Note: Originally written August 2012
Lazy cross-over dribble got the better of me. Wood-tip of a Black and Mild clenched in his teeth, the scraggly yet surprisingly coordinated fellow my opposite capitalized on my distraction and hastily poked away the basketball.
It was an odd scene. What was odd about it was, in a sense, its many familiarities: the pick-up game of basketball with strangers, the playful joshing of ever-competitive males, a warm Colorado sun made slightly more intense from the reflection on the pavement. It was a park in Colorado Springs not unlike dozens of others, fields of grass valiantly trying to keep up appearances while dying for lack of water, dozens of families dotted at tables and strewn about on blankets. All of this was so familiar as to be forgetful.
My cause of distraction had been more of curiosity than anything else. At a gentle slope in the field adjacent, a smallish group of men began to organize in a loose collection of lines. The gentleman at the helm, sporting an age-appropriate oversized and tucked-in 90s polo, oriented the cadre in an easterly direction, then all knelt in the grass and began their recitation. It was then that I remembered where I was, and realized in my momentary ignorance what I had failed to see before.
It was the Asr, or afternoon prayer.
I had agreed to go with *John* to meet the Colorado Springs Muslim community for an afternoon and barbeque at the park. John was a member of my local church who has made outreach to the Muslim world his calling, though in the most unorthodox of ways. Fundamentalists would call it heterodox. Flushed with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bible, the Quran, the hadiths, and all overlap in between, he has made a global name for himself by living and serving with Muslim communities. He develops personal relationships with as many mosque-goers as he can, speaking about Issa (Jesus) and how Muslims and Christians view Him. In this capacity, he has been to multiple countries where, given his faith, it would be perilous to be an admitted Christian, not to mention having tea with local imams and speak at length about Christ. He is widely admired and welcomed by nearly every community he sojourns.
But I digress. To say that my emotions were ever-changing that afternoon is an understatement. What was I to think? I knew far more about Islamism (which admittedly intrigues me more to this day) than ‘normal’ Islam, I had rarely fellowshipped with those outside Judeo-Christianity, and…it was in Colorado Springs. I found myself always ready to wince in case of same ugly remark yelled from across the park about the group, obviously different from other families in dress and segregation (the women talked and ate at a separate park structure).
I continued my pick-up game with Steve and four others. Steve was a pale thirty-something, a recent convert to Islam and still smoking his drug-store cigar while we played. When I mustered up the courage during a lull in play to ask Steve about his faith, his rationale was simple: He had been with bad company, in and out of jail, and “decaying” as he put it. Islam and the Muslim community gave him discipline and order, a sort of stern yet loving kindness he had not found elsewhere.
In fact, Steve was not the only ‘obvious’ convert due to his background; a few African-American Muslims and their families also dotted the picnic group of about 85. Most of the men were unsurprisingly engaged in a half-dozen soccer games in the fields around the food area.
As we approached evening, the imam slowly worked his way around to the different groups, calling us to dinner. Words cannot begin to describe the meal laid out before us. The two dozen different dishes, from Indian to Arab to North African, would have sufficed. But the lamb on the spit made any attempts at description futile.
Conversation around my section of the table was fascinating. We talked over everything from the ins and outs of football (American!) to discussions and debates over Arab history. All of this was warming and pleasant, but the story that stuck with me was one that the imam gave when John asked if they’d had any new visitors to the mosque.
The imam cast a sobering look, put his hands together on the table, almost reticent to begin. His tone was saddening. Their mosque indeed had a few newcomers as of late. They were a half dozen young Muslims from the West Coast, stopping by Colorado on their way across the country. They were passionate, bold, and devoted. As the imam described, I was admittedly confused, as there seemed nothing the matter with the persons described.
Then I noticed his tone shift to a couched anger. This group of men was unwelcome because of what they were there for. Their passion was not in peace and quiet devotion. They argued with the imam and other on violence against others, crowed about being students in Pakistan and when they would next be there, and chastised the whole congregation as ‘un-Muslim’ for their perceived lack of fervency. “These kids, they catch fire and they are poison each time their kind stops in”, he stated with visage marked with rank frustration. “We get kids like them a few times a year.”
Fearing that the presence of these youngbloods would, if discovered, strain the already tenuous relationship the community has in the Springs, the imam began to discourage them from attending Friday prayer, even going so far as (in his words) “putting myself at the threshold” when they attempted entrance.
And with that the story ended. I desperately wanted to ask more questions about this incident, but the imamappeared tired, almost grieved, from speaking it. Our talk sprang back to more pleasant things, and soon we left our tables for the largest and most incredibly disorganized soccer game possible. Teams soon meant very little, as the younger men boisterously tried to steal the ball from their fathers, much to the delight of others.
At dusk, we began to pack up the odds and ends. I embarrassingly overthanked the imam after he told me to make several plates of food to bring home. I stood for a while in the night air, sitting atop the hood of the car with lit pipe in my mouth, watching as the last of the group drove away. But I soon left, as the smell of the lamb wrapped in foil beckoned me to the nearest microwave.
*John's name is changed to protect his relative anonymity.
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