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ON COMMON GROUND Guide for Teachers and Students
6. Visiting a Religious Center
Each religious center featured in the Landscape section of ON COMMON GROUND is accompanied by a short profile of the community-its history, makeup, and schedule of worship and celebration. Most of these centers and those for which you will find addresses in the Directory are open to visitors either in small groups or individually,
Call well ahead of time to indicate your interest in visiting the center or attending a religious service. Be sure to ask how visitors should dress, as this varies with the religious tradition. For example, in most Islamic centers, Hindu temples, Jain temples, and Sikh gurdwaras, it is customary to remove your shoes before entering the sanctuary or prayer room. In Islamic centers, women should wear a scarf covering their head, and in most gurdwaras, both women and men cover their head. For details, you may want to consult the recent two volume work How to Be a Perfect Stranger: A Guide to Etiquette in Other People's Religious Ceremonies, edited by Stuart M. Matlins and Arthur J. Magida (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1997).
Use the CD-ROM to explore the religious tradition of the place of worship you will be visiting. Write down your own expectations before you go, and make a list of the questions you have. From what you know now, what impressions do you have of the people you are going to meet? What impressions do you imagine they have of people like you? While you are there, observe carefully (but don't take notes during the religious service). If there is an opportunity to ask questions, don't hesitate to do so. And when you return from your visit, sit down as soon as you can to write a description of the most interesting things you saw and learned. Visit the Pluralism Project web site for more fieldwork information on visiting a religious community (http://www.fas.harvard.edu/-pluralsm).
