Everyday Religion

I watched the first two episodes of Ms. Marvel, the new MCU show on Disney+, and one thing that struck me about the show was how big a role religion played in it. The main character, Kamala Khan, is Muslim, and she actively participates in her religion in the show. The show hasn't been preachy about it, displaying Kamala's Muslim religion in an overly positive or negative light (as far as I, an outsider, know; the opinion of Muslims may vary from mine), and Kamala's religion hasn't been a major plot point so far, to explain the necessity of its inclusion. It's just there as what she does while the rest of the story plays out in the foreground. Practicing her religion is part of Kamala's daily life, and as the show follows Kamala, growing about her daily life, we see her practicing her religion.

And frankly, I find that commendable. I think we should all aspire to be that way. Some people put their religion front and center as the main (and seemingly only) aspect of their personality, but those people tend to be more polarizing than normalizing. Others tuck their religion away in the background of their lives, hiding their candle under a bushel, as it were, and those people do little to remind others that God even exists, let alone that we should worship Him. Kamala Khan's middle road of regularly practicing her religion strikes an excellent balance between the two extremes of preachiness and privateness. Her openness allows us to see her religion as a normal, natural aspect of her life.

We, too, should practice our religion as openly as is natural. We should pray over our meals, just as we typically do, even in public, never minding that people might overhear. When people as us what we did last weekend, we should honestly answer how we spent part of our weekend at church. And, of course, we should keep our language and behavior clean, whether other people will notice the difference or not. We shouldn't shove our religions down other people's throats, but we shouldn't sweep it under the rug, either. We should practice our religion as part of our daily lives, if only so that other people can see that religion doesn't have to be either all-consuming or an afterthought, but can be a normal, everyday part of our normal, everyday lives.