Faith Matters: Fitra — An unusual source for common ground

Perhaps like me, folks like you find wisdom in the nearly forgotten corners and conversations of our past experiences. As a teacher of religious studies and philosophy, I stand by the idea that, truly, there are few new — few genuinely new - ideas to be revealed these days. Rather, what we offer is fascinating, interesting and unexpected connections between past wisdom and modern needs. I argue that none of us have an original singular idea that does not stand on the shoulder of giants, so to speak. I would welcome a chance to defend this claim.

If you think you are the first person to ask a certain question, well, probably not. Humans have been around for a long time, and war, complicated relations, and “should I share this toy?” all preceded and will succeed us. In terms of ideas and innovation, though, what is brought to the figurative table is you, me and the many that encounter the cacophony of considerations and somehow find new resonance and invention in linking past knowledge in unusual ways. The internet? Metal wires, a magnet, an electric current ... and now interrupt it through a new kind of “binary” code. The four existed before the fifth. It’s one example.

You may know that it took nascent Christians many centuries to work through idea of God in heaven existing at the same time as God on earth, without compromising on the claim of monotheism — that of only one God. To claim the Messiah as God, a radical idea, required a lot of thought about these two ideas: an indivisible God, and, at the same time, God incarnate in human form. How can a Messianic monotheistic God exist? That puzzle was work ... important, lengthy and painstaking work.

Deep in the Arabic Qur’an is a word whose expression I adore: fitra. Translated as original essence, or fundamental nature, or common ground, fitra is something that every human has, and that every human had when they were born. It’s what makes us all human, and it’s what affirms my dignity and your dignity. With a fitra, we — all of us, identifying as Muslim or not — are predisposed to live our lives with a deep and fulfilling purpose: to be creations worthy of the creator. If DNA is your creator, honor and fulfill your human purpose and often ask, “am I living a life of worth?” If creator God is your creator, honor and fulfill your human purpose and often ask, “am I living a life of worth?” Between political rhetoric, ethnic othering, indifference to wanton suffering, and a general tendency to not see the other in the self, embracing the prospect of a unifying and innate fitra brings us into sisterhood, brotherhood, humanhood and familyhood. It is in the idea of namaste, a common yoga salutation which states that a divine presence in “me” acknowledges a divine presence in “you.” It is in the idea of the Christian human soul, the common Buddhist experience of suffering, and the Hindu atman, a spark of god which also seeks a sort of divine reunification when our lived lives end. A Zen Peacemaker precept of loving kindness reminds us to carry a wandering spider outside rather than to mash it beneath our feet. If you are the spider, then you are a human; if you are a human, you are the spider. Fitra: All of these religious traditions can, perhaps, be like the steady confluence of smaller rivers into one that is larger, or like the many, steady rain drops that naturally disappear into the ocean. We are somebody as an expression of everybody.

Here at Deerfield Academy, with a natural setting bounded by a dairy farm, a river, a sod farm, and a rocky ridge, living in a congregation of 650 students, with an age range of 13 years to 20 years, coming from dozens of states and nations, sharing a diversity a identities, passions, joys and sorrows, imagine the good work that can be done if our natural tendency is to see self in the other. Can we become our true nature? We seek to see and honor each person’s innate worth no matter what other metrics of worth are used, and, for example, to listen deeply to the words of someone with whom you regularly disagree. Fitra: Yes, it’s an Islamic theological concept. We can embrace it, get over it, or re-state it in language that is more familiar. It really doesn’t matter, because you, I and we are — sing it — “family ... I got all my sisters with me,” with common ground and purpose, you see ...

Jan Flaska is the Dean of Spiritual and Ethical Life at Deerfield Academy. He is currently teaching courses on Islamic Mysticism, Christian Mysticism and Ethics, coaching soccer, ice hockey and lacrosse, and knows only one song by Sister Sledge.