Saturday, October 11, 1997

Rooms with a view: Making sacred space at home

By JEANNE MALMGREN

St. Petersburg Times

First there was the home gym, then the home theater.

Now there's the home prayer room - a place devoted to devotions.

In a world given to temporal excesses, it's interesting that the latest design trend is sacred space. If home is where the heart is, evidently it's also where the spirit is.

Most people have a favorite corner of the house, a place where they can kick off their shoes and retreat from the world. But more and more homeowners want something formal, a room set aside solely for spiritual pursuits.

In May, House&Garden magazine surveyed people on what they considered necessities in their house. The results were surprising. Only half the respondents mentioned such features as a security system, a home computer or multiple phone lines.

The top of the list?

"A quiet place for meditation or spiritual contemplation," said 82 percent of the respondents.

Owners of older homes sometimes convert a spare bedroom or closet to a private spiritual retreat. In new homes, such rooms can be included in the original design. At least one developer in Orlando, Fla., is offering a prayer room in its new model homes. Tampa builder Harry Gray said that is no longer an unusual request.

"I've done homes for three Indian families and they all wanted a prayer room," he said. "Some of them even had priests come out to dedicate the lot before we started building."

The St. Petersburg Times visited three such places in the Tampa Bay area - a Muslim prayer room in Tampa, a Greek Orthodox home altar in Tarpon Springs and a Hindu shrine room in St. Petersburg.

Each has its own distinctive atmosphere, but all have one thing in common: They are used every day.

It's 1:30, time for afternoon prayers, and suddenly a recorded chant echoes through Hakim Aquil's modest Tampa home. It's the call to prayer for devout Muslims.

Aquil and several friends stand in their stocking feet in a plain room at the center of the house. They face east, toward a woven tapestry on the wall that depicts three mosques. On the back wall is a photo of another mosque, its plaza filled with thousands of people. Underneath are the words "Mecca the Venerable."

Aquil, a clothing vendor, closes his eyes, bows his head and puts his hands next to his ears. Beside him is Tampa police Officer Seifuddin Akram, whom Aquil calls "brother."

Behind them, in a tight row squeezed into the corner of the room, are three women: Aquil's daughter, Zarinah, and Akram's wife, Latifah, and daughter Nafeesa.

A low, melodic Arabic chant rises as they all bend at the waist, hands on their knees. Then, in unison, they all drop to their knees and lean forward until their foreheads touch the floor. After making three prostrations, they stand again, hands clasped on their chests, lips moving in silent prayer.

This simple ritual goes on five times a day: just before sunrise, noon, midafternoon, sundown and late night.

"We just stop and acknowledge God as the creator," Aquil said.

Like most Muslims, Aquil will drop what he's doing and pray wherever he is at the appointed hour. But the early morning prayers are almost always done at home. For that, a special room is needed.

"It should be some space set aside just for this, not a traffic area where people are walking through," Aquil said. When he built his home several years ago, he designed a prayer room in the center of the house.

"I put it here so the children can come from their rooms, on one side of the house, and my wife and I can come from our bedroom on the other side and we meet in the middle."

The room has patterned gray carpet, stark white walls and arched doorways that mirror the style of Muslim mosques. Two fringed prayer rugs are placed diagonally on the floor, facing east. Aquil explained that Muslim prayer rooms should have no pictures of humans and little ornamentation. The Arabic calligraphy on his tapestry says: "Allah the beneficent, most merciful."

Before entering the prayer room, Muslims ritually wash their hands, arms, faces and feet. Women's heads are covered in the prayer room. Normally men lead the prayers, but if no man is at home, a woman may lead. People who are bedridden or in wheelchairs and unable to go to the prayer room and do prostrations may adapt as best they can.

"God says you will be blessed for your good intentions," Aquil said.

Every Greek Orthodox home is a part of the larger church, says the Rev. Tryfon Theophilopoulos of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Tarpon Springs. For that reason, a home altar is an important part of life in the Greek community.

"This is the separate altar of the family church," he said, standing in a spare bedroom of the home of John and Maria Koursiotis. One corner of the bedroom was dominated by a large corner shelf crowded with icons - statues and framed portraits of Orthodox saints in vivid colors.

There was St. Stephen, St. Michael (called Panormites by Greeks), St. Nektarios, St. Constantine and his wife Helen. There were two representations of St. Nicholas, a painting and a bas-relief figure hammered in silver. Occupying a place of honor at the center of the altar was St. John the Baptist.

"John is also the name of the head of this family, so he is their patron saint," Theophilopoulos explained as Mrs. Koursiotis, who speaks little English, hovered nearby.

The Koursiotises' altar also contains a small cross made of folded palm fronds (from Palm Sunday) and a tiny plastic jug with water from Epiphany.

"They bring their beliefs home from the church," Theophilopoulos said.

The typical Greek Orthodox home may have an icon in every room, he added, but the main focus is on the altar, which is set up in a quiet, out-of-the-way room.

"This is a holy place, a blessed place," Theophilopoulos said. "The people come here to pray and give thanks to God, morning and evening."

The centerpiece of any Greek Orthodox home altar is the wedding crowns of the husband and wife.

"In an Orthodox wedding, we put crowns on the bride and groom because they are creating an independent kingdom in their home," he said.

The Koursiotises were married 45 years ago. Their wedding crowns are actually garlands, set on red satin behind glass and joined by a white ribbon for unity.

Many families try to fill their altars with icons for all the saints whose names have been given to members of the family, Theophilopoulos said. Typically new icons are left behind the altar of the local church for 40 days to bless them, then are brought home to be placed on the family altar.

"We call it kat'oikon ekknheia," he said. "The church in the house."

Many teenagers can't wait to get out of the house on Friday nights, but not Neeraj Nagella, 17, and his sister Sarasija, 13.

Friday evenings are devotional hour at the St. Petersburg home they share with their mother, Chitra Ravindra, and father, Ravindra Nagella. In a carpeted room at one end of the large house, the family gathers before an intricately carved rosewood shrine populated with statues of Hindu deities.

"We all have our spots where we sit," said Neeraj, pointing to clear plastic mats on the floor. "We say prayers, sing a song and read the story of one of the gods. Then we light incense and eat some of the holy food we have brought as offerings."

The puja ceremony ends when each family member dips a forefinger into pots of brightly colored saffron and kumkum powder, then touches each of the statues.

The walls of the prayer room are decorated with framed portraits of various Hindu deities: Muruga, Ganesha, Satyanaray, Saraswati, Krishna, Vishnu and the family's "patron" god, Narashima, who has a lion's head. Each deity has a garland of paper flowers draped over the frame.

"These are the many manifestations of Brahman, the supreme godhead," Chitra Ravindra explained.

Ravindra is a family practitioner, her husband a surgeon. They came here from India 22 years ago. Their oldest son, Naresh, attends Davidson College in North Carolina. Even though the family regularly attends services at the Hindu temple in Tampa, home worship also is vital.

"I pray every morning before I leave for work," Ravindra said. "I light the candle and incense and do chanting."

Typically a Hindu home will have a room set aside for devotions, Ravindra said.

"The children can come in and pray if they're troubled, and find solace," she said.

If a home is too small for a separate shrine room, Hindus will set up an altar in a corner of the kitchen or on a closet shelf, she said. Even her own shrine room serves other purposes: Against the back wall there's a single bed and a table with a sewing machine.

"If we build a house I will make a special room and completely enclose the shrine," Ravindra said. "It will be beautiful."