In a few days I will fly to Chicago to enjoy a two week residency at Ragdale Artist Residency in Lake Forest. The town, thirty miles north of the city, is where I was born and lived until I turned twenty-one. California has been my residence since the sixties, and my last visit there was in about 1975, so this is a journey to my youth and childhood, as well as a time to work on my poetry.
I’m giving a talk at a bookstore in Chicago and reading from my book, UNTOLD. Here is the flyer. Will share my adventures here over the next few weeks.
An Unquenchable Thirst: Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service, and an Authentic Life by Mary Johnson. Spiegel and Grau, an imprint of Random House, 2011. <>
In an interview Mary Johnson said, “Even when you enter a convent you are still a human being with all sorts of things happening. We have to start talking about that.”
Her publisher, (Spiegal & Grau) was overjoyed with the book, “We all marveled at how it – Unquenchable Thirst – spoke to us, no matter what our religious background, age or gender… Mary was a rigorous and learned thinker on the most vexing and mysterious and essentially spiritual questions.” Words by publisher, Julie Grau in “First,” a 6-page article by Eryn Loeb in Poets and Writers, Sept/Oct. 2011.
The picture that began the journey...
The bar is set high. Mary – who comes to be known as known as a Missionary of Charity (MC) named Sister Donata – is longing for an authentic life. She stays on her point. But how much authenticity can an enormous organization carry? Mother Teresa was the embodied inspiration linking multiple mission houses to help the poor all over the world. By 1996, at age 86, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries, each run by sisters aiming to be devoted brides of Jesus.
Sister Donata is in the matrix of the activities. “ I looked at the shoes outside the door –– Mother’s ragged, repeatedly mended sandals next to (Princess) Diana’s shiny black pumps.”
The author gets you to care about how she will continue against the difficult circumstances that are present from her first days as an Aspirant. She sheds each skin so naturally that you, the reader, are now in New York City, now in Washington DC, now in Rome and this girl from Texas has become fluent in Italian and is helping the Romany (Gypsy) children there. You are applauding on the sidelines, but then she is too happy with her work educating those children who had never been taught anything but street-life, so her superiors take that away from her. Being humble and holy is more important to these nuns than using knowledge to help the poor. Pride. Sin. Sister Donata is up against the formidable hierarchy within the organization, which makes authentic life very challenging.
The unkind high-ranking sisters create stern distance between themselves and the newer women, a distance, she says she will erase in favor of being kind and compassionate – if she is ever in that position. But when she becomes the “mistress” some students take advantage of her kindness.
Earlier on, there is the moment she is working with the wild inner-city kids in D.C. She has 60 of them. She asks who has been in a fight, and nearly everyone raises a hand: “And what do you do when someone else picks a fight?” “Kick their ass,” a boy in front shouted… And who knows what Jesus said about fighting?” All faces went blank….” Jesus said, ‘When someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the left.’” “…we have to be peacemakers even if it’s hard. The point is if someone’s mean to us we don’t fight back and make it worse.” Derrick looked at me as though I were crazy. Most of the little kids looked blank. They would need time to digest this.”
Then in the middle of this fragile, nonviolent work she is introducing, one of the other sisters starts covertly hitting the children when they misbehave…
Most difficulties encountered in the daily life of a MC did not seem to have the support of the superiors. Rules and more rules, punishment and taking yourself to task were regular fare. A sympathetic priest suggests a Twelve Step program to Sister Donata, and offers to introduce it as the subject of his weekly talks to the sisters. “The twelve steps use sound spiritual principles – they’re good for anyone who is trying to grow,” he tells her. Conscious growth is not a topic Sister Donata has encountered. She divides her sisters she is guiding into groups called, “Sinners Anonymous.” This seems to be a useful tool, next to the path of striving for spiritual perfection – and repeatedly failing. She bravely shares with the reader her discoveries, as a young nun, of her own sexuality and how she is on her own dealing with it.
It is shocking how the system fails to make use of knowledge and natural gifts. Sister Donata is great with children and young novices. She has spent 3 years studying Theology at prestigious Regina Mundi, part of Gregorian University, just blocks from the Vatican in Rome. After that she was assigned to work on Mother Teresa’s writings for a short time. Then there are political moments, and she is re-assigned as ground level organizer arranging visas and travel tickets, buy and pack supplies for the missions and deal with “hordes of sisters newly professed from Calcutta and Africa and Rome, sometimes even from the Philippines and the States –– it was a zoo.”
The grit in this book is in every chapter, but it becomes tactile as she begins to see the distance between her idealistic, expansive view and the wedge of strict, small minded people who influence Mother Teresa. Then there is disappointment in the woman who was her inspiration for years – Mother, herself.
“I can’t do this anymore. I couldn’t be the spouse of Jesus crucified. I wanted to be Mary Magdalene discovering the empty tomb in the garden, hearing the Lord call her name. I wanted to be the spouse of the One who said, I came that you may have life, and have it to the full.”
This is after her powerful dream of the potter as Creator, who breathed life into each of her creations and set them out in the world. The last one was a girl with glasses. The potter decided to keep her on the shelf – after breathing life into her – and that little person was Sister Donata, who shouted and began to cry, “I want to go (into my life)…” But she was ignored.
“Sometimes I dreamed of helping the Society return to Mother’s emphasis on love, but I didn’t want to settle for being a good influence on individual sisters in a bad system.”
Mary Johnson
So after 20 years as a Missionary of Charity, Sister Donata leaves the world of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity and re-enters secular life as Mary Johnson. Her careful reflections on that time became this beautiful, though-provoking book. I marked UnquenchableThirst with over 60 markers, each page-flag an indication of something that might be good to share in a review. Sadly, I had to make difficult choices. You’ll have to get the book to read the rest.
May the words in this book reach far and wide! <> <>
I gave a book reading – introducing my book, UNTOLD, in Portland on Thursday March 17th at the New Renaissance Bookshop, a wonderful counter-culture bookstore very different from the famous Powells City of Books, downtown. Shabda offered a Sufi retreat over the weekend and invited me to give a presentation Sunday Morning. I kept it to 20 minutes and offer it here as an audio file. <> TamamTalk3-30-11<>
As for the crocodiles, they seem to appear in all their reptilian glory when I say the magic word – JAHILIYYA, an Arabic term for a time that had an attitude. The time before Muhammad brought the antidote of al-halama — mild gentleness, nurturing love. One you might recognize in its own form today in some political moments. Here’s the poem:
instructions for Jahiliyya
…the jahil, a wild, violent and impetuous character who follows the inspiration of unbridled passion and is cruel by following his animal instincts; in one word, a barbarian. Ignaz Goldziher
Know you are right.
Think fist and knife-edge.
Do not appear
foolish, no matter what.
Control your woman
and your guests; keep them
a little afraid, and thankful
for your protection.
Guard your clan’s
honor. Carve a notch
on your weapon of choice
for each successful pay-back.
If someone calls you animal,
smile and answer — lion,
hyena, crocodile, fighting cock— the meek are the pack animals of the ferocious.[i]
from Untold, A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad by Tamam Kahn, Monkfish Books 2010.
[i]Jahiliyya is an important term, usually mistranslated as “the time of ignorance”, instead, Ignaz Goldziher argues, He sees it as barbarism, not ignorance, citing halim (mild), not ‘ilm (knowing) as the opposite term. He quotes an old Arab proverb: The meek is the pack animal of the ferocious (al-halim matiyyat al-jahul.) He devotes an entire chapter of his cited book to this subject. ~~~
There is always the lion, hyena, and fighting cock and that juicy word “ferocious.” Keeps me on my toes. <>
~ UNTOLD won an International Book Award for 2011.
~ UNTOLD was translated into Indonesian and may be in bookstores there as “Untold Stories,” Kaysa Publishers, and is being considered by Garnet Press, UK.
Monkfish Publishing House interviews Tamam Kahn (2010 interview):
Q: What prompted you to write about the wives of Muhammad?
Tamam Kahn: As I traveled in North Africa and the Middle East, I felt authority and earthy power from the women who recited sacred words and sang poetry about Muhammad and his family. I wanted to discover if Muhammad’s wives had that same fierce, elegant energy. I began to read about them. I found that – according to traditional history – they did.
Q: Why do you feel this information is valuable or necessary at this time? What does it have to teach us?
Tamam Kahn: This book is meant to balance History and Her-story. My wish is that the women in these pages may emerge as vivid individuals vocalizing the first years of what came to be Islam; that they will replace the stiff and submissive stereotypes the media often displays. In this book, we see that Muhammad was married to women born into Jewish, Christian and pagan faiths. “Untold” may inspire us to be curious and keep a flexible attitude, and if we do, we may discover all people have the same hopes, dreams, fears, and disappointments.
Q: Do you consider yourself a Muslim?
Tamam Kahn: I would call myself a spiritual seeker who regards Islam as the path of peaceful surrender to the One. For me, a Muslim is a person who walks that path. This was the “Islam” embraced by the women I write about. I am a follower of the Message of Divine Unity as exemplified by the great Sufis such as Rumi, Hafiz, and Rabi‘a of Basra. They carry a sacred outlook not limited to the form, the time, or the place.
Q: How have Muslims responded to your research and publication?
Tamam Kahn: A California Muslim woman hosting a local radio show wrote me that Untold brought these women to life in a way that no standard biography did. Through the poetry, she now imagined them as real flesh and blood women who were courageous, jealous, and fierce – in a very human way. For those who question my right to write about the Prophet’s wives, I would say I have great respect for each woman and admiration for the life they shared. That respect has opened doors that made this book possible.
Q: Does your book have a message for Muslims?
Tamam Kahn: As-salaam ‘alaykum. This book greets you on the path of peace. Come and enjoy the stories of your Prophet and his family.
Q: Does your book have significance for non-Muslims?
Tamam Kahn: This book is about a forgotten piece of history that needs to be brought out and honored. But for me it is not about Muslim and non-Muslim. It’s about our human family and the strength of women. This book may bring ease to a mother whose children attend school with Muslim children, the shopper served by a grocery checker in a scarf, the office worker whose boss has a Muslim name. CNN tells us that nearly one in four people in the world today is a Muslim, although Fox Network said it was one in five.
Q: How has the process of researching, writing, and publishing Untold changed your life?
Tamam Kahn: I’ve spent my life changing my life, so this is just another chapter. There is a big difference between holding a manuscript and reading from your own book. This book seems to have “a life of its own.” I feel like I’m just tagging along. The directive that these women need to be known is an important one. From the opening poem: “I am here with a message: conversation with these women will never end.”
Q: Can you tell us about the research for Untold?
Tamam Kahn: I was hooked as soon as I began to read contemporary authors, Karen Armstrong and Martin Lings. From there I went to the oldest sources such as Ibn Ishaq. I traveled to Syria and received my own library card from the Al-Azar National Library in Damascus. When I’d researched and written a few chapters, I met with Islamic Scholar Arthur Buehler back in America, and he was moved by what I was doing and offered to help, not only by correcting the Arabic, but also suggesting early scholarly material that was respected in the genre of what is called “the hadith literature.” In that way I had the advantage of an academic checkpoint.
Q: Talk about the form you use in this book – narrative prose interspersed with poetry.
Tamam Kahn: At one point I had seventy poems and notebooks of research on the wives and daughters of Prophet Muhammad. I thought I’d find someone to write the back-story. I asked the wonderful master writer and Poet Laureate of North Carolina, Fred Chappell, what he would do if he were in my place. He suggested a “prosimetrum.” No one I knew was familiar with that term. It was used by Boethius in the fifth century – in his Latin Consolation of Philosophy. Boethius placed poems – each like a tiny well – in the prose narrative thread. The Consolation influenced Western Medieval thought, Dante and Chaucer. The form is generally not in use today, but it served my purpose beautifully!
Q: Who should read this book?
Tamam Kahn: This book is for anyone who wants to transcend stereotypes about Islam. Untold paints this early history with a bold, broad stroke, including Prophet Muhammad’s close and colorful contact with Pagan, Jewish, and Christian women who became his wives. Like Reading Lolita in Tehran, Untold depicts Muslim women in a new light, with focus on their intelligence and creative outlook. Book clubs will find this is an optimistic book that empowers women –– the ones who are in it and the ones reading from it! After studying Untold in an Islamic Studies class, one student was inspired to write a term paper about the first wife, Khadija. I leave a trail of research markers, so the book can be enjoyed as simple biography or questioned and investigated further. Untold is for people who discover that they want to know –– who are these women?
For more information or to arrange an interview with Tamam Kahn, please contact: <tamam@completeword.com>