I'll reply here for now, because my computer is being wonky and won't let me make new posts. When I get it sorted out I'll repost in my journal :)
1) Well, we know we're going to be married in our church in Cambridge, and are probably going to have a winter wedding in January-ish. We really want to get our wedding planned and paid for as quickly as possible while my parents are still distracted by my sister's wedding plans, in order to avoid interference from that quarter :) We're interviewing caterers and things now.
2) Favorite? That's hard, because I like alot of the places I've lived. In terms of greater metropolitan areas, I think I'd say Boston. In terms of the comfort of individual apartments, the place I had in Kyoto was fantastic. Least favorite was Shreveport Louisiana, hands down.
3) I grew up sort of pseudo-Muslim. We took a great deal of pride in being Ismaili, and celebrated the holidays, and sort of kind of followed Islamic law, or at least, those parts of Islamic law that my father agreed with. But we lived in places that didn't have much of a Muslim community at all, much less a place of worship for the very non-mainstream denomination my family belongs to, so we didn't go to weekly prayer services. I first realized that I wanted a regular spiritual component to my life when I was twelve or so. My parents had sent us to a Catholic school, because public schools in southern Mississippi, not so great, and I realized I was really yearning for a connection to God. Of course, I felt enormously guilty for enjoying Catholic Mass and the Rosary, because dude, we're Muslim. Then we moved, and I went to public school, and I started trying to follow Islamic practices more closely, but Dad didn't really see it as his job to provide religious instruction, as that's traditionally the mother's role in Pakistan. And Mom, of course, had no idea. So I sort of muddled along and joined in with Dad for the big festivals.
Then I hit high school, and developed a taste for reading philosophy and then having very pretentious Serious Conversations about it :). I went through an objectivist phase, and a communist phase, and all sorts of phases. At one point I really was quite taken with Immanuel Kant also, but in retrospect, I think that's just because it made me seem smart, because Kant's writings are fricking impossible to understand. Anyway, a very dear friend of mine started inviting me to her youth group, and the more I heard about the Gospel, the more I wanted to know more. I read some books, read the Gospel (although not the whole Bible), and eventually came to the conclusion that Christianity inherently felt more true than any other religion or philosophy I encountered. That fall I came to MIT, joined up with a pentacostal group on campus, and got baptized. In the seven years since them, I've read more books, both by modern religion writers and ancient church fathers and theologians. The more I've read, the more I've come to believe that the mainstream evangelical movement is in many regards abiblical. Not that they are anti-biblical or unChristian in any way, but that many of the practices and conventions in evangelical churches are cultural and not at all mandated by Scripture. At the same time, I developed an increasing respect for the historic traditions of the church. I could never be Catholic, because I find that the Catholic church has just as many abiblical innovations as modern Protestantdom. The Anglican communion was a nice healthy compromise, with respect for the old traditions, but including the best parts of the Protestant revolution. I was Confirmed in the Episcopal church in Easter of 2006, and am happy where I am now.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-08-10 02:56 pm (UTC)1) Well, we know we're going to be married in our church in Cambridge, and are probably going to have a winter wedding in January-ish. We really want to get our wedding planned and paid for as quickly as possible while my parents are still distracted by my sister's wedding plans, in order to avoid interference from that quarter :) We're interviewing caterers and things now.
2) Favorite? That's hard, because I like alot of the places I've lived. In terms of greater metropolitan areas, I think I'd say Boston. In terms of the comfort of individual apartments, the place I had in Kyoto was fantastic. Least favorite was Shreveport Louisiana, hands down.
3) I grew up sort of pseudo-Muslim. We took a great deal of pride in being Ismaili, and celebrated the holidays, and sort of kind of followed Islamic law, or at least, those parts of Islamic law that my father agreed with. But we lived in places that didn't have much of a Muslim community at all, much less a place of worship for the very non-mainstream denomination my family belongs to, so we didn't go to weekly prayer services. I first realized that I wanted a regular spiritual component to my life when I was twelve or so. My parents had sent us to a Catholic school, because public schools in southern Mississippi, not so great, and I realized I was really yearning for a connection to God. Of course, I felt enormously guilty for enjoying Catholic Mass and the Rosary, because dude, we're Muslim. Then we moved, and I went to public school, and I started trying to follow Islamic practices more closely, but Dad didn't really see it as his job to provide religious instruction, as that's traditionally the mother's role in Pakistan. And Mom, of course, had no idea. So I sort of muddled along and joined in with Dad for the big festivals.
Then I hit high school, and developed a taste for reading philosophy and then having very pretentious Serious Conversations about it :). I went through an objectivist phase, and a communist phase, and all sorts of phases. At one point I really was quite taken with Immanuel Kant also, but in retrospect, I think that's just because it made me seem smart, because Kant's writings are fricking impossible to understand. Anyway, a very dear friend of mine started inviting me to her youth group, and the more I heard about the Gospel, the more I wanted to know more. I read some books, read the Gospel (although not the whole Bible), and eventually came to the conclusion that Christianity inherently felt more true than any other religion or philosophy I encountered. That fall I came to MIT, joined up with a pentacostal group on campus, and got baptized. In the seven years since them, I've read more books, both by modern religion writers and ancient church fathers and theologians. The more I've read, the more I've come to believe that the mainstream evangelical movement is in many regards abiblical. Not that they are anti-biblical or unChristian in any way, but that many of the practices and conventions in evangelical churches are cultural and not at all mandated by Scripture. At the same time, I developed an increasing respect for the historic traditions of the church. I could never be Catholic, because I find that the Catholic church has just as many abiblical innovations as modern Protestantdom. The Anglican communion was a nice healthy compromise, with respect for the old traditions, but including the best parts of the Protestant revolution. I was Confirmed in the Episcopal church in Easter of 2006, and am happy where I am now.