Allowing the Mystery to Unfold

Dr. Kamal Abu-Shamsieh (PhD, GTU 2019) is Director of Interreligious Chaplaincy Program and Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at the GTU.

Being at the GTU where there is an environment that is rich in diversity was appealing to me. I was a director of a Shiite Islamic Center—as a Sunni Muslim—who crossed the divide and bridged the gap between the two Muslim communities. Being at the GTU and exploring my own identity, exploring my strength in academic research, not just with Muslims, but with other people who have less connection to my faith, was very enriching. [I] felt that I did not have too explain my faith to people who were strangers. I got inspiration from people who were learning alongside of me, as they were exploring their own pathways within their faith. At the end, it enriched our lives collectively.

When I decided to research the death experience of the Prophet Mohamed—specifically the last three months of his life—I wanted to establish a model for end-of-life care that is authentic and is acceptable as an international, universal model. So, in 2018, I traveled to Indonesia and I presented this model to the National Sharia Board of Indonesia, the largest body of Muslim scholars in the world. I received the endorsement and the recommendation from this body to teach this model of end-of-life care at all Indonesian Hospitals. As a result of that, my journey took me to several Muslimmajority communities where I taught end-of-life care, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Pakistan. What started as a wild idea to explore the intersection between ethics and law in spiritual care within the experience of the Prophet Mohammed now became an international program to teach end-of-life care in vulnerable communities that struggle and need support to know what is allowed at the end of life. And today we make it happen from the GTU.

The GTU is an organic mosaic of the world. The GTU is a rich environment where students and faculty and communities come together from different parts of the world, reflecting our diversity, whether it be religious, ethnic, socioeconomic, or in our approaches to life. And that is the way we move forward: we do not live in silos. We do not live only with our own communities. We struggle with belief systems that are different than ours. We struggle with the different approaches to life. We struggle with different legal and ethical values that might be different than ours.

There is not just one way of living. We are in the struggle to live in a pluralistic society, not just accepting the other, but celebrating the other. It is not just tolerating someone and putting up with that person. It is actually entering into a partnership where we all struggle in it together, trying to find a place that each can claim to be his or hers within that partnership that is also ours. I see it here on Holy Hill in a way that I have not found any other place in the world. The intentionality of this plurality at the GTU is mind boggling.

Now that I have graduated from the GTU and started my position as Director of the Interreligious Chaplaincy Program, we are focusing on minorities, on the underserved, on communities that are [the] least understood. We are training corps of chaplains that will serve in different places in the US or internationally, from healthcare to prisons, the military, and education. We don’t just study topics, we make them happen in real life. As a professional chaplain, I have stood by people at the end of their lives, at the bedside, and this rich experience has taught me that many families don’t know what to do at the end of life. These families deserve to have support from a professional who is competent, and who allows for the mystery to unfold for the end-of-life journey.

For me, end-of-life care is about helping people when they are most vulnerable. When you are investing in the GTU today, whether it be through a scholarship, hosting us, spreading the word about some of our programming, or by offering seed money for a class or for a program, you help make that dream of helping people when they are most vulnerable happen.

What continues to draw me to the GTU is working alongside many communities, all with the same goal of appreciation, equity, and respect for other people. It is a place for scholarship, and also a place for celebrating the best parts of humanity in all of us.