A Cup of Çay

In honor of Throwback Thursday, here's something I wrote while on Istanbul semester...

“...The will to give ourselves to others and to ‘welcome’ them, to readjust our identities to make space for them, is prior to any judgment about others, except that of identifying them in their humanity.”  - Miroslav Volf 

Walking in to the Aya Sofya for the first time can only be described as breathtaking. It was huge, spectacular, a magnificent feat of architecture. It was a contrast of old, new; dilapidated, restored; traditional, modern; promising, hopeless; Christian, Muslim -- a host of contradictions, just like Turkey itself. The church-now-mosque was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. But before walking in to enjoy the splendor, I read a little plaque beside the doors to the main domed sanctuary. It explained that this was the farthest point that common people could go during Byzantine times. Only emperors and priests could enter through the doors. Did the people of Constantinople burn with resentment that only a select few could even step into, much less enjoy, this awe-inspiring building that should have been open to thousands of worshippers seeking Christ? Christine D. Pohl writes in Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition that “...Even those of us who do not depend on hospitality for basic needs know something of the joy of being welcomed warmly. We also know the pain of being excluded.”

There are a plethora of pomegranates here. Pomegranates to be juiced right before your eyes, their tart juice savored immediately. Then there are pomegranates to haggle over with street vendors; pomegranates to slowly pick apart for breakfast or a late night snack. The nature of the fruit is such that you are forced to eat the pomegranate slowly, seed by seed, pinched between your fingers and lifted into your mouth so you can taste even a little bit of its flavorful and distinct juice.

I’d been admiring the skillfully crocheted jewelry displayed in a shop window near our flat in Istanbul every time I passed by...so one day after Turkish lessons, I dove out of the cold and into the little shop with a singsonging “Merhaba!” that surely identified me as American.  I was greeted in return by a quiet, gravelly voice from behind a counter too tall for the aging woman who ducked out from under it. I slowly looked around the shop, admiring, murmuring “Çok güzel!” as I fingered leather shoes and softly patterned dresses around her boutique. She watched me patiently. I asked her about the jewelry I so admired, the necklaces shaped into stunningly lifelike grapevines and the earrings that looked like hanging berries and the rings decorated by exquisite little flowers. She told me that she designed them all herself and pointed to each piece in turn, explaining in broken English how long each one had taken to make. I lurched into rudimentary and fumbling Turkish, at which she grinned toothily. We exchanged names...and then almost immediately, she said, “Sit! Çay!” We sat together in her shop, drinking the steaming tea (from the small Turkish glasses just the right size to keep the çay hot while one drinks it) and munching on tiny biscuits. She asked me about what I was doing in Istanbul, and I found out from her in bits and pieces (aided by a trusty Turkish-English pocket dictionary) how she was half Greek, half Turkish, and practiced Christianity, not Islam. Her husband and her children were all Muslim, I learned. “Problem var,” she said, nodding with a sad smile. She explained that it was very hard for Christians and Greeks to survive here in Turkey, even in a city as tolerant as Istanbul. She took my dictionary and pointed to the word for “cruel.” We sat there talking about marriage, survival, money, and Islam (at least to the best of our abilities in our respective snippets of Turkish and English). She made more çay. When I had to leave she kissed me on both cheeks and said, “See? Now you are Turkish!” 

Later that same day I came back to introduce a friend and fellow traveller and immediately she sat us all down again with tea and we talked and laughed together. We told her about our recent escapade in trying to find a laundromat, after which she immediately offered to wash our clothes any time. She showed us more of her jewelry designs and pictures of her grandchildren on Facebook (yes, elderly Turkish women use Facebook). I couldn’t help thinking how kindly she had opened up to us, and was touched by her generosity in sharing time and tea with us as young foreigners and strangers. We had heard that Turkey is known for its culture of hospitality, but the experience with my new-found friend showed me a snippet of what this really meant. 

This was by no means the only experience of our encounters with the hospitality of the Turkish people...with them, coffee, company, and conversation are never lacking. Some of the boys have made friends with the seventy-year-old janitor of a nearby mosque, and he has a couple of times treated them to tea, introduced them to all his friends, and treated them like brothers despite their age and nationality. Our group has also developed friendships with a tiny little kebab restaurant which we frequent regularly and loyally for chicken or lamb pitas; one of my favorite moments of the morning is the cheerful hello that the man who sells fresh orange juice outside our apartment and I exchange every time I walk by; and the owner of the small grocery nearby is always willing to practice Turkish when we try to buy bread or toilet paper. 

That’s another thing. People here are usually very enthusiastic to help us practice our Türkçe. When a few of us trekked into the Egyptian spice bazaar behind the Yeni Camii one night, we made friends with a vendor named Mehmet (“Like the conqueror! It’s a very common name in Turkey”), who gave us samples of dried mango and dabbed amber perfume on to our wrists. He took us through his stall and pointed to different objects in turn, teaching us their names and repeating the unfamiliar words till he was satisfied with our pronunciation. At a little thrift shop one night, we talked to a man who said that a group of us should come by twice a week and he would teach us Turkish slang because, he said, “You’ll never really know the language unless you know this slang.” He told us about what the best Turkish radio stations to listen to were, and told us about life and business in Istanbul. We had been trying on a few things in his shop and as we were getting ready to leave he gave them to us, saying, “Gifts for you. Come back and visit soon!” 

I was struck by how all of these experiences would rarely, if ever, occur in the United States. Obviously, our country is not devoid of generous people; but there is something innately and passionately hospitable about Turks. If a young Turkish student walked into a Starbucks in America, never would they be offered free tea and language lessons, or even welcoming conversation. Even as an American, I have never really been offered friendship in a shop -- not even, particularly, in the places that I might frequent. And heaven forbid an American shop owner giving away something without a price, or reaching out to someone who glaringly looks the foreigner. 

Where is our hospitality? Where is our radically Christian neighborliness, our generosity in entertaining the stranger or acquaintance? I think we like the idea of hospitality, but rarely have I experienced it in the United States. I am not referring to entertaining guests or friends; this is indeed an important and beautiful aspect of kindness and warm reception, but a culture of hospitality goes beyond this; it actively reaches out to the stranger. Henri Nouwen writes that hospitality is “the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines...” (Reaching Out: Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, 71). This perspective of hospitality is all the more meaningful as we are here in Turkey, dialoguing with Muslims of very different shades of faith. 

 

I know that this observation of hospitality is by no means a new or unique one; I will not say what has been said by much more competent writers and theologians than I on the recovery of the tradition of hospitality; I will not give you scriptures to chew on about this topic, because I think that you should find them yourself. Work for them like picking out the seeds of a pomegranate. Seeking and finding the conviction to make changes in one’s life is a labor-intensive process. But this is me handing you the pomegranate. This is me trying to digest some of the cultural richness that we have been experiencing here in Turkey. 

This is me asking you to open the doors of your Aya Sofya.