America the beautiful

One of my favorite parts of the day, if I happen to be home for it in the evening, is the daily call to prayer at our local mosque. The sound carries easily to our windows on the top floor on a block of brownstones. As I sit curled onto the couch or putter around trying to organize this apartment, the haunting echoes of the somewhat melancholic wail of men being called to worship one of the most important aspects of their lives stir me. In an unconscious reaction, I draw up my shoulders, sigh deeply, and smile. In a way, the song of an unfamiliar religion sung in an unfamiliar language by people from unfamiliar cultures makes that part of my afternoon feel like home.

I smile and sigh not only because the song is beautiful and its tone stirring, but also because of what hearing that song means. It means freedom-- the freedom to practice one's religion without persecution, the freedom to come to a new country (most of the Muslims at this mosque are West African immigrants) and make a future for oneself and one's family, the freedom to find comfort in speaking the words of one's native tongue with fellow immigrants and then, switching fluidly to English, to converse cheerily with the Catholic Ecuadorian, the Buddhist Tibetan, and the neighborhood-born-and-raised African-American gathered on the sidewalk, all hard-working entrepreneurs who own their own business on this short block, once a haven for crack dealers, now the home for successful mom-and-pop-type restaurants, hardware stores, organic health food stores, bodegas, barber shops, as well as a mosque.

This is New York. This is America. This is beautiful.

And then, recently, I get angry. Because no one has any right to threaten this. Fundamentalism is fundamentalism, no matter which way you paint it-- it is intolerance, it is dangerous, and it stands against everything upon which this country was founded. There should be no place for it in the US government.