands in bowls representing sin—of pouring the water from those bowls into the ground, washing away everything that I regretted, of yelling CARITAS to the mountain, and hearing it yell back; of singing my first Lessons and Carols service, when my senses were so heightened, everything I saw looked chiseled and polished (my memory now even sharper than when I experienced it), everything I heard reverberated in the depths of me, the sounds from my mouth flowed freely and of their own accord; of being sixteen years old and understanding something new about Easter and God, of beating my hands on the marble altar at the Cathedral, sobbing, sobbing, weeping.

Morocco is reminding me of what it was for me to be religious, what it is to be religious, in the best possible sense. I am slowly peeling away the layers of doubt and regret, of anger and disgust and hurt, of incredulity, of philosophy and academia, of rites and rituals and should haves and should nots. And at the bottom of it all, I am reminded of what it all meant to me before. What religion meant to me before, why I cried before. I cried out of love, out of the realization of what it was to love and to be loved. I didn’t cry in amazement at the Bible, at literal interpretations or commandments or sermons. I cried then, and I am crying now, because I am re-learning what it all used to mean.

Sitting at the base of the Christmas tree, looking up into the pine needles and the lights, surrounded by shiny wrapping paper, and closing my eyes while singing Jesus Christ the Apple Tree in my head...........

all it ever meant was love.

“And it now appeared to him that it had been his inability to love anything or anyone that had previously made him so ill.” (51)

“I have had to pass through so much stupidity, through so much vice, through so much error, through so much disgust and disappointment and misery, merely to become a child again and to be able to make a new start...

I had to experience despair, I had to descend to the most foolish thought of all, the thought of suicide, in order to experience grce, in order to near OM again, to be able to sleep and awaken properly again. I had to become a fool in order to find Atman within myself again. I had to sin so that I could live again.” (52)

“The world...is not imperfect or on a slow journey toward perfection; no, it is perfect at every moment, all sin already bears forgiveness within itself...

Whatever exists seems good to me; death is like life to me, sin like sanctity, cleverness like folly; everything must be as it is; everything needs only my consent, my willingness, my loving comprehension, and then it is good in my eyes, and can never harm me...

I needed the most humiliating despair in order to learn how to give up my resistance, in order to learn how to love the world.”(77)

“They are physical things, and things can be loved. But words I cannot love... Perhaps that is what prevents you from finding peace, perhaps it is all those words...

I do not make a great distinction between concepts and words. To put it frankly, I have no high regard for concepts, either. I have a higher regard for physical things...

The things may be illusory or not, if they are, I too, am illusory, and so they continue to be of the same nature as myself. That is what makes them so dear and worthy of reverence to me: they share my nature. Therefore, I can love them...

love... appears to me to be the chief thing of all.” (78)

(All above quotes from Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse).

So on goes my time in Morocco. The harder moments end with tears of joy at the remembrance of what it is like to be a child, and to see everything for the first time.

I can’t wait until Christmas.