A New Twist on Tithing

This morning, over our pre-breakfast chai, there was a man out front who knocked and yelled something that made the women immediately jump up, pulling money out from under the mattress. Saying something about the masjid (or mosque), the youngest daughter ran to the front gate. Once she came back I asked her to explain what was happening.

This is what I could understand: at the beginning of the month (every month) someone from the mosque comes by and asks for money that helps pay for some children’s schooling. I couldn’t help but think how something similar might be received in the American church. It wouldn’t. We believe that when we give, it is done more in a private way and out of the heart, not because someone knocks on our door, with a clipboard, taking note of what we have given. Of course, they didn’t ask my opinion and this is just one of those things that I soak in during the “learning the culture” process.

A few other things I have learned (both from the ladies in my house and the cleaning lady). To make holy water, you say prayers from a book and then breath into the bottled water that will be consumed only by the one who is ill. In addition, when one is sick and these same verses are prayed, you need to blow air directly onto the sick person to bring healing. If a broom touches your foot (or perhaps even other body parts – and possibly when you are not the one holding the broom) the one holding it pretends to spit on it (maybe actually doing so) and this protects the one touched from receiving any illness from it.

In learning some of these beliefs, I often catch myself thinking about similar things within my own culture. We all have them, whether we hold tightly to them or not, some in our culture do. Spend some time thinking about our Old Wives tales…will stepping on a crack really break your mother’s back? Or does wishing on a star really bring something to be? I feel that the creator of the universe is the one who give all things power to be or not to be – why wouldn’t I just place all my faith there, rather than having to keep track of all these other lesser “powers”? For to feed the power of the darker-side feeds it’s ability to interact in our own lives; in a sense, glorifying it. For me, there is only One that is worthy of that glory.