It is hard to always determine the thread of a conversation, so looking back, I cannot remember what took us to the topic of Indonesia, but there we landed as if the winds had taken our ancient junket to its shore.
"The population is dominated by Muslims," I said.
"No, the main religion is Hindu."
I remembered the cook was from Indonesia and his wife from the Philippines. When Crystal comes back into the dining room, I ask her if she will ask Danny. Will she also ask him what Indonesia was called or to whom it belonged to before the end of WWII.
Threads of information are also hard to trace or detect; it too tosses about the sea and catches itself in our net or lodges itself like a barnacle on a shipwreck. We pull up the net filled with a jumble of items: trivia, truth, scrambled facts, hoping they will smoothly sort themselves out.
Crystal returns, "The dominant religion is Islam, then Hindu, and third is Christianity."
She also informs us that Indonesia was known as Dutch East Indies previous to becoming the Republic of Indonesia in 1949 when the Dutch finally conceded to their rights of becoming a sovereign nation.
My how the world shifts and spins.
As she moves back to the kitchen, she quickly closes the door as the Muslim call to prayer comes from within.
"You're Muslim," I half question and half point out.
"Yes."
"But you don't wear the hijab?"
"Because we hear people talking about Islam and terrorists and sense it's better to hide our beliefs."
We assure her that her beliefs are respected with us. With this assurance, she tells us of her conversion while in her late teens. She found great peace, but not immediately with her parents. When she told her father, he said, "But they kill people."
"But no. This is not true Islam. We think it is wrong to kill an ant."
The next day, we are alone, and she has invited me to please ask any questions I may have. "It's so much better to ask than to suppose the worst."
I need to know if it's hijab or hajib (the former), and why she chooses not to wear her religious clothing. We talk of my religion and her recognition of the missionaries she met in the Philippines. We talk about the similarities between all religions and wouldn't it just be better if we all loved one another?
On this we whole heartedly agree.
That evening, we continue to talk and remembering a tender, sacred encounter with a group of Muslim refugees, I ask her if it was okay that I had hugged a group of Muslim women and men.
The women were fine but hugging the men was not appropriate-- but we laugh, because it's what's needed when our hearts have the right intentions--when we share a belief in God, share a belief that we are his children, but acknowledge that our practices may differ, and that we as humans, will always make mistakes.
"The population is dominated by Muslims," I said.
"No, the main religion is Hindu."
I remembered the cook was from Indonesia and his wife from the Philippines. When Crystal comes back into the dining room, I ask her if she will ask Danny. Will she also ask him what Indonesia was called or to whom it belonged to before the end of WWII.
Threads of information are also hard to trace or detect; it too tosses about the sea and catches itself in our net or lodges itself like a barnacle on a shipwreck. We pull up the net filled with a jumble of items: trivia, truth, scrambled facts, hoping they will smoothly sort themselves out.
Crystal returns, "The dominant religion is Islam, then Hindu, and third is Christianity."
She also informs us that Indonesia was known as Dutch East Indies previous to becoming the Republic of Indonesia in 1949 when the Dutch finally conceded to their rights of becoming a sovereign nation.
My how the world shifts and spins.
As she moves back to the kitchen, she quickly closes the door as the Muslim call to prayer comes from within.
"You're Muslim," I half question and half point out.
"Yes."
"But you don't wear the hijab?"
"Because we hear people talking about Islam and terrorists and sense it's better to hide our beliefs."
We assure her that her beliefs are respected with us. With this assurance, she tells us of her conversion while in her late teens. She found great peace, but not immediately with her parents. When she told her father, he said, "But they kill people."
"But no. This is not true Islam. We think it is wrong to kill an ant."
The next day, we are alone, and she has invited me to please ask any questions I may have. "It's so much better to ask than to suppose the worst."
I need to know if it's hijab or hajib (the former), and why she chooses not to wear her religious clothing. We talk of my religion and her recognition of the missionaries she met in the Philippines. We talk about the similarities between all religions and wouldn't it just be better if we all loved one another?
On this we whole heartedly agree.
That evening, we continue to talk and remembering a tender, sacred encounter with a group of Muslim refugees, I ask her if it was okay that I had hugged a group of Muslim women and men.
The women were fine but hugging the men was not appropriate-- but we laugh, because it's what's needed when our hearts have the right intentions--when we share a belief in God, share a belief that we are his children, but acknowledge that our practices may differ, and that we as humans, will always make mistakes.
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