Inaugural Bonus episode! In order to change things up periodically, I will produce Bonus episodes four times a year, in the months that have a fifth week –in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. These special episodes will focus on a topic rather than a person, starting with Muslim chaplaincy. Watch for the fall Bonus episode about Tahara, the Jewish practice of preparing a body for burial. It will be released on 29 September 2022.
In this first Bonus episode, Nora speaks extensively about being a Muslim Chaplain on college campuses and elsewhere. Chaplains must wear many hats – supporter, advocate, program developer, and interfaith colleague. While chaplains work in many settings – colleges, hospitals, prisons, and even companies, Nora felt called to the college environment. As a passionate and knowledgeable Muslim, she approached that work with sensitivity, responding to the various needs of Muslim students. In addition to the normal challenges they face as young adults, Muslim students sometimes struggle with inter-religious relationships, learning more about Islamic practice and adjusting to life in the US.
Highlights
· Chaplains support and advocate, ensuring people’s religious and spiritual needs are met.
· There are 4,000 college and only 150 have a Muslim chaplains in the US – a growing and unmet need for Islamic spiritual guidance.
· College campuses are not bubbles. Students and staff are affected by current events.
· Muslim students sometimes have unique needs around mental health, dating, cultural expression and being an immigrant.
Quotes:
“A chaplain is someone who is an advocate, a promoter, a support for spiritual and religious needs.”
“People should strive to be ethical, but especially in the field of chaplaincy, when people often share their vulnerable stories with you, they put a lot of trust in you as a, as a spiritual, religious figure.”
“Unfortunately, a statistic just came out recently that Muslims are, I believe, one of the highest faith communities to commit suicide, and that includes young Muslim students.”
“It's not often that you see a Muslim woman chaplain. Thankfully, more and more Muslim women are becoming chaplains.”
Social Media links for Nora:
Chaplaincy Innovation Lab –
https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/2020/10/educator-profile-nora-zaki
My Muslim Chaplain website – www.mymuslimchaplain.com
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/nora-zaki/
Social Media links for Méli:
Email – info@talkingwithgodproject.org
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/melisolomon/
Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org
Follow the podcast!
The Living Our Beliefs podcast offers a place to learn about other religions and faith practices. When you hear about how observant Christians, Jews and Muslims live their faith, new ideas and questions arise: Is your way similar or different? Is there an idea or practice that you want to explore? Understanding how other people live opens your mind and heart to new people you meet.
Comments? Questions? Email Meli at:
info@talkingwithgodproject.org
The Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of the Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org/
Inaugural Bonus episode! In order to change things up periodically, I will produce Bonus episodes four times a year, in the months that have a fifth week –in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. These special episodes will focus on a topic rather than a person, starting with Muslim chaplaincy. Watch for the fall Bonus episode about Tahara, the Jewish practice of preparing a body for burial. It will be released on 29 September 2022.
In this first Bonus episode, Nora speaks extensively about being a Muslim Chaplain on college campuses and elsewhere. Chaplains must wear many hats – supporter, advocate, program developer, and interfaith colleague. While chaplains work in many settings – colleges, hospitals, prisons, and even companies, Nora felt called to the college environment. As a passionate and knowledgeable Muslim, she approached that work with sensitivity, responding to the various needs of Muslim students. In addition to the normal challenges they face as young adults, Muslim students sometimes struggle with inter-religious relationships, learning more about Islamic practice and adjusting to life in the US.
Highlights
· Chaplains support and advocate, ensuring people’s religious and spiritual needs are met.
· There are 4,000 college and only 150 have a Muslim chaplains in the US – a growing and unmet need for Islamic spiritual guidance.
· College campuses are not bubbles. Students and staff are affected by current events.
· Muslim students sometimes have unique needs around mental health, dating, cultural expression and being an immigrant.
Quotes:
“A chaplain is someone who is an advocate, a promoter, a support for spiritual and religious needs.”
“People should strive to be ethical, but especially in the field of chaplaincy, when people often share their vulnerable stories with you, they put a lot of trust in you as a, as a spiritual, religious figure.”
“Unfortunately, a statistic just came out recently that Muslims are, I believe, one of the highest faith communities to commit suicide, and that includes young Muslim students.”
“It's not often that you see a Muslim woman chaplain. Thankfully, more and more Muslim women are becoming chaplains.”
Social Media links for Nora:
Chaplaincy Innovation Lab –
https://chaplaincyinnovation.org/2020/10/educator-profile-nora-zaki
My Muslim Chaplain website – www.mymuslimchaplain.com
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/nora-zaki/
Social Media links for Méli:
Email – info@talkingwithgodproject.org
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/melisolomon/
Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org
Follow the podcast!
The Living Our Beliefs podcast offers a place to learn about other religions and faith practices. When you hear about how observant Christians, Jews and Muslims live their faith, new ideas and questions arise: Is your way similar or different? Is there an idea or practice that you want to explore? Understanding how other people live opens your mind and heart to new people you meet.
Comments? Questions? Email Meli at:
info@talkingwithgodproject.org
The Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of the Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org/
Nora Zaki transcript
[Music]
Méli: Hello, and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we will explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life – at work, at home, in the community, in good times and in bad. There is no one- size-fits-all right answer. Just a way to move forward for you, for here, for now. I am your host Méli Solomon. So glad you could join us.
[Music]
Méli: This is episode number fifteen and was recorded on the 7th of June 2022. My guest today is Nora Zaki. Nora is the Program Manager for Education and Resource Development at the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom®, where she is responsible for program and resource development, training, and membership support. Nora brings experience as a college chaplain to this role, having worked at Vassar and Bard Colleges, Dominican University, American Islamic College and with several non-profit organizations. She holds a BA in Arabic, Religion and Political Science from the University of Florida and a Master of Divinity from the University of Chicago. In addition, she is pursuing a second Master's, this time in Islamic Theology from the Chicago Theological Seminary. Nora has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East and is fluent in Arabic. In her free time, she is learning Turkish, loves watching foreign films, tasting global cuisine and is enjoying being a new wife and mother. Nora is the founder of mymuslimchaplain.com, which offers extensive chaplaincy workshops, services and other consultation. Links to her social media handles are listed in the show notes.
Méli: Hello, Nora. Welcome to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. It's so wonderful to have you on.
Nora: Thank you for having me. Looking forward to the discussion.
Méli: Absolutely. So, this is a bonus episode focusing on your really interesting work. But I'd like to begin by having you say a little about your religious and cultural identities.
Nora: Certainly. So, I am Muslim and I was born and raised a Muslim, and it's the it's the faith that I continue to choose to practice. My late father was from Egypt and my mother is a convert to Islam. She converted to Islam before meeting my father. She was raised Roman Catholic in the South, and I have thus been exposed to interfaith background. My mom's family is Christian. We're close to my grandma, my uncles, and however, like I said, my siblings and I, we are we are Muslim, and of Egyptian American descent.
Méli: What an interesting combination. Yeah.
Thank you for explaining that. That's a really helpful context for me and and of course the audience. So let's get into your work. At the moment you are working at the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, which is a network of Jewish and Muslim women talking and getting to know each other. And before that, you were a chaplain. I would like to start with hearing about chaplaincy and could you actually begin by just explaining what a chaplain is and where chaplains work?
Nora: Absolutely. A chaplain is someone who is an advocate, a promoter, a support for spiritual and religious needs. Chaplains can come from all different backgrounds. I actually found out about chaplaincy in 2013 when I was doing an Islamic studies program in Michigan at a Catholic University, and one of the students there was getting his Master of Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School to be a chaplain. And I was like: ‘Oh, I thought you could only be Christian to be a chaplain’. And that moment, I remember 2013 summer, it just, it changed my world. And so he explained to me that: no chaplains come from all different backgrounds. And more and more are coming from the non-Abrahamic faiths. There's humanist chaplains. So, we make sure that people's religious spiritual needs are being met wherever they are. And I happen to have worked in university chaplaincy. I love campus chaplaincy, that it's my calling. Personally, I have actually done some prison chaplaincy and hospital chaplaincy, but for me, campus chaplaincy is is where I felt most at home. I do like the academic environment, I like being with younger people. As a campus chaplain, we often have opportunities to actually like, speak, teach, you know, students on campus as well. In addition to the roles that I I mentioned, I would also say chaplains can also be in the in the roles of community activist, of an educator, there's so many roles that chaplains can have, and it really depends on how much you as the person want to exert in that role, and that pastoral authority. So, that's just a very brief overview of chaplaincy in some of the places that chaplains can work.
Méli: Thank you. Again, it's very helpful for people who are not so familiar with your world to to understand the structure of it. It's good to know that you found that the college campus was really the strongest calling for you, but could you say just a few words about how a chaplain on a college campus was different from prison and hospital?
Nora: Right. So in addition to prison and hospital chaplain, chaplains are in so many other areas, I want to just share briefly – athletics, I I know that even Tyson Chicken factory has a chaplain, airports have chaplains, the firefighters – more and more places are realizing that people’s whole selves need to be attended to and, you know, having a chaplain, having a spiritual advocate. And by the way, the term chaplain is not used uniformly for many reasons. I was actually called ‘Muslim Chaplain’ at Bard College and ‘Advisor for Muslim Student Life’ at Vassar College. When I was doing my Master of Divinity at the University of Chicago. We were able to be placed in different places, so actually for our first two years we actually had to do work in the hospital and the prison. Just the experience – it was an amazing experience, and I actually continue to volunteer as a prison chaplain in Florida actually. But as the campus chaplain, well, your demographic is young people, right? You're dealing with – depending on if it's undergraduate and/or graduate university – you're dealing with people who are in the range approximately 18 to maybe 25 years old or older, of course, and many of the students that I actually worked with were, in fact maybe older because some of them served in the military, then they came back, for example. But, I also felt sense of camaraderie with many of them, because we're not too far away in age. I like that I that many of the students at these campuses, they care about making change. They care about getting an education to, you know, to do good in the world. Many of them do. And so for me to be with, with students who had all this energy and positive, you know this positive outlook on life. It also gave me energy and I wanted to support them in their holistic sense of being and specifically for the Muslim students, to make sure that they're, all their needs are being advocated for that there was not Christian hegemony on campus, because even well-meaning, unfortunately, sometimes in the field of chaplaincy, especially on these liberal campuses, there can be a little bit of of even Protestant hegemony. And I definitely think the Black Lives Matter movement, the murder of George Floyd, helped us to think about many of these, many of these nuances. Of course, in addition to racism and police brutality, but to help us who were in these kinds of fields to be more reflective on on how sometimes power and other forms of power can operate in institutions.
Méli: Powerful. That's really powerful. Did you find that to be a challenge to take this, to take on a a broader sensitivity. You strike me as a very sensitive, thoughtful person, but I don't like to make assumptions.
Nora: You're very keen because I am extremely sensitive. Thank you for saying that, and I care deeply about oppression and suffering and I'm trying to let sensitivity be my superpower. Sometimes it can become very heavy and I can get very sad very quickly because I feel very deeply with with, with the world, what really drives me is just my love for my faith is, um, and and my love for seeing other people who also wanna wanna be the better Muslims that they can be. Now, I didn't only work with Muslim students, I didn't only advocate for Muslim students I work with all students. My my primary demographic, the primary people who I served, of course, who are Muslims and they were of all diverse backgrounds. Some of them were first generation, some of them are international students and, as you can also imagine, working with students from wide ranging ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic backgrounds, it's beautiful and it can really be challenging. I believe every field people should strive to be ethical, but especially in the field of chaplaincy, when people often share their vulnerable stories with you, they put a lot of trust in you as a, as a spiritual, religious figure. And unfortunately, there can be spiritual and religious abuse. I believe a chaplain, whatever field they’re in, needs to have a lot of inner reflection and time for themselves because the work can be heavy. I'll give you one example. When I first started, the New Zealand terror attacks happen at the at the mosques. I remember that was like really literally when I first started it was in 2019, still during Trump Trump presidency. Thankfully, I had a lot of support from my colleagues on campus, so I literally just met many of the other religious students on campus, the Jewish students and Christian students. People oftentimes assume that campus chaplaincy is a bubble and that being on colleges is a bubble, but that's definitely not true. Current events do impact our work and they obviously impact how students show up and how they do their schoolwork and whatnot. In order for us to best serve them and to be our full selves, we need to be able to have time to ourselves, I believe, to be able to continue to be resilient and give the energy to others, you know, so that they can have some heart space because many times students’ worth is only seen in terms of their intellectual output. But we know that being a full human is what we want them to bring to the table at the at these institutions.
Méli: Absolutely. Did you find that there were certain key issues that students brought?
Nora: Certainly. There are definitely some key issues, such as mental health, marriage, dating, figuring out how to practice your faith as a Muslim, as a minority. What I found is that many Muslim students had some some of the similar struggles as their other peers. Some of them were certainly different. So, I'll get to mental health. Unfortunately, a statistic just came out recently that Muslims are, I believe, one of the highest faith communities to commit suicide, and that includes young Muslim students. In fact, there was a a murder/suicide not that long ago in Texas. A young Muslim man killed his family, then he shot himself. So yeah, mental health. We actually had a mental health forum. We had students from other universities nearby come. We had a Muslim therapist speak, two psychiatrists, and then we had a roundtable where we had just further questions that people could ask. And it was a – it was a really beautiful experience because people really opened up. Also too Islamophobia, but also just pressures of trying to fit in on oftentimes many white campuses. Mostly they're called PWIs. You may have heard that term Predominantly White Institution, many of the Muslim students have friends from all different backgrounds, but many of the Muslim students also share how, if you want to be visibly Muslim in your self-disposition right? Wearing hijab, for example, or wearing more quote-un-quote ethnic clothes from your home country. Many people obviously respect that, and they don't have a problem with it, but sometimes they're just undercurrent of – how to kind of act in these institutions and that even with with a diverse group of chaplains, there's still there's like, like, like I spoke earlier, this is kind of hegemony of how to show up in the world. So students would share that with me. But many of them also were just able to be confident in who they were, and just to be just to be true to themselves and people accepted them for who they were. For example, I remember we prayed some of the prayers outside, because it was during COVID-19 and so due to limitations with physical space, we were able to pray outside. People seemed fine with that. Nobody seemed to give them any issues. Some of the key issues that you had asked about – people fall in love on campus, right? People of all backgrounds fall in love on campus, and some of the Muslim students fall in love with people from other backgrounds, or are just interested in them, getting to know them. Many of the Muslim students that I work with, you know, are observant in the sense that they don't believe in sexual relations before marriage, so how to get to know someone without being physically intimate and, you know, we talked them through that, we work through that. Not everyone is like that. And by the way, the students that I work with are on the spectrum of religious practice. Many of them would call themselves more secular, some would call themselves more cultural, and some called themselves more observant. I wanna share the good, of course. You know, in the sense of being able to just come to prayers, come to the prayer room. I actually worked on establishing the prayer space. And now one of the colleges have has a beautiful multicultural space, multi-prayer space, actually. They've expanded upon that. But being able to have Ramadan on campus, that's a huge issue. It takes us – Ramadan is only 30 days, but we have to really start prepping, as chaplains, months in advance because there's so many factors that go into it. The campus dining – we have Suhur. Suhur is the pre-dawn meal that Muslims eat before fasting. Can we have to-go boxes for that, or is it if it's not refrigerated, will it be an issue? Halaal food – halal in Arabic means permissible and also refers to, oftentimes it refers to how meat, meats are slaughtered. Ramadan is a beautiful time of year for all of us Muslims around the world, and especially when you're a campus chaplain, you really get into high gear, kind of like I remember, like my rabbi colleague would do a lot of work for the High Holy Days. So, we both had a lot of empathy when our holidays came of like: ‘Alright, gotta gear up’, you know, give each other a pep talk. And just seeing Muslim students also grow in their faith and how they evolved as persons. Like any student who starts, you know, as a first year as a freshman and then becomes a senior, just seeing how they evolve, how they, how they oftentimes become more mature or how they, many of them maybe you know, came to campus wanting to to get away from cultural practices. And unfortunately sometimes, people present something as Islamic when it's actually a a cultural practice, and so they were excited to to, you know, get away from that or just to learn more, for example, and then to work with a Muslim woman chaplain, myself. I think many of them were were excited for it because many times, you know, it's not often that you see a Muslim woman chaplain. Thankfully, more and more Muslim women are becoming chaplains in so many fields, in higher ed and hospital chaplaincy, etc. So those are some of the key issues that comes to mind.
Méli: Ok, great. Thank you for running through that. Clearly this is a big field. One of the things that I read about your work is the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab, which sounded so interesting. Could you say just a few words about that?
Nora: Absolutely. The Chaplaincy Innovation Lab is a partnership between Brandeis University and other institutions. And the idea is to gather the best brains of chaplains across the country, and I believe it's even international and just provide resources for chaplains and pool areas, university, prison, hospital, etc. And give education, presentations, and help us to be more professional in our work as chaplains.
Méli: That sounds so valuable. Is that something that you initiated or that you joined? What was your role?
Nora: I wish I initiated it. No, no, not at all. I'm. I'm happen to be just a member of the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab. I believe Wendy cages. She's a professor of sociology –
Méli: at Brandeis.
Nora: Yeah, at Brandeis. Yeah, I believe she co-founded it or founded it. But I'm a member. I subscribe to their newsletter and I just love to learn from them.
Méli: Great. So is that, even though you've moved on to other work, you continue to tap into Chaplaincy Innovation Lab?
Nora: Absolutely. I actually started my own website called mymuslimchaplain.com, which is a chaplaincy consulting company in the sense that if you don't have a Muslim chaplain wherever you are, you can come and learn. And I advertised for my Muslim chaplain in their newsletter, in addition to giving a webinar, I believe two or three years ago. I gave webinar other Muslim chaplains sponsored by the Chaplain Innovation Lab.
Méli: Wonderful. Since you just mentioned it, nor could you say a little more about your project, My Muslim Chaplain.
Nora: Absolutely. So, mymuslimchaplain.com is a place for people to go to when they don't have a chaplain at their campus. Mostly my work is on campus and they want to learn about best practices for helping to make a campus inclusive, for example, or learning about Ramadan, learning about how to make Muslim student athletes feel included and respected in their religious practices, my audience is mostly administrators have campuses in addition to Muslim students. And I felt that during the pandemic, with so many things going online, people just reflecting on their own careers and positions. I also wanted to make chaplaincy more accessible to people and use my skills that I've gained to educate and advocate for more and more people and to make sure that administrators know that there's no excuse for not making your campus inclusive for everyone. I'm here to be an advocate, to educate you, to give you great programming ideas. And to help make sure that you're Muslim students feel welcome and included and can contribute fully in themselves to the campuses and other places where Muslims maybe in live and work.
Méli: That sounds like a really rich resource.
Nora: Yes. Please check it out. And I'm always, you know, happy to answer any questions. I have an Instagram as well with the hashtag MyMuslimchaplain, though people are also welcome to view more of my work on Instagram, as well.
Méli: Great. I'll make sure to include that in the show notes. Is that aimed at any particular region of the country? Does it go beyond America? What's your scope?
Nora: It's a great question. It's actually all for across the United States. It's for institutions like that maybe have, like, a Jewish and Christian chaplain, but don't have a Muslim chaplain for whatever reason. For example, you may actually be a Muslim chaplain on a campus and you need additional consultation. It's meant to also supplement the work of Muslim chaplains to give them other perspectives as well that they may not know about to help people think more about halaal food, dining. So it is all across the country right now. So it's virtual. I would love to expand internationally, but right now it's. It's just based in the United States.
Méli: Fair enough. And the United States is already a big situation, so plenty of need, I'm sure. What are the biggest challenges that you're seeing through that work?
Nora: So, because this website is new, one of them is actually getting people. Marketing is very important, for example, so that's something that I'm still working on. Another is sometimes people feel that I'm taking away your Muslim chaplains. First of all, there are 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States and only 150 of them, 1-5-0, have a Muslim chaplain. So there are literally thousands more places that do not have a Muslim chaplain, and until these colleges and universities feel that they need to hire them, there's still a need. The challenge is convincing other Muslim chaplains that we're here to work together. You know, I'm not here to take away from the work that you do have to supplement it. I suppose the third challenge is not just looking administrators know about my work, but Muslim students as well. I'm actually adding a new part of my website about the curriculum that students can purchase. For example, if they don't have a Muslim chaplain but they want to maybe go through something like a spiritual aspect of of their faith. I'm actually working on that and I'm really excited to get that together soon.
Méli: That sounds exciting, and those numbers are really startling. 4,000 campuses and 150 Muslim chaplains.
Nora: That's right, I know. I I did the research myself with the help of the Association of Muslim Chaplains, which I'm a member of. And I was literally like, stunned. I'm like, wow, we still have some some ways to go.
Méli: Do you have a sense from that research about how many of those 4,000 campuses have a meaningful Muslim population?
Nora: That's a great question. It's still in the works. I did a survey asking chaplains about their Muslim demographics. I received a response about 30 people. Overwhelming response is that we have Muslims on campus, we need help and we don't have the funds for it, or they may have the money but not use it in in a strategic way. So, that's some of the data that I found in that regard.
Méli: But those numbers you just spoke of, Nora, you spoke with Muslim chaplains on campuses. I'm wondering about the campuses that don't have a Muslim chaplain and the scale of the Muslim student population on those campuses. Do you have a sense of that?
Nora: Right. So actually those thirty responses came from chaplains who are not Muslim. For example, those those 30 administrators who were chaplains as well, saying that we have a large Muslim student population, but we don't have the resources to fund a Muslim chaplain. I don't have the exact statistics, but I I know that Muslims are all over the country. For example, how do I know this? There are over 3,000 mosques in the United States and that that number is growing and growing. More mosques are being built, which often means that Muslim communities are are moving there, growing and creating families and sending their children to to school right? So often times where where you see a mosque, you're going to see a Muslim community that, as they grow up, they're going to be going to college and whatnot in the area. So that's just maybe a little bit more rough data to provide for you.
Méli: Right. And thank you for that clarification. I had misunderstood what you said. OK. I'd like to shift the focus a bit to your current work. So you are now working at the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, and I understand your position there is Program Manager for Education and Resource Development, quite the long title. Earlier I explained a bit about what the Sisterhood is about. Could you tell me about what your position is and why you shifted from chaplaincy to this position?
Nora: Yes. And we're actually working on this a shorter title, by the way. So, the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom has chapters of Muslim and Jewish women all across the country, the United States. We actually have some chapters in Berlin, Germany and in a few other countries. And the idea is to create solidarity like you said, friendships, to educate, to build together civic engagement. One way of doing that is to provide programs for the Sisters, right, to provide programs that are engaging and dynamic. And so as the Program Manager, I create these programs. And so a lot of them have to do with identity exploration, for example. How do we, as Jewish and Muslim women, show up in the world? Many of them are related to holidays that we share. For example, we had a beautiful Ramadan/Passover event most recently. Some of the work is also related to Israel and Palestine. That is definitely a little bit more sensitive and certainly harder for some some Sisterhood members, but it's also engaging members. It's making sure that members needs are being met, asking them what kind of programs they would like, what they need. So the central office where I work with a staff of only four, we have to make sure that the regional coordinators that we work with and the co-leaders who are in charge of these chapters are receiving their resources that they need. And so one of my roles is to be the liaison between them and to make sure that we're hearing them out, hearing their challenges, hearing their successes and just ensuring that chapter growth is going well. And if it's not going well, understanding why, you know, why are some chapters disbanding? Obviously, like many places, because of COVID-19 in some instances. So just making sure to make programs engaging and relevant for our members.
Méli: Sounds great. I'm a Member of the Sisterhood and I was a Co-chair for three years of my local chapter and it's really been a valuable engagement, so I certainly have strong support for what you're doing. I really look forward to hearing more about the programming and where that is going. I'd like to hear about how any of this work – the various chaplaincy positions, the mymuslimchaplain.com work and now the work at the Sisterhood – how has the work in these different environments affected your sense of identity and your practice?
Nora: What a rich question. So, something important happened to me over five months ago, I became a mom first time mother. And I have a beautiful son named Yusef. Having a baby, for me, it definitely made me more reflective on how I want to pursue my career and how do I want to engage with chaplaincy. How do I wanna use all my skills? So, after having my baby, I decided to take a step back from physically being at an institution for chaplaincy. And Sisterhood was a beautiful opening that came from a dear friend of mine. It is something that I'm able to be a mother, a stay-at-home mother and to be able to still commit to my work of interfaith engagement and committing to social justice and and educating people about Islam and religion. That's something that's important to me. And in breaking down, oftentimes stereotypes and sometimes certain narratives that we see of, quote-un-quote, the other and of people, I really enjoy that. You know, as a chaplain, the work is kind of similar. I mean, educating community activists, advocating for people, making sure that we're meeting people where they're at. And so, that's made me kind of reflect on the intersections between these two roles. They are a little bit different, certainly. I I'm doing a lot more to engage with interfaith work and taking more time to work with other organizations and grant organizations. For example, we're working on a cultural resilience workshop. I’m very thankful. I'm privileged that I I am able to make this change and that I have a supportive family. My husband is so supportive and it's, you know, it helps me a lot in this kind of work. I'm really thankful that the website that I'm working on, My Muslim Chaplain and Sisterhood worked is virtual, so I'm able to do it wherever there's reliable Internet, of course. Some of my work is certainly in-person. I was able to take a step back and say, you know, I love the work of chaplaincy and I really love being a mother. For me as a Muslim, I feel that my faith tells me and just my own personal intuition, that taking care of my baby at this young age and being with him as a, as a nursing mother, is really important to him in his development. And that it's his right in Islam and I'm sure in other faiths, children and parents have rights. We call it huquq in Arabic, I'm still navigating this whole new thing called motherhood. Navigating, still working, trying to be my own self, trying to be a servant of God trying to be a righteous Muslima.
Méli: And that is such a blessing. I'm really pleased for you that you were able to, with the support of family and whatever other resources, that you could take a step back and make this professional shift so that you could honor and and enjoy this early motherhood time and spend time with Yusef and give him the care and feeding that he needs. OK, Nora, there is clearly much we could talk about, but our time has come to an end. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming on my Living Our Beliefs podcast. This is the first of a series of bonus episodes, and to hear so deeply about chaplaincy work and the interfaith work you do, has been a wonderful opportunity and I look forward to more engagement. Thank you so much.
Nora: Definitely. Thank you.
Méli: OK. Bye. Bye.
Nora: Bye bye.
[Music]
Méli: Thank you for listening. If you'd like to get notified when new episodes are released hit the SUBSCRIBE button. Questions and comments are welcome and can be sent directly to info@talkingwithgodproject.org. A link is in the show notes. Transcripts are available a few weeks after airing. This podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. For more information about that research, including workshop and presentation options, go to my website – www.talkingwithgodproject.org. Thank you so much. Till next time. Bye bye.
[Music]