Portraits In Faith: Valarie Kaur Preview

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GOD IS A WAY OF BEING IN THE WORLD
"I went to a mostly white, conservative Christian public school. I had a series of aggressive confrontations with friends and teachers who tried fervently to convert me to Christianity. They said that there was only one way that I could be saved-to say these magic words: I accept Christ as my Lord and Savior. I didn't know about the state of my soul, but I knew that my grandfather surely was not going to be sent to hell. I defended my family. One woman came to our house and did an exorcism on me. She started to speak in tongues and said that every time I was confused, it was the devil inside me speaking to me. I was made to question even that transcendent experience of Oneness that I had as a child: Is this mine? Is this a trick? I found myself feeling very...alone, distraught, despairing. I had many nightmares of Judgment Day, my family left behind, all of us going up in the flames.
One Sunday morning, Papa Ji, my mother’s father, took me to the gurdwara [the Sikh house of worship]. I hadn't been there in so long. I was lost in my books, trying to find the answer to my pain. My grandfather sat with me. Sikh worship consists of listening to the kirtan, immersing in sacred songs of love and letting the music expand you. The kirtan was playing, the voices rising, the harmonium sounding. I looked at my grandfather and his eyes were closed. He was inside of the music. But my mind was racing. I was thinking about my best friend, and my teacher, and the priest standing in front of the congregation to condemn us. I started to get really angry. Furious. As if in a dream, I left the gurdwara. My grandfather's eyes were still closed. I marched right out and went down the streets of Fresno. I found the nearest church and banged on the door. I was going to confront the priest, in front of the congregation. I was in a fever.
I knocked. An older white woman in a flowery dress opened the door.
She said, "My dear, can I help you?" She had a look of confusion on her face. She was the church organist. The pews were empty. Christians finish praying earlier than we do.
I said, "Oh I…. Can I sit and hear you play?"
She said, "Yes, of course my dear."
I sat...but I was looking for the exit. Then she placed her fingers on the keys, and it was like a thousand birds lifting from a tree at once. My heart was pounding, swelling, lifted up into the music. I was traveling back in time, or perhaps up into the heavens. I saw an image of Jesus, his arms outstretched, and there were lines from his arms that started to make the Ik Onkar symbol of our faith; the Oneness that always is. Like a beautiful canopy over the whole sky, the whole universe. Tears were streaming down my face.
The woman stopped playing, turned to me and said, "Are you OK?"
I gathered myself together. I just had a mystical experience-that transcendent taste I longed for, that I hadn't had since I was a kid-in a Christian church! I came there to do battle and the church transformed into my sanctuary."
I looked at her and said, "I can't believe in a God that would send me to hell."
"Well, I can't either." She laughed and added, "There are some people who don't agree, of course."
Her name was Fae. I began to sob. She hugged me. She was the first Christian I met who did not think I was going to hell. We sat in that space on the margins. And we talked for a long time.
Fae didn't have to open that door to let me in. I didn't have to walk through it. But in that meeting place, there was medicine that she gave me, and it returned me to myself.
We live in such a convulsive, catastrophic era in history. We don't know if we're going to make it. I see the future as dark. I ask myself everyday: Is this the darkness of the tomb? Or the darkness of the womb? Will America devolve into a kind of civil war? Or will we birth a multi-racial democracy? Will our species end within a few generations? Or will we birth a sustainable way of being with the earth? Some days are so deadly, I can taste ash in my mouth. But when I lift my gaze, I see people who have no obvious reason to love one another come together in unexpected spaces, take each other's hands, weep with each other, grieve with each other, organize with each other, serve each other, love each other. In those moments, I see the finest expression of God, of what we could be when we stand in the truth of our Oneness. I see the world longing to be born.