What It Means - Day 238

I don't think this is what faith means, but the more practical aspects of running your particular house of worship are at least a part of what it means to be part of your faith community. Whenever I bring students to the masjid I walk them through what they're going to see and hear, and inevitably point out that right after the sermon someone who is not the Imam will step forward with a bunch of practical announcements about potluck dinners or community volunteer days or reminders that people haven't paid their annual membership, etc. We are an ummah, and that means many things.

When I was running around yesterday I stopped by, late, for a workday at our new mosque location, which was the first time I had the chance to see inside it. Several months ago we had the chance to purchase one of the two Mormon churches in Burlington. It was a good deal, the asking price being much less than its perceived value, but it was still a lot of money. Truthfully, and although I donated several times, I didn't think we'd be able to raise the funds (which I guess is even more evidence, as if we needed more evidence, that I'm not a person of great faith). Amazingly we raised over a million dollars in less than four months, and now it's ours. There's a goodly amount of work to do to get it ready, and I, clumsily, helped out a bit yesterday, but we might be there before the end of the year.

It's located on Swift Street, next to a synagogue and down the road from a church, so we're becoming a fairly ecumenical little corner. When I first saw it I was struck by how big it is, but we do have a growing community.

Here the main prayer area and folks are lovingly refurbishing it, and making sure that everything is treat respectfully as part of the transformation. There are no pews in a mosque, everyone sits on the floor, so we had to find a new home for them. In mosques you pray facing Mecca (the qibla is the actual direction, and the mirhab is the niche or at least the designation inside the mosque that indicates the direction) and that doesn't line up with the layout of the church. Essentially, the qibla would be facing towards the wall to the left (which is why I chose this picture). I think negotiations are still on-going (I'm not in the inner circle on these things) and the sermon might be given with the left wall as the "front" or we would face the traditional front of the old church for the sermon and then turn ninety degrees to face the qibla for the actual prayer (I've seen this in other mosques). 

And we now have our own gym, which will be great for expanding our youth programs.

It's a pretty expansive space, especially as compared to our old mosque.

It features lots of classrooms, certainly more than we need, so we have many options.