Dr. Virji is so shocked the day after the 2016 US presidential elections that he threatens to leave the small town in Minnesota where he has moved, with his family, to bring an improved healthcare system to this rural part of the country. As a devout Muslim, of Indian descent, he became angry and bitter when he found that some of the very people he treated (and saved) were the ones who voted in a way that felt to him like a slap in the face.
But thankfully, with some divine intervention, he and the Lutheran associate pastor in his town put together a series of lectures for Minnesota (and beyond) to educate people about what Islam means to 99.99% of those who are of the Muslim faith. His talks come from his heart, and he only wants people to understand that radicals and terrorists do not speak for his religion, any more than the Rev. Jim Jones, of the Peoples Temple fame, spoke for all Christians.
About midway through his book, Dr. Virji talks about what prayer – praying five times a day – means to him and to his faith: “I say essentially the same prayers every day, texts from the Quran… In Islam, we believe that the prayer begins when it ends – with the deeds you perform after the prayer is done…. We ask of ourselves, ‘What are you doing? How are you treating people? Are you doing the right thing? What are you doing when nobody is watching?’” [p. 117]
This paragraph was the most poignant for me, in his whole book, as it reminded me of the Letter of James in the Bible: “See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.... For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”
And before James wrote his epistle, Jesus had told the story of the Farmer (a metaphor for God) sowing seeds that fell in different places along the ground – some fell by the road where birds ate them, some fell on rocky ground where the seeds grew quickly with shallow roots so were then burnt by the sun, some grew among weeds and the sprouts were choked out by them. But the seeds that fell on fertile ground began to grow and yield fruit in the form of grain for all to eat and enjoy. (Matthew 13: 1-9) I know that God has planted seeds in me (and in all of us, really), but did they fall among weeds, that distract and dissuade, or on the good soil of a faithful heart?
As I sit here at my computer, I started my day in prayer and plan to continue it throughout today. But how will my prayer truly begin at the end of my words or at the end of my silence? As Dr. Virji says, I too “am exercising discipline,” [ibid] by spending time in prayer – but then what?
I have to ask myself, “Is a prayerful heart ever just enough?” 💙
