How does the “family factor” play into your holiday fun? Does it produce joy or angst? Pleasure or pain? How about as you expand out to your broader community? Does that bring you some good Christmas vibes?
In many Muslim cultures, family and community matter in a way people from a more Western culture (like me) can’t really grasp. My conviction is that this is largely good. But like most good things, there can be excess or a dark side.
As an advocate for God’s blessing to Muslims, have you felt any dissonance this week as you watch or read Muslim reactions to the war between Israel and Hamas? Does the solidarity among Muslims in support of Palestinians that we sometimes see give you pause?
I lack the experience and expertise to declare such solidarity an abuse of community connections, but I wonder if it’s an example of the ummah (the whole community of Muslims bound together by ties of religion) gone overboard.
With caution for that possibility in mind, I think we can actually learn from some of the more corporate aspects of many Muslim cultures. The culture Jesus and the apostles inhabited looked more like theirs than mine in this regard.
In our current hyper-individualistic,bowling alone, society, where do we find such community? In MAGA-land? In our denomination? For most of us, it’s probably not in ethnicity or geography. Can it be in broader Christianity, when it’s taking so many forms that trouble us?
I’m grateful for my bio-family, my adopted family, my church family and you all (though I wish you’d come over for coffee more often!). But I feel some sadness today for those of you who face the holidays alone. If you’re fine with that, great. If you’re not, I’m sorry. I really do wish you could come over.