Devout find ways to count their blessings
Many create sacred space at home to practice their faith
As the sun rises over New York City, Yvette Arenaro, an evangelical Christian, prays on a wooden kneeler inside her bedroom closet; Lobsang Chokdup chants Tibetan Buddhist prayers at an elaborate altar in the living room of his family’s cramped apartment; and Nirmal Singh studies a Sikh holy text with his wife and daughter in their attic prayer room.
They are among hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers from a myriad faith traditions who set aside a part of their home as a sacred space to practice their religion, meditate or simply offer thanks for a new day.
“I wish I could wake up in the mountains every morning, but instead I live in Richmond Hill,” said Singh, an engineer and writer who lives in Queens. “I designed this space upstairs where I pray, sing and study with my family and thank God for everything I have in my life.”
In some homes, altars mark the area where family members worship. In others, the space is sanctified — for a time — by actions such as lighting candles over a dining room table on a Friday evening or praying several times a day while facing east, on a rug in a living room.
While these sacred spaces have long existed, they became even more meaningful during the pandemic, as many houses of worship restricted access.
Hinduism: Bharati and Chandra Sukul Kemraj
Walking past Bharati Sukul
Kemraj’s family’s home in the Bronx, you can catch a glimpse of an altar in the bay windows, complete with statues of Hindu gods, flowers, candles and burning incense.
Every morning Bharati Sukul Kemraj and her mother, Chandra Sukul Kemraj, pray in front of the altar. Bharati Sukul Kemraj’s father, Vishnu Sukul, was a Hindu priest from Guyana. He built their house next to the Vishnu Mandir Temple, which he founded in 1996. He died in 2019, and his family now manages the temple.
“There should be a sacred space in your home where you wake up in the mornings, offer prayers and just give thanks for seeing another sunrise and another day,” Kemraj said.
Tibetan Buddhism: Lobsang Chokdup
Surrounded by Tibetan tapestries, statues of Buddha, sacred texts, candles, a drum and a bell, Lobsang Chokdup prays, chants, meditates and studies for at least 12 hours every day. At midnight
he pauses to sleep with his wife, Lhamo, in the living room of the small apartment they share with their daughter and grandson in Queens, where he has lived for the last six years. He rises at 4 a.m. and begins again.
At 9 years old, Chokdup fled Tibet, over the Himalayas and into Nepal, after the Chinese invasion. He came to the U.S. in 2011 to be near his children. Today, Chokdup is 71, but if he lived to be 100, he said, “that would be a very short time,” because he could be reborn many, many times along a path to enlightenment.
“One hundred years on this planet is just one second for me,” he said. “I leave this body after that, but I might have to stay here a million years. So in a way, I am a million-year-old man.”
Evangelical Christianity: Yvette Arenaro
Before the sun rises, Yvette Arenaro slips into her small walk-in closet and kneels in front of a wooden prayer altar.
Surrounded by her dresses, suits and shoes, she sings hymns, reads the Bible and prays — often with tears in her eyes.
“There’s a stillness at that time of the morning,” she said. “There are no interruptions, and you can still hear the early birds who are already doing their worship of chirping.” Arenaro is a member of the Christian Cultural Center, a predominantly Black nondenominational Christian church in Brooklyn, where she has sang in the choir for 17 years.
When the pandemic began, her church’s services were only streamed live online for the next year for safety reasons, and congregants could not attend. Arenaro watched every Sunday morning, but her religious life at home continued uninterrupted.
Islam: Mohammed Jabed Uddin
Since March 2020, Mohammed Jabed Uddin has spent most of his waking hours helping his neighbors in Queens cope with the fallout from the pandemic. He has arranged for the distribution of thousands of free meals and bags of groceries and masks, and he has organized COVID-19 testing and vaccination drives. Uddin has gone shopping for blind older neighbors and translated for sick community members in emergency rooms.
For months, the mosques were closed because of the pandemic, but every single day he has tried to find the time to pray.
“It doesn’t matter what important thing you do in the world,” said Uddin, a taxi driver. “This is the duty of our life to follow the rules of Islam and do the fivetimes-a-day prayers.”
After he finishes his prayers, he heads out to continue his work as secretary of the Astoria Welfare Society, a Bangladeshi American nonprofit that provides assistance to anyone in need.
“Islam says it is important for humanity to help each other,” he said.
Sikhism: Nirmal Singh
Nirmal Singh designed his home in Queens with a space in the attic for his family to study, sing and pray. At the center of the room is the Adi Granth, a handwritten volume of the sacred scripture of Sikhism. Every morning before dawn, Singh reads out loud, and his wife, Rajinder Kaur Bhamra, and daughter, Taranjit, play musical instruments as they all sing prayers.
Afterward, his daughter walks to the public prekindergarten center in Ozone Park where she teaches.
“It becomes so embedded into your daily lifestyle, you cannot live a day without doing it,” Taranjit said.
Judaism: Laurie Hanin and Jennifer Johnson
Growing up in Brooklyn, Friday nights were like any other night of the week in Laurie Hanin’s home. Her family was Jewish but not observant.
Jennifer Johnson was raised in a Christian home in Memphis, Tennessee, but converted to Judaism as an adult before she met Hanin. Today they are married and live in Queens with their 9-year-old twin boys, Adam and Gabriel.
Six days a week, their apartment is in a state of slightly organized chaos. But Friday, they bake challah, and as the sun begins to set, calm prevails. Sabbath candles are lit, prayers recited, and they bless the challah.
“I’m trying to give my kids the Jewish rituals, and the understanding of their meaning, that I only learned as an adult,” Hanin said. “This feels like family.”