A Religion that Matters is Not a Religion of Matter.
“From an Islam of beards and robes toward an Islam of light and dark.”
— Shireen Qudosi
Detail of Night, by Meinrad Craighead (Sourced from Therese’s essay)
If Muhammad didn’t go to the mountain, would the mountain have come to Muhammad? Maybe.
The reference is to the mountain Muhammad ascended into in order to receive the first revelations of what would later become the Quran — something I talk about in the book. The metaphor speaks to whether the Mystery (that playful, shimmering, unpinnable element of faith and grace that gives us a deeper peek into the depth of a wondrous God) would come to us. I think it does. I think it’s here always.
The question is whether we have eyes to see and ears to hear, which in my own experience comes and goes. And I suppose in some strange way that is one of the things I’m trying to do here, and through my book The Song of the Human Heart — trying to bring the mountain to people’s hearts.
The task is to move mountains, to shift a religion of matter that is so entrenched (ironically) in the physical world despite being a faith of glory in the afterlife, toward a religion that embraces metaphysics as a very real and forgotten aspect of our human experience.
I’m beyond grateful that the work is resonating with readers in their own way. Some read the book and say “It’s a book for women,” and that’s where it starts and ends for them. Wonderful. If that’s what you got out of it, that’s nice.
Others read the book and see it as a monkey wrench in the machine that churns our ongoing culture wars beyond Islam. True, it is that too, and will continue to do so with bigger and bigger wrenches through the next two series.
Everyone takes away from it what speaks most closely to their heart, and I’m grateful for each and every moment you share in reading what is ultimately a very intimate conversation. I’m especially grateful for those reflective hearts in corners of the world I may never go to, whose reflections about my book add to the Song. They add to the work, enriching the chorus that is our human song resonating from this space rock called Earth into the cavernous belly of a deep and dark space. After all, the Song of the human heart is not just my song — it is our song. All of us are notes and frequencies that dance along the plane of a Great Song.
Therese Doherty is one of these beautiful notes, offering a review of The Song of the Human Heart that is notably better than my book. I absolutely loved reading her response, learned so much from it, and will use some of it to further shape the second installment in the series I’m writing now: The Song of the Mystery.
Click here to read her full essay that enriches the conversation of how we move toward a transcendent faith.
