My first Experience at a Church(Entry #4)

Hello world, in this blog I will share with you the story of my first experience at a church. First of all, I want you to know that the story is going to be from a Muslim's point of view. Almost two years had passed since that incident. What was interesting is it was not planed out. I remember it was an afternoon time when I and my high school adventure club were heading home. Suddenly my teacher Mr. Sing made an unexpected exist in the freeway. He said that we were heading to one of the historic churches in Arizona. At that time, I was not sure how to react. I was in a big confusion and anxiety. Each time we are getting near the destination, my heart pounded faster. Mr. Sing was one of the teachers that I highly respected and I did not wanted to disappoint him by rejecting to get inside the Church. On the other hand, I was thinking what if my religion prohibited me from getting inside a place of worship other than the Mosque and what would happen to me if I did. My thoughts were having a war between each other while we were walking to the church. I was praying to God on what to do. I felt like I was going to step into hell. Standing at the door of the church, I realized my legs were a little shaky and I had no clue how to stop them. All of my friends where inside already, while I was the only one outside the door not knowing what to do.  However, not too long when curiosity started taking over my mind and I started wondering, aren't they what we Muslims call “People of the book”?  I don't see why I can't get inside their place of worship. Where is the crime in stepping inside a church? My religion always encouraged people to learn and be educated so why not?  I started questioning myself just to find an excuse to get inside. At the end I decided to get inside not for Mr. Sing but for myself. Anxiously, I got inside, and it was so quiet and peaceful. I saw people smiling at me peacefully, while I was heading to my seat. The only person who was speaking was the priest. By the time I sat down, peace overcame all over my fears and anxieties. I was amazed by how similar a priest spoke compared to a sheikh (Muslim Clergy). He was speaking about love, piece and honesty. All the advises that were given by the priest never disagreed with Islamic teachings. After coming out of the church that day, I felt shame on how negative my old community viewed Christianity and its followers. Why Muslims in my community viewed Christianity in a negative way? The answer was, my people focused on their own world and enforced their beliefs from their fathers, grandfathers and ancestors, there for they never thought about experiencing the world themselves. I myself could not understand Christianity until I experienced their environment. I learned that this world is like the universe and my culture is a galaxy out of a countless numbers of galaxies and I am only one star that belongs to one galaxy and I function according to the galaxy I belong to. I need to be aware that there are other galaxies that function differently to keep their systems running.