This week it happened again.

A Muslim buddy of mine called me a "Muslimah in the closet." Before that, I've been referred to as an "honorary Muslim," "Muslim-in-the-making" and even "Sister Natalia."

I used to respond to these kinds of statements with a mixture of bemusement and fear. I have spent a couple of years now making myself acquainted with Islam and its many representatives. I've bonded with some and argued 'till I frothed at the mouth with others. I've traveled to the Middle East, and wore Christian Orthodox-style hijab when I visited the Mount Nebo holy site (and still felt the eyes of horny men on me… as if hijab actually makes a difference, ha!), and then wrote an entire article about how much I wanted to ride public transportation in Amman, but couldn't, because every woman on the bus wore hijab and trying to pass myself off as Muslim to fit in seemed dishonest at the time.

It also made me feel dishonest when my Muslim friends treated me as if I was one of them. I had to be very dull and up-front about the whole thing; I was NOT about to stop drinking alcohol, eating bacon, or wearing push-up bras with lace-scalloped tops and pants that hugged my bottom. I was CERTAINLY not going to marry my boyfriend for anything other than legal and cultural reasons (and to throw one damn good party, of course), or abandon my work in the fairy-tale genre, or my faith in the words of Jesus or the secret pagan life of the Earth.

I didn't want anyone to feel cheated, least of all myself. 

But when I built a wall between myself and Islam and its followers, I forgot the function of paganism as adopted by Goethe, my guru. Goethe didn't reject the world that continuously flowed into his wise old heart. As one of my most beloved professors, Thomas Pfau, once told me:"Goethe respected and loved humanity and its their beliefs. Which is why the Muslims often claim him as their own."

For better or for worse, Islam has entwined itself about me. I let it in. No one came to convert me with a sword, and no one threw a veil over my head (as we non-Muslims sometimes fear it will happen, especially when some Muslims wax poetic about the caliphate and such). I chose my path and it lead me here, to greater knowledge, to understanding, and love (but not to veiling, unless the Dead Sea sun is beating down on my head).

I no longer fear being claimed by certain elements of the Muslim community (other elements will never claim me, thank God) and complimented on my accidental, sporadic, shining Muslim-ness. I no longer need to qualify that which Islam has taught me with the tried and true bacon-beer-and-hot-premarital-sex mantra.

I have let this wisdom run through me like rain without attempting to qualify it, and it feels good to stand in it, holding Goethe's old hand.