ISTANBUL:

The crescent moon

Hagia Sophia

Cax and I with our Turkish bros

Istanbul.  I don’t know where to begin.  It’s been a week since we left.  This week has seemed like a month.  I guess that’s a good example of my perception of time while abroad.

Istanbul was an experience.  It was the most exotic city I’ve ever been to.  A lot of people got nervous when it was announced that the Rome program was going to Istanbul instead of the Barcelona program.  People get uneasy when talking about the Middle East, Americans in particular.  I know the word Istanbul connects indirectly with other words in the average American’s mind: 9/11, terrorism, instability, suicide bombers, jihad, bin Laden, etc.  While I didn’t really even consider these things before going, I was aware of them.  A lot of us were saying that it was good that we were going to Istanbul because none of us would ever go there on our own.  “A once-in-a-lifetime, unique experience.”  That’s how we dealt with it.  And it’s true.  I probably would have never gone to Istanbul on my own.  But why?  Having gone there, I see now.  Istanbul is no different from any other city - be it Paris or New York.  It’s ignorance and fear of the Islamic culture that soils our view of it.  I think it was terribly important for me to go to Istanbul.

The trip opened my eyes to several important issues/phenomena.  I noticed the difference between myself and the Turkish people (Western vs. Eastern tradition).  The most striking example of this was the call to prayer that happens five times a day.  Getting woken up by a strangely toned song is startling.  The role of women in society is also off-putting.  But for all the differences between myself and them, I couldn’t help but see similarity.  They pray to God five times a day.  I also pray to God.  The same God.  Their mosques are like our churches.  They go to service once a week too, just like me.  Catholicism and Islam share the same ideals.  We’re all in this together.  Even in Istanbul, I felt religious kinship with the people.  To truly know a city you must know its people.  I think I actually started to get know Istanbul’s people on this trip. 

I felt minute immersion during the day while walking around and sketching numerous mosques.  The time that I felt most immersed in the Turkish culture was at night.  At first I was a little hesitant about what I would do at night in Turkey.  I wasn’t sure about the nightlife, having been warned about shady clubs.  The first night I made a very important discovery: the Turkish hookah bar.  It was at hookah bars that I would have some of the most important experiences of my life.  One night, at a very local hookah bar, I met a few Turkish guys.  They shared a room with about four of us.  I got to know them as I returned to the bar the next few nights.  One of them was an aspiring guitarist named Saleh.  Another was a cellist named Cem.  These guys, along with the coal-filler Eyden, became my friends.  They were all devout Muslims.  I explained to them my traditions as a Catholic and they explained theirs to me. 

On the last night, I went out to the hookah bar one last time.  I saw my friends there.  They were with two new guys who spoke a little English.  I got to talking with them.  One of them was an Islamic radical from Vienna who had just come from Egypt.  The other was also from Vienna but lived in Istanbul.  Our conversation turned to politics and eventually religion.  I found myself considering that these men are taking my words as examples of American thought.  In fact I know they were because I was doing the same thing.  They disagreed with American presence in their own respective countries and around the world.  They thought Obama was a puppet.  While I don’t necessarily agree with everything they said (I did feel mildly insulted at points during the conversation), I couldn’t help but think this: I am talking to Islamic radicals.  These are the people that make Americans nervous.  They aren’t bad at all.  And they were really weren’t.  They wanted to know how the United States treated government with respect to religion.  When I explained the concept of separation of Church and State to them they were visibly puzzled because religion is deeply engrained in their government.  We talked about so many things that it is pointless to try to list them here.  All that I have to say is that these conversations I had with these Turkish guys were some of the most important and enlightening conversations of my life. 

Coming back to the hotel at 2 or 3 am, I found myself wondering about something.  This something had to do with my classmates, and to a greater extent, Americans in general.  I went out to the hookah bar every night of the Istanbul trip.  There were some people who didn’t go out anywhere at all.  This occurrence exemplifies an issue that I think plagues many Americans, including everyone on this trip.  I imagine it as a bubble.  This bubble exists for all of us.  It is our comfort zone.  It is our English-speaking, McDonald’s-filled, Mommy-kissing, Facebook-tagging cocoon.  It is carrying our American culture with us.  It is fear of the different.  It is misunderstanding and the lack of will of to understand.  When we’re in a foreign country, in a city like Istanbul, it’s very easy for us to shut ourselves out from our surroundings.  Turkish is easy to ignore.  But we can’t do that!  We must throw ourselves into their world - shock ourselves with their culture.  I kept thinking to myself: when else in my life will I be able to smoke a waterpipe with Turkish bros a few blocks away from the Hagia Sophia?  And at the same time I am doing this extremely extraordinary thing, there are people sleeping at the hotel.  What are you doing?  I’m not trying to promote unhealthy lifestyles, but you can sleep anytime!  What you can’t do any time is get physically purged in a Turkish bath.  We tend to Americanize things everywhere we go.  I’m trying not to force my culture on people.  I can be as American as I want when I get home.  The more you interact with other cultures, the more cultured you become.

I related much more to the Turkish culture at night much more than I did during the day.  The program surprisingly seemed to be geared more toward shopping in the Grand Bazaar and the spice market than architecture.  I would rather have learned the intricacies of the organization of the Bazaar than know where to get the best scarves.  As I have said before, I didn’t come on this trip to shop.  And it frustrated me when we were continually encouraged to spend an afternoon looking for carpets I can’t afford instead of exploring more of the city.  I appreciated all the mosques we saw, but I felt that they were all too similar in configuration.  I was getting bored sketching pendentives and domes.  I know that the mosque is central to Islamic architecture, but in a city of 13 million people, there has to be more than that.

All in all, Istanbul was an amazing experience.  I learned and saw so much.  It broke down a lot of barriers for me.  It made things clearer and brought up new questions.  To think that I never would have gone there is now a ridiculous thought.

I want to see as much as I can possibly can see on this trip.  I'll walk for miles through rain and sleet to sketch in the cold.  There is no other time in my life that I will be 20 years old in Europe.  Each moment is an elusive gift.  This time and this place have changed my perception of home and of all other places.  I look forward to living life going to Istanbul tomorrow.

Now we come to the heart of the matter.  The biggest issue that eats away at my relationship with the Church.  I'm hesitant to even write it down here now.  But the truth is, I have doubts about Jesus.  The man who is supposed to be my Savior.  The doubt springs from what I would think is logic.  Of course the argument starts with the fact that Jesus lived 2000 years ago.  How could anyone know that He performed miracles and rose from the dead?  Logic tells me that Jesus' divinity was invented by His apostles and their successors.  When dealing with things like religion, a leader needs to be delineated.  Many religions have a savior-like figure.  It seems too much like a trend.  What I'm saying is that it was only logical that Jesus became divine because He was seen as the strongest connection between God and humans.  I have to think that if Constantine hadn't converted to Christianity, I would be part of a different religion right now.  If Jesus were living today, would we still call Him Lord?  I have an inkling that He was just a normal man who was a good leader.

I don't want to have these doubts.  Having these doubts fundamentally cuts me off from the Catholic faith.  Catholicism is centered around Jesus and His divinity.  One day He will rise again and bring the world salvation.  If I don't believe He will rise, how am I a Catholic?

It's not that I don't believe in Jesus.  Part of me does.   But there's another part of me that continues to pester my mind with these kind of thoughts.  It says that maybe my belief is baseless since it was instated in me before I could walk.  It says that my faith is pointless because the Church is stuck in the 16th century.  It brings doubt and insecurity.

Yet, through all this, I still consider myself Catholic.  I believe in God.  I believe in the Bible.  I believe in Jesus' teachings.  I still go to church.  I think that, regardless of my doubts and disagreements, I must continue to push on.  The one thing that reassures me is this: the prayer.  I never understood why in times of trouble my mom was so adamant about going to mass.  I always got frustrated with it.  But lately, I have started to see why she does.  It's comforting.  She feels closer to God when she prays, and so do I.  Alone, in the dark, I can talk to God.  I can recite the prayers I have memorized.  It clears the mind.  It helps me figure out what I'm thankful for, what I want, and what I should do.  And it works.  Praying helps.  No matter how bad I feel or how terrible life is at the moment, I can pray and things will get better.  Praying doesn't physically change anything, but it does something beyond the physical or mental.  I used to doubt God's existence until I realized this.

So here I am persevering through it.  It's not so hard.  I'm still finding out things about my faith that I never knew existed.  This spiritual discovery adds another dimension to Rome.  I consider this city "my turf," not in the sense that I own it, but in the sense that it is at the head of my faith.  Every church I go into, I get this special feeling that I am part of something truly good.  It's hard to explain.

Going into Istanbul, a major Islamic center, I'm looking forward to gaining insight into both the Muslim faith and my own.          

My personal schisms with the Church continue deeper than just the mass.  And it's really these issues that are the hardest things to deal with - meaning, they make me wonder why I go to mass.

The Church stands firm against the use of contraceptives, except in specific situations that accord with natural family planning.  I think that this stance is ridiculous.  They say that all sex should be procreative and between man and wife.  I wonder how they can say this when they see how HIV and AIDS has killed millions of people around the world.  Catholic missionaries should be going to Africa and giving them cases of condoms, not preaching abstinence.  Maybe then the populations of third world countries wouldn't be skyrocketing.  Maybe then the poorest people in the world wouldn't be having children they could never afford.  Abstinence doesn't work.  The human sex drive (mainly the male's) is too powerful to be overcome by a priest saying "no sex before marriage."  I agree that sex is the ultimate act of love.  But I don't agree that that's all it is.  Consensual sex is holy.  Inside and outside of marriage.  I don't know where the idea of sex became taboo but I regret the occurrence.  

The Church also condemns homosexuality.  While I am not homosexual, I am still outraged.  This stance is really the most absurd of them all.  Homosexuals do no choose to be homosexual.  Sexual orientation is not a choice.  How does the Church just sit there and continue to refuse to acknowledge this?  I'm sure there are millions of gay people out there who would love to be part of the Catholic Church, but can't because they're treated like witches in Salem.  What's the difference between a woman marrying another woman and a woman marrying a man?  There's no difference.  They still love each other.  Could the Pope look a gay person in the eyes and tell them they're going to hell just for being gay?  If he could, I would say that the Pope's going to hell. 

The Church has always been pro-life.  While I agree that every unborn child deserves a chance to live, I am forced to think of the woman giving birth to that child.  I would like to say that I am pro-life, but I can't.  I need to hear the circumstances.  Abortion is different thing when your little sister gets raped (no, my little sister wasn't raped).  And I'm not sure that I agree that life begins at conception.  It's an issue that's muddled for me.

These issues are greatest dividing forces between the Church and I.  Additionally, my views on capital punishment and women in the Church don't exactly line up.  Even though I maintain these radically opposing views, I call myself Catholic.  I feel I am Catholic more in faith than in church.  But then, is that really Catholic at all?  I grew up Catholic.  The Church has given me countless gifts.  Among them: my conscience, my education, my morals.  I owe a lot to my faith.  Is it wrong that I don't think that debt needs to be paid to the Pope?  Or to the priest?     

The question I have raised with myself is: am I really a Catholic?  I was baptized, received my First Communion, and have been confirmed.  But that all happened before I reached high school.  14.  That's how old I was when I became  a "full member" of the Church.  If I could go back in time, I would ask my 14-year-old self to do some research into what I was getting into.  I feel my whole initiation process into the Church happened too early and too quickly.  Most of the kids I went to school with were in a similar situation.  I think that this is where one of the major problems with the Catholic faith stems from.

My grade school classmates were "required" to go through all of these holy rites of passage.  Sure, they told us what was going on, but none of us really knew.  I know I didn't.  Take the bread, right hand under left, pick it up with the right one and eat.  Don't chew it.  For me, these rites were more like a part of school rather than something to do with my faith.  And so when we graduated 8th grade, we were all new members of the Church. And this is where the problem lies.  No one really cared because no one really knew what they got into.

My mom made me go to church all throughout my childhood.  It became such a intrinsic part of my life that nowadays I feel guilty for missing mass.  I always wondered why I never saw any of my friends in church on Sundays.  I still don't.  No one goes.  There is a severe lack of church attendance in the Catholic faith, especially for people my age.  And I think that this lack of attendance is caused by the initiation process.  For a lot of kids growing up back home, being Catholic was kind of a given.  We all went to Catholic school, we all had to go to mass every now and then, we all had Easter and Christmas off.  That was all it was.  But that's  not what it is.  So when we all grew up and were not forced to go through these motions (like church), we didn't go through them any more.  Church is boring anyway.  The Catholic mass has been boring since I was little.  My first memories of mass are terrible, which I think all contributes to the attendance problem.

It's hard to get excited about your faith when you're sitting with a few old people in an empty church listening to an even older priest talk about how much of a sinner you are.  I want to want to go to church.  Since I've been in college, church has gotten a little better.  But it's got a long way to go.  I want to relate to the mass.  It's not that mass is unrelatable, it's just too hard.  Whether it's better public speaking from the priests, or introduction of new media, the mass needs something more.

I have the sense that the Catholic faith is declining.  Maybe not for others, but for me it is.  All around my home there are Catholic churches closing down and merging with other parishes due to lack of numbers.  I thought a third of the entire world was Catholic?  I can't see that being true.  I don't want it to decline.  I want it to flourish.  I want it to adapt, to change, and to grow.  I want people to be as excited about being Catholic as I sometimes am.

I thought I could get this all out in one post, but it seems that this thing is much too large for just one.  I'll think about it.    

One major problem I have come across here in Italy is centered around the Catholic Church.  I experienced it the first day I came here.  My mom and I had flown over together, and of course she wanted to see Saint Peter's basilica.  As we walked up, we were met by a gigantic line of people winding across Saint Peter's square.  Since we were exhausted from jetlag and didn't have much time before we needed to catch our shuttle bus, we decided we couldn't go in.  My mom was pretty disappointed.  Being very religious and a devout Catholic, Saint Peter's was pretty much "the site" she wanted to see here in Rome.  But she couldn't go in.  She was saying on the way back that it's wrong to make people, even practicing Catholics, wait in line to get into the church that is said to be at the heart of the faith.  Now I'm not going to ignore the fact that there are safety precautions to consider - the sheer number of tourists that visit Saint Peter's is probably enough to require a line.

But then there's the other side of the issue.  When we went to Northern Italy, we actually had to pay to get into some of the churches.  I have never encountered a church that required an entrance fee in my life.  The idea of it irks me.  Sure the church has free entrance for mass, but that shouldn't matter.  Shouldn't I be able to walk into any Catholic church in any place in the world free of charge and pray?  When I start to feel unwelcome in what I deem my own church, I feel there's something intrinsically wrong.  I really don't think that the architects of these great churches wanted them used in this way.  A church isn't a museum.  It isn't the movies.  A church is a holy place.

I have to think that there is a disparity between the Church and the faith.  It was men that put these entrance fees in place.  It wasn't God.  They can say the money goes to restoration of the churches and missionaries, but isn't that what the money we give during the collection is for?  Men using some of the most beautiful and sacred churches as a way to profit monetarily.  It's things like this that stir up a sense of disgust in me for the Catholic Church.  I'll admit I am disillusioned with it all.  I call myself Catholic, but am I?  The Church seems to be going backward when the world is going forward.  I'm stuck trying to figure out how I fit into it.