Hero's Quest

Malala was just 14 when she was shot.  Last week, men stopped her small school bus, boarded, and shot her in the head along with her two friends.  The men are Taliban.

She was 14 when she was shot.  AND she lived through it. 

Malala Yousafzai is a student and a vocal proponent for education in northern Pakistan. When she was  eleven, she began writing an anonymous blog for the BBC about her life under the Taliban.  Later, she began speaking publicly.  She was sometimes in the media, speaking about the need for girl's education. She won the National Peace Award for her courage, one of the nations highest civilian honors.  It's now called the National Malala Peace Prize.

The Taliban position, of course, is that girls belong in the home and should not be educated outside that context.  In January '09, the Taliban issued an edict banning all girls from schools. On her blog, Malala praised her father, who was operating one of the few schools that would go on to defy that order.


The Taliban have attacked and destroyed girl's schools in northern Pakistan.  They say they targeted Malala personally because she is secular-minded and critical of the militant group. Now, they are threatening to attack media agencies and kill journalists who are reporting the matter, and they're threatening to track Malala down and kill her.  And her father.


This isn't religion, of course.  This is the same dictatorial power-thinking that Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot used to justify murdering millions. Get back in line or die!

After being attacked, Malala was finally airlifted from Pakistan to the U.K.  The U.A.E. provided the medical evacuation flight.

Pakistan Taliban

London (CNN) "-- Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai stood for the first time after her shooting Friday morning and is "communicating very freely," according to the director of the UK hospital where she is undergoing treatment."

Malala shooting ...

"Malala can't talk because she has a tracheotomy tube inserted to protect her airway, which was swollen after her gunshot injury, but she is writing coherent sentences," said Dave Rosser, director of University Hospitals Birmingham.

"The latest progress report ... could make a good recovery."  CNN

Pakistanis pray for Malala.

The bullet went through Malala's head from behind her left eye and down through her jaw.  There's some damage to her brain, but the doctors say she's thinking well and writing notes, and today she's even standing up with help.  The brain injury, doctors note, means that she is just at the beginning of a long recovery process.

Malala: A global symbol, but still just a kid

Thousands in Pakistan and thousands more around the world have joined the protest begun by this gutsy young girl.  She was just eleven years old when she took up her simple cause.  Now, perhaps Pakistan will have had enough of the Taliban and their ways.

Every hero's quest is hard.  If it was easy, we wouldn't need a hero, would we.

We wish her well, and her family and friends also.  Can you imagine how her father must feel?  Despite the blinding sorrow of seeing his daughter in pain and in danger, through tears and anguish and fear, still he knows; his daughter is a hero.  She's changed her world.

America; the Beautiful?

Ever wonder what your country looks like from the outside?  

You could ask.  

Congress did.  

The answers they got are much like what we've been told by friends in Africa.

THE DECLINE IN AMERICA’S REPUTATION: WHY?

Reports by the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.    

Based on a series of 10 hearings, the subcommittee identified eight main findings about the levels, trends, and causes of international opinion of American policies, values, and people. These are summarized here.

1. It’s the policies: Opposition to specific U.S. policies, rather than to American values or people, has driven this decline. The key policies are: The invasion and occupation of Iraq; support for repressive governments worldwide; a perceived lack of evenhandedness in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute; and torture and abuse of prisoners in violation of treaty obligations.

2. It’s the perception of hypocrisy: Disappointment and bitterness arise from the perception that the proclaimed American values of democracy, human rights, tolerance, and the rule of law have been selectively ignored by successive administrations when American security or economic considerations are in play.

3. It’s the historical memory: U.S. domination remains a potent image for long periods—and that image is used to discredit current U.S. policies.

4. It’s the lack of contact: Contact with America and Americans reduces anti-Americanism, but not opposition to specific policies. Visitors to America—particularly students—and even their families and friends, have more positive views about America than non-visitors by 10 percentage points.

5. It’s the visas: Interaction with the U.S. immigration and the visa process is a significant source of frustration with America. Particularly among Muslim applicants, the experience with customs and border officials creates a perception that they are not welcome. This perception spreads across their communities through their “horror stories” about travel to the United States.

6. It’s the perceived war on Islam: The combination of all of the previous findings has created a growing belief in the Muslim world that the United States is using the “war on terror” as a cover for its attempts to destroy Islam.  Incredibly, these countries include Turkey, a long-standing U.S. ally, and Kuwait, the country that the United States liberated from Saddam Hussein’s rule. It is hard to imagine more troubling examples of the decline in America’s reputation.


7. It’s true: U.S. approval ratings have indeed fallen to record lows in nearly every region of the world. Generally positive ratings from the 1950’s to 2000 have moved to generally negative ratings since 2002. Approval ratings are highest in non-Muslim Africa and lowest in Latin America and in Muslim countries.

8. It’s the unilateralism: A recent pattern of ignoring international consensus, particularly in the application of military power, has led to a great deal of anger and fear of attack. This in turn is transforming disagreement with U.S. policies into a broadening and deepening anti-Americanism, a trend noted by the Government Accountability Office.

In Muslim countries, polls found a widespread belief that there is an American war on Islam going on now. Citizens in Muslim countries are concerned that the United States has become a military threat.
 



Of our neighbor across the street, "he's a good fellow," we say.  

We've known him awhile, and he's proven himself. He doesn't lie, cheat, or steal. He's thoughtful and good friend. He helps us sometimes, and we return the favor. He helps us watch out for our kids when they're outside. We struggle together with difficult problems rather than struggle separately. He's a thoughtful husband, father, and grandfather. He's a good fellow, we say; the sort of person you'd like to have live nearby, perhaps.

Is it time to consider how we might be a 'good fellow' as a people? As a country among countries? Shall we acknowledge our common future with the rest of mankind and act accordingly? Or shall we continue choosing our best without regard to the impact on others?

This is volatile ground, of course. Just suggesting someone look at the issue invokes centuries of discussion and debate on how one nation might relate to another to their advantage. Do we have a good foundation on which to build?

Interesting cover from a U.N. publication suggests a foundation for ethical policy.

International relations theory

Liberalism and Neoliberalism
Liberal Peace Theory
Sociological liberalism
Interdependence liberalism
Institutional liberalism
Republican liberalism
Classical realism
Neorealism
Offensive realism and Defensive realism
Neoclassical realism
Liberal realism
Marxism
Neo-Gramscianism
Dependency theory
Functionalism and Neofunctionalism
Critical theories
Constructivism
World-systems theory 

With such a wealth of scholarly work in the field, can you guess how many of these schools of thought begin with fundamental principles you'd recognize; with the values that represent who we are as a people?  

Americans face the most extraordinary opportunity to live the vision of greatness we were given by our founders, the good kind of great.  How shall we then live?

After Birth

(NC17)

What's the difference?

We wonder as things change if they might slip and go too far.  Remember back when the abortion issue was new, we wondered about how our national values might be changed.  Did we need to worry about the sanctity of life?

The discussions were heated and long.  I remember being told by the proponents of abortion that this wasn't about babies.  This was before babies were people; just fetuses.  Just a mass of tissue.  Nothing to worry about.

So the court cases came and went, new laws and medical practices. Abortions were just shapeless blobs at first, but later we found out there were these  perfectly formed humans. Some are dismembered by surgeons while still in the womb, then extracted piece by piece, or they have their brain sucked out seconds before being born alive.  And if a child should survive an abortion, Planned Parenthood admits they would let the baby die on the delivery table.  It's unwanted.

Scholarly discussions are now in the journals of medicine discussing the lack of difference between pre- and post- birth babies.  It's all the same, philosophically speaking.  A day before versus a day after; no difference.  A week before versus a week after; no difference.  A month before versus a month after; no difference.  It makes no moral difference, the scholars tell us, if an unwanted baby is aborted or if it is killed on the table after being born.

They admit, they'd leave a baby who survived abortion
to die in the delivery room.  It is, after all, unwanted.

They're right, of course.  There's no distinguishable moral difference between what the law calls 'abortion' and what the law calls premeditated murder.

It's legal but not morally different if done in utero rather than in the bassinet a few days later.

It's a more difficult issue than first imagined and a more slippery slope than even the worst forecast.

Lies about love

Swept away!  Few things bring sweeter memories than being madly in love.

Beginning somewhere around the 6th grade or so, the turmoil we label 'falling in (and out) of love' occupies our emotional lives and awareness.  It is great fun, mostly, and absolutely full of drama.

If we are careful to be good-hearted about it, it remains fondly with us in our memory for a lifetime, along with perhaps a few regrets about how we might have been a bit gentler along the way, a bit more sensitive to how the other person might have felt.

Early love is inexperienced and understandably overbalanced toward self and feelings.  There's often little substance beyond how wonderfully it makes us feel inside.  Older folks smile and tell us that love isn't a feeling.

Love that's had time to grow up a bit retains the high-impact emotional content, but love itself becomes  broader and deeper.  And it is just too enthralling for words!

So, truth and lies.

1. Love isn't just a feeling.  True, but the feelings that accompany love often speak more eloquently and describe it more fully than mere words.  Feelings do get a lot of attention.
1. a. Love isn't a feeling; it's a decision.  Mostly true also, and not just one.  It's decisions made day after day, decade after decade, in favor of another.  And the feelings seem to thrive and grow more complex and rich on the decisions.
2. Love leads to 'happily ever after'.  Lie.  Life is full of happy and unhappy.  Love can transcend but doesn't preclude the unhappy part.
3. Love is 'the' source of happiness.  Maybe, sort of, almost; but not just 'being in love'.  Loving to great purpose can bring great joy.
4. If someone loves you, they will know and meet all your needs.  Ha!  Lie, nonsense, and BIG mistake, unless your someone is a magician and mind-reader.  And even if they were, being loved covers much, but never 'all your needs'.  So sad.
5. The opposite of love is hate.   Not really.  For us, love and hate are both choices we make, as in:  I wish you well, or I wish you failure, harm, death.  The opposite of love is perhaps just selfish indifference to others.  I choose for my own benefit alone and without considering you at all. 
6. Love leads to joy.  True!  While there's great fun and happiness that accompanies our 'being in love', when love grows up, joy accompanies the result.

Persistent selfishness is a love-killer.  We can stumble over it every day until we're willing to face our self-centeredness head-on.  Some folks never do, unfortunately, and by the time they're old, they're permanent frowners, bitter, and angry at everyone except themselves. Learn and live, don't and die; a downhill slope into loneliness.

Love is larger still than we understand, I suspect.  Grander than romance, deeper than marriage, richer than family, greater than ... than we know.  A loving heart, we're told, is patient and kind, not jealous or boastful or proud or rude, doesn't demand its own way, not irritable (?!), and it keeps no record of being mistreated. Love's great heart isn't pleased by injustice but celebrates when the truth wins out. It perseveres, it holds faith and hope firmly, and endures the impossible.  True.

... and it changes what it touches! True. It can change the world.  Also true.

With all that, it feels like way too much to live up to.  Perhaps we're all somewhere along the road, learning about it.

Waving goodbye yet again;  good folks on
the far side of the world ....

These thoughts were provoked by a conversation with an associate; he was attempting to offer a compliment on some humanitarian work that my wife and I had helped along.  I found myself explaining apologetically that there isn't a philanthropic or altruistic heart behind it.  We've talked about it; we're mostly just doing our best and enjoying the opportunity; it's great to hear from the overseas work and particularly from the families we know.  Maybe it's a start toward the larger, real love we'd like to know.

It really is great fun (a joy), and the pleasure spreads broadly across our lives.
It makes you wonder - who thought of this 'love' thing anyway. And just how big can it get?   :) 

The second great calling to the heart of mankind ...
We are all of one blood, none truly outside the family, and we must each discover for ourselves what that means.  We must decide if we will live practically and graciously, and choose as favorably for each other as we do for ourselves ... to love my neighbor as I love myself.

The first great calling ..., well that's another story.

A moderate Muslim?

The article here is like others, offered by a reasonable person who, like many of us, laments the furor over small things.  Click HERE to be taken to the original article, if you like.

"I believe one needs to have a very high bar when it comes to being offended."  What a wealth of wisdom in that single line.  Being 'slow to anger' delivers us as individuals, as families with children following their parents lead, as communities and nations, from so much that is destructive.

Watching two boys fighting over some toy as they escalate from words to blows, each by his response provoking the other to greater effort, is so visibly paralleled in the hatred and violence we see today.  This person vs. that person, this candidate vs. that candidate, this religion vs. that religion, all deny simple humanity and relegate their opponent to some hated category to be harmed or denigrated.  Or killed.

We owe moderates like the graduate student that wrote the article above a debt of gratitude for their tempering of the world in which we all live.  Would that we all had such clarity.

Further discussion at the Wall Street Journal:

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

A Symposium: What Is Moderate Islam?

The controversy over a proposed mosque in lower Manhattan has spurred a wider debate about the nature of Islam. We asked six leading thinkers - Anwar Ibrahim, Bernard Lewis, Ed Husain, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Tawfik Hamid and Akbar Ahmed - to weigh in.

President Pharaoh

A brief sermon from a recent Virginia church service: 

 Genesis 47:13-27 

Good morning, brothers and sisters; it's always a delight to see the pews crowded on Sunday morning, and so eager to get into God's Word. Turn with me in your Bibles, if you will, to the 47th chapter of Genesis. We'll begin our reading at verse 13, and go through verse 27. Brother Ray, would you stand and read that great passage for us? ... (reading) ... Thank you for that fine reading, Brother Ray.

So we see that economic hard times fell upon Egypt , and the people turned to the government of Pharaoh to deal with this for them. And Pharaoh nationalized the grain harvest, and placed the grain in great storehouses that he had built. So the people brought their money to Pharaoh, like a great tax increase, and gave it all to him willingly in return for grain. And this went on until their money ran out, and they were hungry again.

So when they went to Pharaoh after that, they brought their livestock - their cattle, their horses, their sheep, and their donkey - to barter for grain, and verse 17 says that only took them through the end of that year.

But the famine wasn't over, was it? So the next year, the people came before Pharaoh and admitted they had nothing left, except their land and their own lives. "There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our land. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh."

So they surrendered their homes, their land, and their real estate to Pharaoh’s government, and then sold themselves into slavery to him, in return for grain.

What can we learn from this, brothers and sisters? That turning to the government instead of to God to be our provider in hard times only leads to slavery? Yes... That the only reason government wants to be our provider is to also become our master? Yes.

But look how that passage ends, brothers and sisters! Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen . And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly." God provided for His people, just as He always has! They didn't end up giving all their possessions to government, no, it says they gained possessions!

But I also tell you a great truth today, and an ominous one. We see the same thing happening today - the government today wants to “share the wealth" once again, to take it from us and redistribute it back to us. It wants to take control of healthcare, just as it has taken control of education, and ration it back to us, and when government rations it, then government decides who gets it, and how much, and what kind. And if we go along with it, and do it willingly, then we will wind up no differently than the people of Egypt did four thousand years ago - as slaves to the government, and as slaves to our leaders.

(Here, our thoughtful friend points at the government and the current president. His focus, however is not the specific individual in office but rather the U.S. government and the presidency in general.)

What (the president's) government is doing now is no different from what Pharaoh’s government did then, and it will end the same. And a lot of people like to call (the president)  a "Messiah," don't they? Is he a Messiah? A savior? Didn't the Egyptians say, after Pharaoh made them his slaves, "You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh"? Well, I tell you this - I know the Messiah; the Messiah is a friend of mine; and (THE PRESIDENT) IS NO MESSIAH! No, brothers and sisters, if (the president) is a character from the Bible, then he is Pharaoh.

And that, I'm persuaded, is precisely the point. Our great need as a nation is neither partisan nor party, but a revolution of conscience for us all.

 Bow with me in prayer, if you will...

Lord, You alone are worthy to be served, and we rely on You, and You alone. We confess that the government is not our deliverer, and never rightly will be.

We read in the eighth chapter of 1 Samuel, when Samuel warned the people of what a ruler would do, where it says "And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day..."

And Lord, we acknowledge that day has come. We cry out to you because of the ruler that we have chosen for ourselves as a nation. Lord, we pray for this nation. We pray for revival, and we pray for deliverance from those who would be our masters. Give us hearts to seek You and hands to serve You, and protect Your people from the atrocities of Pharaoh’s government. In God We Trust...