Holy Men, Holy Women 4

FEB 16 — It’s December 24, 2010. A pastor friend has kindly invited me to observe a Christmas service at his church, somewhere in Kuala Lumpur.

It has been a long while since I had witnessed a Christmas service. My sister and I grew up being dragged by our history-mad mother to Russian and English churches. Our father, you see, travelled for work.

For a good while when we lived in Russia in the seventies, our mother developed a fascination for Rasputin, and Russian aristocracy. Our tiny apartment would have Boney M blaring out “Ra Ra Rasputin” as she and our father danced in our little living room. In fact, churches loomed a lot in my young life.

You may find this strange, but when I was young, and living in Kuala Terengganu, I remembered attending Christmas parties and birthday parties that had nuns! Back then, it was just another party for children to play and receive presents.

When I was in university, I visited my resident dorm advisor’s home during Thanksgiving. Her father was a pastor, too, of a charismatic church. He was African-American while his wife was white, and there was a lot of singing and prayers in that house.

When they invited me over for Christmas, I declined politely. I couldn’t bear the thought of more singing, especially before meals. Then there were the English churches most international students visited during our monthly tours off campus.

My friend’s church reminds me of small, modern American churches. Cosy, with a congregation that was like a family.

I am quite familiar with the area, and was quite taken aback to know that it was just a few doors down from a close friend’s home.

It’s an old house which has been renovated into a church. As I sit gingerly on a chair, I see people rushing to help and a choir practising. I wonder, how does one behave in a church?

I had a wardrobe crisis this morning: If I attend a ceramah at a mosque, I would be wearing baju kurung and a tudung, but a church? When one is unsure, one becomes conservative. I rustle something up and look like a 60-year-old headmistress.

It is a damp Christmas. The sky is grey and somehow, just like how Aidilfitri felt muted this year, today was the same. The past few years, religious tension has not helped with interfaith engagement.

I fidget. Another moment of crisis. Now if I am to witness such in Europe, I would be fine, but in Malaysia, where everything religious is so sensitive, have I lost my mind? But I’m not converting nor am I converting the Christian congregation to Islam; I’m just a guest. Does this make me less of a Muslim for watching?

An expatriate family arrives. The church becomes more crowded. The music playing is Christian pop. I’ve never witnessed a Christian gathering this warm before. The one my family and I saw at a St Petersburg church was solemn, dark and reminiscent of Omen films.

The congregation becomes more ethnically mixed, and I see a Malay woman wearing a green tudung enter the church with her friends. She barely generates a glance or curiosity. They sit by the right side of the church. I feel relieved. I’m not the only Melayu here then.

I think of how we Muslims pray in a mosque. When my family and I do, it is to either attend weddings, and to perform the terawih prayers. Our father, of course, attends Friday prayers. We greet family and friends warmly, but our task is to pray, and then when all is done, we leave.

And unlike Umrah or the Hajj, it is a homogenous community which prays in our mosques. About 98 per cent are Malay Muslims, and from time to time, the odd Caucasian or African is seen. It is only during Umrah and the Hajj that Muslims meet other Muslims of different stripes and colour.

A friend is surprised to see me in the church.

What are you doing here, she asks.

Just to see how Christians celebrate Christmas.

Oh. She then elaborates on the church, that it attracts people who are disappointed with other churches. The latter tends to focus on servitude to church but not its people. The church is communal, and does refugee work with the Myanmarese. 

Non-Christians are welcome to observe and befriend the church’s members. I nod. There is no way such a thing will happen in a Malaysian mosque.

There is a short prayer, and a silent confession, to ask God to forgive us and then we are asked to greet each other, “Peace be with you.”

After Muslim prayers too, we greet fellow Muslims with a salam. I wonder if it’s possible for a balcony to be built in a mosque for non-Muslims to observe Muslims pray.

*****

Much, much later, I wonder whether I had been foolhardy. True, I was there as an observer. There were a few Malays there, who had come to celebrate. I was told much later that a few Muslim NGOs welcome such interactions with non-Muslims (I breathed out loud when I heard the affirmation. Whew.)

I was also curious: How did Malaysian Christians celebrate the occasion sans snow? To be honest, I know of many Muslim Malaysians who enjoy a good tuck-in with roast Christmas turkeys. It’s always about food, we Malaysians.

However, with articles and incidents such as these, Art Harun’s “I Beg to Differ” and Jakim’s guidelines for Muslims attending non-Muslim celebrations, and, of course, the overzealous attempt to have Christian paraphernalia removed at a Christmas celebration prior to the prime minister’s visit, it does instil a certain fear.

I also left my very first Christmas service somewhat discomforted. What on earth was I expecting? Somehow, Christmas in the tropics is so... salah, as we say. People dress up for church in Europe and the States.

Call me shallow, but I would have thought Malaysians would have made an effort. It was Christmas! Perhaps in my mind, attending church and observing Christmas would mean bells clanging, gargoyles guarding the church, and everyone all decked up to welcome the holiday. I blame my superficial impressions on Hollywood horror films and the international students’ church visits as-part-of-their-education-abroad.

And I wanted to see devotion. I am not accusing my friend’s congregation as being lesser Christians. Perhaps I wanted to see too much: a pew with Christians bowed down, praying, and praying very hard to God and Jesus.

But I must also be realistic: this is man at work, and prayers. How pious we are is up to us. Turning up for Christmas service wearing slippers and shorts does not mean a man is not a fervent believer of Christ.

I also had an epiphany: It was time to leave the city.

Somehow, faith and “believing people” in Kuala Lumpur seemed too manufactured, too “constructed”.

As an acquaintance once said over breakfast, “When we focus too much on rituals, we forget the essence of spirituality.”

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.