Glory Ho

In Istanbul, there is a “call to prayer.” This is part of the Islam religion. I know it happens five times a day, but I’m not really familiar with the exact time. I’ve seen Turks rush off to kneel toward Mecca as it sounds, but I can’t tell you if there’s a proper position. And while there seems to be a call and answer sequence, I don’t know if all the mosques work together or if they cry out independently. Certainly, women and men do not pray together, but again, I don’t know the rules. Though I have my suspicions, I have no idea if the voice is recorded or if an imam is physically perched in one of their many mosque’s turrets. But these logistics are not important to me. The sound, a continuous crying out with waves of intensity and urgency, is what matters. Wherever we were—in the ancient Hagia Sofia with awed tourists, on a ferry in the Bosphorous Strait or inhaling mint tobacco from a nargile—when the call to prayer began, my skin felt. My thoughts slowed. My awareness increased. If even for half a second. It’s a state of being I long to experience. One I occasionally attempt with meditation, prayer and church but one I more often attempt with mere pauses on the sidewalk. It is one I rarely achieve. Undoubtedly, there resides great meaning and symbolism behind this ritual. But even in my most primordial understanding, it its simplest form, the call to prayer, to me, seemed an effective method for sensing God’s presence and awaking to the present moment. As I became an adult, I remember that my Mom was thankfully unconcerned about which religion I practiced or where I went to church, but that I believed in something, that I knew how to pray, and that I could take comfort if needed, in the idea that God was there. This call to prayer, to me, is about that.