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The following is taken from the Houston Interfaith Ministries( IM) recent newsletter (May 28,2008) that included statements about my recent trip to Turkey. Hope you find it of interest. The writer is Elliot Gershenson who is the CEO of IM.
"I've been asked why IM participates in interfaith trips to Turkey as guests of the Institute for Interfaith Dialog (IID), the local Turkish group affiliated with the Gulen movement. Our recent trip included eighteen community leaders and four IID guides. I think their words might best explain why:
Reverend James Grace from Epiphany Episcopal Church says: From the few times I have traveled through the Middle East, I have always encountered people who were generous, compassionate, and friendly. This was certainly the case in Turkey. For eleven days our group was treated like celebrities: roses waiting for us as we got onto a new bus in a new city; extravagant meals in homes and restaurants, and the smiles upon the many faces of those so eager to meet us. I am truly grateful for this outpouring of love and hospitality, and it is something that I feel I have brought back with me to Houston. It is my hope, that as a priest who believes in the value of compassionate dialog amongst the varieties of religious traditions that the generosity I experienced in Turkey may continue on in my home, at my church, and in my neighborhood.
IM Board member Jay Thomas wrote: I'll start with the Houstonians assembled for this trip, I've not been with a group that I came to like and trust so quickly. Establishing friendships with them has been a deep blessing. Turkey is a beautiful country with profound history and remarkable geographical diversity. The Turkish people could not have been more welcoming, open and kind. It's easy to see why our trip's sponsors are eager to have us see their country and get to get acquainted with their citizens. This is a face of Islam that all should know. I can't, in good conscience, return to Houston with merely photos and warm memories. As a leader of IM I am committed to finding ways that are tangible and within my reach to share what we saw, thought and felt. Our group could not have a more significant interfaith mission.
Attorney Bob Bennett says it this way: It was not what I expected. I'm not sure what I expected on our 11 day trip to Turkey with IM that was sponsored by IID. I was pretty skeptical starting off as to what the trip was really about. I had prepared a three-ring briefing book in order to discuss the attributes and historical significance of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey's founder, and even the recent incursions of the Turkish army into Iraq. But whatever happened on this trip, I was prepared to harangue, argue, debate, persuade, and even try to convert to my way of thinking and belief. This trial attorney would not be easily persuaded. Wasn't the real agenda of this group from Turkey to try and make Islamists out of us and just to promote their religion? Certainly, as I was offered a basically free trip by Elliot Gershenson, CEO of IM these thoughts crossed my mind. There is no free lunch. Maybe we will end up listening to a condominium promotion on the Bosphorus.
We were a diverse group that started from Houston. Two Black women from evangelic Christian backgrounds, an Episcopal Priest fresh from seminary, two Islamic medical doctors (one from Syria and the other from Pakistan), an agnostic businessman, a Catholic Priest, and several including myself, from main stream Protestantism. Also a Former Houston city council member, a county official, publisher of a newspaper "The Defender," several attorneys, a Jewish businessman - a cross section of some of the leaders and accomplished citizens of Houston.
Maybe I thought that once we arrived in Turkey we would be taken to a Mosque and the Imam would talk about his faith. They could use the favorite Protestant Evangelic technique of making you listen to the conversion experience before they feed you. We would be in their country and I still remember of the movie, 'Midnight Express"; anything could happen.
For the next 9 days we sped through the sights and scenes and activities of seeing Turkey that few tourists and maybe few Turkish citizens ever get to see. I should set the record straight in this discourse that I do not know of a single person who was converted to a different faith but all of us were changed by the experience. While I had traveled around the world, I had never spent any time in an Islamic country and certainly have not been welcomed to homes, restaurants, schools, colleges, newspapers, and businesses owned and operated mostly by Muslims who wanted to meet me and welcomed the opportunity to talk on any topic we want because they wanted to truly get to know us. My concerns and jaded view point were soon replaced by an appreciation for the hospitality of our hosts (and we thought southern hospitality had meaning!) and an admiration that the motivation for bringing Americans to Turkey was a direct result of the world-wide dissemination of the teachings of the Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen. This hero of peace has touched something profound and deep within a significant part of the Turkish people that has resulted in the outpouring of education, tolerance, hospitality, and outreach, in the best tradition of the school of love in the Islamic tradition based on the life and practices of the Messenger of Islam.
It took the trip to Turkey and now two weeks of reflection for me to start to understand what a marvelous spiritual experience had unfolded before me. The first example was on our first full day and night in the incredible cosmopolitan and diverse city of Istanbul. We had been sightseeing at the Topkapi Palace and Haghia Sophia. Our plans called for us to drive across town to a Jewish Synagogue and then eat at a home or kosher restaurant. We got caught in the Istanbul traffic that made Houston's I-10 West a breeze, and we arrived too late for the service. What was riveting, however, was the presence of armed military personnel guarding the synagogue, the elaborate security to enter, and then the massive bomb-proof metal doors that one had to pass through before reaching the sanctuary. To see such necessary precautions since the Synagogue had been bombed, left a lasting impression of how precarious Jewish life and worship is in this tolerant country.
Another example was the importance of one of our fellow travelers, the Rev. R. Troy Gatley, celebrating a mass at the House of the Virgin Mary at Ephesus. Whether she lived at or on that spot was not as important as focusing on how Christians and Muslims have the deepest respect and reverence for His Holy Mother. Seeing how the different faiths reacted to Abraham's pool in Urfa or the Christian monastic caves in Central Anatolia was also profound. But the lesson that I learned from this adventure in the exotic land of Turkey is that coming together the way we did developed deep friendships. While this was my first trip with such a diverse interfaith composition, I plan to return to Turkey and continue the interfaith dialogue that our friendships have now allowed.
