Site Visits

In addition to interviewing people of different religions, Weatherly and I went with several people we had interviewed to their worship sites to participate in their own personal worship experience. We wanted to get a deeper understanding of each individual's religious experience, and then ask them what they actually get out of what they do in their worship.

The first site that I visited was the Jewish reform temple. (I already briefly posted on this visit, but here were the highlights): The rabbi lead everyone in Hebrew prayers out of a prayer book that we sung with a guitar, then he gave a brief sermon. The entire worship experience lasted about 30 minutes.

I asked Kelsey if she knew what all the prayers meant when she said them (she did not use the prayer book, but instead had all the prayers memorized), and she said that she knew the general idea of what the prayers were saying, but if she wanted to know she could just read the translation out of the book. She said that there was a certain type of reverence that she felt when she said the prayers, and that it was important to her to say them in Hebrew because it was the language of God. That was part of her religious experience.

The second site that I visited was the Hindu temple. This visit was really amazing. At the front of the temple were the statues of the gods and goddesses Ganesha, Rama, Sita, Hanuman, Durga, Vishnu, Lakshmi, Parvati, and Shiva just to name a few. The back wall was a painted mural of the famous scene from the Bhagavad Gita featuring Krishna as the charioteer with Arjuna. Everything was very brightly colored. We took our shoes off as we entered. As the curtain was pulled back to reveal the gods and goddesses, a bell was rung to wake them up. Then a plate was brought out and incense was lit to make a better atmosphere for the gods. On the plate, people gave money and food as an offering called prasad. Then a candle was lit (called a divo, it reveals the eyes of the gods) on the plate and the prayers to all the different gods were chanted while we sat. Then we stood for the final prayer called aarti. We stood in respect for the gods, one person rang the bell again and another took the plate with the incense and the candle and waved them around in circles. Then when that chant was done each person went up to the candle and waved their hand over it several times and either waved that over their head or touched their forehead. They did this to remind themselves of every aspect of the god including every organ and ask the god to make their organs demonstrate those qualities as well. We then ate the prasad because it is holy and is considered good luck. I spoke to one of the adults who explained everything they did to me. He said that what was important was to recognize the main point - that you were thanking and praying to god.

The third site that I visited was the Muslim mosque with Anjum. She covered her head before we got out of the car, then we had a separate entrance and a separate room that was in the back of the main room with the men. We were completely separated from the men except for a glass window. This was out of respect for the men so that we did not distract them when they were praying (if we were in front) and also so the women were not embarassed when they had to bend over and get on the ground. We took our shoes off before we entered out of respect for god (you can't wear shoes on holy ground) and then sat on the floor. One man got up and spoke for a while, somewhat like a Christian sermon, then everyone prayed facing Mecca. The prayers were led by the man that gave the sermon and there were different stances. First we stood, then bent over, then on the ground and touched our head to the ground, then we sat up and bent back over again, and finally stood up again. This was done twice. Anjum then did her own personal prayer before we left.

From the last two places that I went, I noticed that the prayers were in the original language. This is even true for Catholic services. Even if a worshiper did not know what was being said, the fact that it was in that other language made it closer to god. It was the language of god, or the original text so that you get everything out of it that is in the text. You also don't lose or confuse anything in translation. Everyone was willing to sacrifice understanding what they were saying for it being in the original tongue. It didn't even matter that they couldn't understand it because god knows what they are saying.

In mid March I went to a worship service at the same temple for the God Ganesha's birthday. There was a large crowd already gathered when we arrived so we removed our shoes and joined them on the dais in front of the God's. The first thing I noted was the women seated on the right and the men on the left. I have been to this same temple several times before for the nightly services. At that time all the people, men and women, sat together, but that could have been because it was a smaller and less formal ceremony. At the birthday party, as I am calling it, there were about 7 people sitting in the very front with small trays in front of them. These 3 couples and 1 daughter had chosen to take a more active part in the ceremony. I couldn't see much of what was going on (or understand it since it was all in another language), but one part really stood out. They each passed around a flaming candle and made motions like they were blessing a coconut that sat on a tray in front of them.
While this ritual was going on, two men took several garlands of red flowers and placed them around the necks of each of the god's, starting with Ganesha. A small bowl with grey powder was passed around and each person made a small mark with it on their forehead. Thankfully a girl probably around the age of 16 arrived shortly before this and sat with our group to explain what was going on. She said she didn't know the exact reason for the powder, but assured us that we were welcome to have some and applied it for us. Once each person had some, each family approached a large cylindrical shaped, vase-like structure and poured milk from the coconut over it, rinsing it with water between each family. When it was her turn to go, our new friend insisted we join her family, but we didn't feel right participating in that personal type of worship (even though we weren't quite sure what it meant yet) and declined. When she returned she explained that the statue was another manifestation of Ganesha and this was a form of offering him nourishment and blessing on that day. After everyone had been up, they began a series of chants and prayers. We checked the time and realized it was 8:50- we had been there nearly two hours and the service wasn't scheduled to be over for a while longer yet. One of our group had to be at work at nine, so we unfortunately had to leave and couldn't stay after to talk with the service leader and worshippers. Even though we couldn't be completely sure of everything that was happening the experience was still fascinating to watch and gave us great insight to a celebration in the Hindu community that is meaningful and sacred to them like the celebrations of Christianity are to us.

I attended two Christian services to look into the different types of Christianity that Roof had been describing in his book. The first was Hopepoint, a non-denominational church that meets in the gym of Oakbrook elementary school. This congregation is made up mainly of the people Roof classifies as the Born Again Christians. These are people who had a major turning point in their life that leads them to a deep spiritual relationship with God. I went with interviewee Drew Bryan and several of his younger friends I had never met before. We walked into the "sanctuary" and headed for the right side of the room which was filled with around 50 college students (the left side was the rest of the congregation: adults, and children). Worship consisted of contemporary songs sang with a full band and arms raised. The preacher got up and spoke with a clear passion: his eyes were often shut and he got very excited, speaking in a loud voice and often seeming like he couldn't catch his breath or say enough. He also had a PowerPoint to highlight the most important parts.

The second site visit was at Central United Methodist Church located in downtown Spartanburg on Church St. I walked in and was immediately welcomed by the greeters and handed a program to the service. The music was vastly different- old hymns played on the pipe organ and accompanied by the choir. The sermon was preached in a more stately manner- of a very knowledgeable person trying to explain an important matter to the congregation. Several times he referenced authors such as Kierkegaard and Camus, and stuck to what the Bible and Biblical scholars said about the topic as opposed to the more worldly and slightly more personal/opinion oriented view of the first service. As it was the first Sunday of the month communion was served, and the atmosphere while the wine and bread were blessed and distributed to the people was drastically different from the one at Hopepoint and the Hindu Temple (though those ceremonies are difficult to compare- I will try to more in just a moment). As the people filed by I looked at the diversity of the congregation: old and young, black and white, and all of different dress and with different outlooks as they approached the alter.

I have made several observations about the characteristics of the ceremonies at the Temple and Church. At the Temple, the people brought food and spent the entire time presenting the offerings to the gods to make sure they were satisfied and never seemed to expect anything in return. In contrast, the Church presented the people with a piece of God as the focal point of the service. I could go into this, but it would go on for a good while. Just some food for thought.