Muslim Peace

Dear friends in Djibouti - Dad and I met on a desert transit.

As-salamu alaikum. 

 Peace be upon you.

It's a greeting among Muslims, and the traditional response is 'and also upon you.'

If you have Muslim friends, they'll laugh and help you pronounce it, so you can use the greeting as well.

So, can we truly be at peace with one another? Is it really that easy to greet and enjoy one another across such a divide as Christian and Muslim? After all, there's a lot of turmoil today on that front, and a lot of folks we know about are working hard to widen the gap. Riot and murder, hatred and violence, and the fury of a burning ideology have plunged nations again to the brink of their own destruction.  Muslim, Jew, and Christian; is there reason?

Christian and Muslim children at play in Ethiopia;
it doesn't even cross their minds ....

The story is told of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and a crabby neighbor lady. It's said that she would dump refuse in his path daily, perhaps to show her disapproval and disrespect. The Prophet never responded in kind but went on his way until the day came that she failed to appear with her garbage. Concerned, the Prophet inquired and found that she was taken ill. When he visited her home and sincerely offered his help, she was undone; humbled and ashamed of her heart and behavior. The book says he was sent as mercy to mankind.  Nice.  I suspect Jesus would have approved.

Muslim and Christian children
and their families share this 
neighborhood.  Nice folks, 
welcomed me graciously.

Muslim friends flagged me down and

insisted I give them a ride home.  They

knew I would be glad to, of course.

Oh, there's reason for the violence, of course. There are reasons aplenty for one group to slander, vilify, and slaughter another over their differences.   I suspect, though, that neither the Prophet, peace be upon him, nor Christ himself would acknowledge such people as followers.

On the desert's edge, Muslim friends wave as we

part for a season.  They'd welcomed me, a Christian,

as a frequent visitor among them and instructed
 me on the issues of survival.

Can two friends from across such a wide chasm sit together and pray, share a meal and laugh a bit, and then part, speaking a blessing of peace to each other?  Of course they can.  It happens all the time.  All the time, all over the world. 

It's just not news.

Go see for yourself. 

 

 

 

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,

Forgive our foolish ways;

Reclothe us in our rightful mind,

In purer lives Thy service find....

... it's the world you love, isn't it.

And not just my little group.

 

God's favorite

It's good to be an American ... but God's favorite?

We've done wonderfully well, we Americans, and we've inspired so many others around the world, but our record is as yet unfinished and far from pristine. Civil rights, equal opportunity, freedom to speak and debate, freedom to work; folks come to live and work in America as perhaps the best place their world has to offer. There are two sides to that idea ...

    We've stated our values, but how did we act them out?  

          Looking back, it perhaps wasn't all that great a beginning.

We hold these truths to be self-evident ...

While we were proclaiming that 'all men are created equal',
we were driving out the native American men,
women, and children of the land.

... that all men are created equal ...

As we gave our word and covenant that each has the right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
we had already brought 200,000
African slaves to the colonies.

... that they are endowed by their creator 

       with certain unalienable rights ...

Native American and native African, even indentured Europeans
displaced, killed, enslaved.

... that among these are life, liberty,

         and the pursuit of happiness.

Life? By the time these words were penned, around 80% of the native American population had vanished. Of the estimated twelve million original inhabitants, only a few hundred thousand survived at the end of the nineteenth century.  

Liberty?  An estimated 645,000 Africans were abducted from their homelands, brought to the U.S, and enslaved. By the 1860 census, there were 4 million as their children were born into slavery.

Equal?  At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the United States, Britain and Australia rejected Japan's proposal of a "racial equality clause" in the League of Nations covenant.  Arrogance and racial discrimination towards the Japanese had plagued international relations since the forced opening of the country in the 1800s, and continued through the decades up to World War II.   

Through the twentieth century, we backed dictators who took our money and sided with us; no matter that their repressive regimes were cruel, inhumane, or even murderous, and we knew it in bloody detail.

We backed Mubarak in Egypt for decades despite his criminal human rights record. We backed totalitarian regimes in Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, how many?  Noriega,  Batista, ...  millions more died.

Weapons of mass destruction declared in Iraq, troop buildups on the Saudi border ... the reports were fabricated.

... of the people, by the people, for the people....

Government today follows the leadership of the elite

and acts on behalf of monied interests.

We've all recognized and
conceded the point.

Today on Wall Street and on Main Street in our cities, we pepper spray the public dissenters, and when we can, we throw them in jail.

Or we have the FBI break down their door in the middle of the night and haul them away to jail and then before a Seattle Grand Jury... on a warrant for 'black clothing' and possible 'anarchist literature'.

It's been two hundred years since such unreasonable search and seizure

were specifically denied to government agents. 

The intentions of those who founded this country were and still are quite noble.  

The goals they set are achievable;
there is so much yet to do
to make it real for all.

Troublesome times with great possibilities.  Let's be realistic; it is good to be an American.  Less than perfect, if we're objective, but good nonetheless.  Let's remember and affirm our values and press on toward the mark.  

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,

Forgive our foolish ways;

Reclothe us in our rightful mind,

In purer lives Thy service find....

See & be Seen

Ever wonder what it might be like, living in the shadow of wealth?  Well, that's precisely the concern.  Some cannot continue living when the wealthy behave irresponsibly.

For example, the Great Recession was triggered by the financial industry behaving irresponsibly.  They did so with government support, taking advantage of business-sponsored changes to the law.  The global economy fell into chaos, and hundreds of thousands who were hovering on the edge of survival died.  Goldman Sachs profited tremendously by marketing loans described widely in the industry as "liar's loans," and the world's poor took the loss.  Thank you Goldman Sachs.  Thank you Bear Stearns, AIG, and Merrill Lynch.  Thank you Republicans and Democrats.  Thank you, you selfish vermin, you who work so hard to win that you're willing to do so without a thought for the cost to others.


Wealth and power seem perhaps more a curse than a blessing.  It's so easy to do harm with such resources.  The obligation of responsibility is a weighty one; one which as yet hasn't shown itself in the financial marketplace.

"Without accountability, the unending parade of megabank scandals will inevitably continue," Neil Barofsky, the former watchdog over the $700 billion bank bailout fund and a frequent critic of the Obama administration's response to the financial crisis, recently told The Huffington Post.

There's no shortage of food in the world, by the way, and famine doesn't kill the rich.  There's enough food, just not enough good governance.  The problem of corrupt power in Rwanda or in coastal Somalia that ensures wealth for the influential ... that's the same problem of corrupt power in the U.S. and U.K. financial industries that triggered the recession.  And the deaths of hundreds of thousands.  That's what it's like to live in a world where you're not among the wealthy.

And now you know; that's how they see you.

Do not wait for leaders,
      do it alone,
           person to person.

A Woman's Place

What is a woman's place? At home? Or on the soccer field!

There were no women athletes in my high school!  None.  Not one. And no place for such things either.

In the south in the 50's, women were in a bind.  Perhaps as we recovered from the war years, many women tried to recapture their former roles as wife/ mother/ homemaker.  As a culture, we seemed to have an idealistic norm for femininity.  Reality took decades to reshape our thinking.

Holy cow, I remember seeing dress patterns like these on the table beside the sewing machine.

Church and school, community and the media, all reflected a narrow view of a woman's place.  She was to be feminine, somewhat fragile, elegant, home-oriented, and ... in many ways, sequestered (protected?) from the world in which men lived.

From a teenaged guy point of view, girls spent most of their self-expression efforts on their hair.  It was mind-numbing to hear them talk about it, and visually painful sometimes, especially when the big-hair thing was in full swing.
My college years in the 60's saw stereotypes crumbling as anti-establishment thinking challenged pretty much all of our social norms.  Conservatives and liberals (radicals?) were at each other's throats.

 

It helped my own thinking when I married a Texas girl.  She'd been fortunate to grow up in a practical, middle-class family that paid only minimal attention to social trends.  Tough-minded, adventurous, ... and a gymnast!  Scuba and skydiving were prenuptial conditions to our marriage upon which she insisted. 

We left home and country and lived overseas for most of my military career.  When we came home, much of what we had known had crumbled to dust.  Holy cow, what is this feminism stuff?

So, here we are five decades later.  Women in sports are everywhere!  Competitive, impressive athletes.  How great it is to see their world open up.  Women think, women teach, women decide, women tackle the business and political worlds.... It's not complete, this coming of age for our culture, but it's a great improvement, and my daughter (who has more backbone than a linebacker) gets to live in it without the artificial restrictions of the previous generation.  I'm so strongly in favor of the changes I see.  Does that make me a feminist?

The above was occasioned by pictures of my friend's youngest daughter.  A pretty young lady, she has beautiful coloration, physique, and natural beauty... and she plays field hockey, soccer, and football.  Well!  She's a powerhouse.  She would have been SO out of place in the 50's.  :)  And check out Women@NASA   There weren't any of those when I was a kid either!

(Just one more reason I love change!)

Islam in the News

This morning, my wife asked why a Florida crackpot pastor with a tiny congregation and a California (convicted felon) movie maker get worldwide attention. Why would anyone pay attention to such nonsense? That's the relevant question, and interestingly, the only major news source asking that question is Al Jazeera.

Is the reaction to anti-Islam film justified? - Al Jazeera 

At issue, the media's sensationalizing drivel from spectacularly inconsequential origins. These two have nothing significant to say to the world. There are millions with more relevant and beneficial contributions who are ignored by the media, perhaps because they lack the sensational splash that helps the stations ratings.

The movie trailer went viral after it was splashed across the middle-east by the news media. It wasn't news, just sensational trash, but it was given center stage as though it was the American stance on Islam. Shallow-thinking viewers believed the media and people died.

The Florida pastor, Terry Jones, has a dwindling congregation of about 50, the church has no mission statement, and Jones has an 'honorary doctorate' from an unaccredited school in California. Jones admits he doesn't know any Muslims, doesn't know the origin of Sharia law, and has never participated in any inter-faith discussions.

He has no knowledge of that against which he protests, he's never allowed his own position to be objectively examined, he has neither credentials nor peer reviewed work to support his philosophy or his actions. And the news media makes him world-known. Nonsense. (And as a friend pointed out today, this 'Christian' pastor seems to have abandoned Christian practices such as 'do unto others...'.)

Note to self; the major media outlets seem to be less than reliable information sources.  None of the major outlets seem to offer reliable investigative journalism. Often it seems that their content leans more toward eye-catching splash.

True? Are any of these media sources objective, unbiased, and legitimate journalism? Most are not most of the time, it seems, and perhaps none are all of the time.

While the originators of the slanderous and inflammatory film are fully culpable in the subsequent violence, the greater guilt rests with the news media that sensationalized and misrepresented the film as representative of U.S. attitudes.

Not all Muslims are so foolish. 

Fortunately.  In many places, citizens have been quick to condemn the violent behavior of the fanatical few.  Libya and Egypt today, both have seen spontaneous crowds of the peaceful protestors.

We have a couple of friends in the middle of all this violence and upheaval.  This, they say, this is not Islam, and this is not the heart of the people. 

Al Jazeera goes on to warn that the religious oppression, hatred and violence is "a toxic brew that inevitably begets more of the same"

Islamist Violence

There's a difference between Islam and Islamist extremists, just like there's a difference between Christian and Christian radical fundamentalists, perhaps.  Neither Christianity nor Islam support or endorse the indiscriminate murder and violence we've seen.

Christians and Muslims enjoy a

day at the beach - Djibouti

Interested in how it's supposed to work?

Just a few moments ago in Kenya, a pastor friend reports that "Had a wonderful home fellowship today in an Islamic village; the Muslims were very good to welcome us.  They even said praise the lord with us."

Kenya: Christians and Muslims Vow to Stay United

Religious leaders from the Christian and Muslim faiths
have vowed to remain vigilant on terrorists following twin
attacks on churches in Garissa.  The religious leaders said
those who attacked the churches were doing so as to create
animosity and hatred between the Muslim and Christians
who have been living harmoniously for decades.

Why do most Muslims and Christians live graciously side by side in Kenya?  And in Djibouti, it turns out.  And Egypt!

Why do we see such strange wickedness on both sides but among just the few, even here in the U.S.?

             "Do unto others...?"

Rev. Terry Jones, the leader of a small

Florida church which supports anti-Islam

philosophy says he is determined to go

through with his plan to burn copies of the

Qu'ran on September 11 in an international

'Burn-a-Koran Day', despite pressure from

the White House, religious leaders and

other people across the world to call it

off. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

has called the planned event 'distrustful

and disgraceful' means of marking the

9/11 tragedy. Muslim cleric Mohammad

Mukhtar in Afghanistan said that, if the

burning is carried on, Americans 'will be

killed wherever they are seen', while others

expressed similar fears that it could trigger

violence across the world.

    Law enforcement has identified
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula as the
man behind “Innocence of Muslims,”
the anti-Islam movie that is widely
blamed for riots around the world,
the AP reports.
    Nakoula had previously claimed he
had a role in the film’s creation, but
insisted he was not the director. Earlier
reports centered around a certain Sam
Bacile, but many doubts have been cast
on Bacile’s identity. Cell phones tied to
Bacile and Nakoula traced to the same
address.
    Nakoula ran afoul of the law in 2010, when
he pleaded no contest to federal bank fraud
charges after being indicted in a somewhat
intricate scheme involving fake bank
accounts created using stolen Social
Security numbers.  He was given a 21 month
prison sentence and had to pay $790,000.
    Actors in “Innocence of Muslims” say they 
were duped by the man claiming to be Bacile,
and that the film as they knew it was not
about Islam. One actress claims all the
offensive references were dubbed over the
lines the cast actually read. The movie was
originally titled “Desert Warriors.”

A crackpot Florida 'pastor' publicly burned copies of the Koran.  Why?  It's not like his congregation was going to read them.  It inflamed sentiment around the world.  He plans to do it again.

A California troublemaker with a criminal background made a movie which he later dubbed with anti-Islamic slander without the actors in the movie knowing about it.  He put words in their mouths, sacrilege to Muslims, and inflamed sentiment around the world.  

It's worth remembering, there's a difference between Islam and Christianity on one side, and Islamist extremism and Christian radical fundamentalism on the other.  

In the days following the brutal attack on
All Saints Church in Alexandria, solidarity
between Muslims and Copts has seen an
unprecedented peak. Millions of Egyptians
changed their Facebook profile pictures to
the image of a cross within a crescent, the
symbol of an "Egypt for All". Around the
city, banners went up calling for unity, and
 depicting mosques and churches, crosses
and crescents, together as one.

It's a heart difference, as our Kenyan pastor has pointed out.  Hate speech, a willingness to harm another, and a murderous heart accompany the latter.  It's perhaps the same as when Hitler and the Nazis took over the church in Germany and persuaded them that they were somehow superior to the rest of the world and justified in exterminating them.  Much the same, indeed.  

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find....