Sex or Backbiting?
Most of you know, I do the daily readings from The Lectionary (you can always click on it from my Blogroll, down to the right) as part of my spiritual discipline. I also read the daily meditations on Forward Movement, (also in the blogroll.)
Rarely do I share them with you, but this one is where Christianity and Islam are so closely intertwined that I dance for joy – that much can be forgiven to one who loves, but our tongues get us into a lot of trouble.
I know that backbiting is one of the great sins to be avoided during the upcoming holy season of Ramadan, too.
James 3:1-12 The tongue is a fire…a world of iniquity…a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
I sometimes wonder if the churchfolk who seem obsessed with sexual behavior are reading the same Bible I am. If I said that someone was “living in sin,” I know what parts of the body you’d think I was talking about. Yet if it were James or other New Testament authors talking, they would probably be referring to the tongue.
For every reference in the New Testament to sins involving sex, there must be ten concerning speech. Why? Because while sex is certainly one form of communication, speech is a more potent one in the daily life of a congregation. Words have power.
God creates the world and keeps in touch with it, after all, by his Word; and words are how we keep in touch with each other. But the word that can create can also destroy–a reputation, an institution, a life. Words tell us who and how we are and whether we belong; words bind the community together-or tear it apart. Sexual misconduct is bad–and easy to recognize as bad.
The sniping, backbiting, spite, and deceit that go on in some communities are often hard to see, let alone root out. Yet their effect is more corrosive over the long term. How did our priorities get so mixed up?
PRAY for the Diocese of South Carolina (United States)
Ps 38 * 119:25-48; 1 Kings 9:24-10:13; Mark 15:1-11
Yemeni Star
I give up.
I am throwing myself on your mercy.
A week ago, Adventure Man heard a morning radio show on 99.7, “Superstation”, in which a meteorologist at the Kuwait Airport mentioned a particular star, which when it appears above the horizon in Kuwait, the ancient inhabitants would know that cooler temperatures were on the way.
Adventure Man is sure he called it The Yemeni Star, because it appeared over the horizon in the general direction of Yemen.
I’ve google’d it to death and can’t find anything. I called in the superstar Googler, Little Diamond and even she had to admit defeat.
Kuwaiti friends and bloggers – please, ask your elders if they know of the Yemeni Star. I think the weatherman said it was the nomadic peoples who would watch for it. I am guessing that in Kuwait, there are few nomads left, but a great number of descendants of nomadic peoples. Or, if you have an astronomer, or weather person in your family, could you ask them?
I don’t know why it matters to me, but it does.
The Big Test
Sure, having a three day weekend is a GREAT way to introduce a change . . . kind of like “let them eat cake!” But today and tomorrow are the real tests. Today is the first day that is not a half day off / beginning of weekend, and tomorrow is a WORKING Thursday for Kuwaitis – let the grumbling begin!
Change is always disruptive. A year from now, it will all be comfortable, but it will take some time to get used to the new way of doing things. Businesses who deal with the outside world will have more days in common. I believe that Saudi Arabia and Oman are the only ones still on the Thursday – Friday weekend.
In truth, it has no effect on us. Adventure Man takes Friday for his day off and works the other six days – nothing changes. When he is around, I drop my work and spend time with him.
But this weekend is going to be the BIG adjustment.
(For my non-Kuwait friends, we have had a serious drop in temperatures – at 8 in the morning, it is only 88°, not the 100 degrees of earlier in the week. The expected high for today, though is a cool Fall September 114° F/ 46° C.)
WordPress: Where Did Feedback Go?
When I first joined WordPress, there was a place you could click at the top of the page and write FeedBack. What was really really cool was that WordPress was small enough that you usually got an answer on the same day, even if your question was really stupid, like a lot of mine were, because I was just beginning.
There is a great FAQ place, but I couldn’t always understand the answers. Like you know when you know the meaning of each individual word, but when they are strung together, it might as well be an alien language from outer space, you just can’t get the meaning?
So today I wanted to give them some feedback – and FeedBack is GONE! They didn’t even say anything! It’s just gone! Or . . . . am I missing something? At the bottom of my dashboard, it says “use the feedback link at the top right of your page” but . . . am I going blind? I don’t see the feedback link anymore?
Here is what I want:
I love it that I can see statistics for each individual post. Some of my wierdest posts – like Tudo’s Vietnamese Restaurant in Pensacola written back in March can still get a high number of hits, and I like being able to see a post’s history.
And what I would really like is to be able to see ALL my posts in rank order by the number of hits. So like then I could see at a glance what my Top 10, Top 25 were, all time, through the history of the blog.
But . . .WordPress, you no longer want any feedback?
DementoCat
OK, OK, No more after a while, just this one last one. Yesterday, as I was uploading the photo of the Qatteri Cat and his babies, he was zonked out on the couch, and dreaming.
With his eyes partially open, but totally out, little paws going, mouth going, making those inarticulate sounds we make when we are in the middle of a very active dream . . .
And he looked so funny! I promise, I promise, this is the last one for a while:
Thank God Adventure Man doesn’t have a blog! I don’t want any photos me me, when I am having a bad dream!
Think I should submit it to I Can Has Cheeseburger? I know it is not socially relevant, but I love this site. At least one caption gives me a laugh-out-loud, a great way to start the day.
Big Red
Adventure Man and I have an agreement. We leave each other’s lives alone. Like I don’t try to tell him how he should work (I do try to tell him how to drive, or how not to drive, he hates it and I can’t help it; I don’t want to die!) and he doesn’t tell me how to run the house (but he does make “helpful suggestions”, he can’t help it.) We cut each other a lot of slack – it’s the only way you can stay married for a long time.
He monitors my blog closely. I don’t mind, he is like my personal security agency, making sure I don’t tell you too much about myself. I know he is protecting us and I honor that. It also helps me to think about what I am writing as I write – he has never asked me to change anything, but the awareness that he is watching helps me remember to be careful.
But I draw the line at him telling me what to blog. Here is what I say:
GET YOUR OWN BLOG, ADVENTURE MAN!
Yesterday he brought me some Big Red, with a complaint and with a compliment. Many of us in our family are addicted to Big Red, a cinnamon chewing gum. I like it because I drink coffee, and coffee can make your breath bad. Adventure Man just likes it because he likes it.
“This Big Red is not the same!” he complained. “It tastes wrong!”
I tasted it and I thought it tasted normal, but I have been buying Big Red here for a while and maybe my “normal” has gotten skewed.
“And look!” he said, triumphantly “Big Red is supposed to be RED!”
And he was right – this Big Red is WHITE?? How can that be??
But here is the compliment – look what is printed on each individual gum wrapper. (You have to read it from left to right!)
Pretty cool, huh? And this blog entry is for you, Adventure Man.
Abandonment Issues
I can hear the Qatteri Cat out in the long hallway. He is moaning pathetically, and it is a little muffled. I smile. I know he is bringing me his baby.
Who knows what a cat is thinking? When I disappear, taking a bath or working in my project room, the Qatteri Cat cries sadly. His cry says “Where are you?” and “I am just a little kitten, and I am alone in the world!”
I say “Qatteri Cat, I am back here!” and he goes and gets his baby, and brings it to where I am. He plays with his baby briefly, and then – he leaves! He leaves me to take care of the baby!
When Adventure Man and I go to the family room to watch a DVD, we try to remember to take the baby with us. As long as we have the baby with us, Qatteri Cat won’t cry.
(Skunk wants more photos of Qatteri Cat. )
Invasion Kuwait – Jihan Rajab
I have one very ragged copy of Jihan Rajab’s Invasion Kuwait which she published in 1996. All my house guests have been given an opportunity to read it, and not one single one has been other than blown-away.
When you look at Kuwait today, there is no sign that the disasterous invasion took place. The invasion and occupation are barely a blip on the screen of modern history, to those who were not involved.
And yet – when you listen to those who went through it, there are tales of sheer heroism. If you get the conversation started, in a group, you can hear hair-raising tales, heartbreaking tales, told by the people who went through it.
I had to buy the book through Amazon.com because I looked all over Kuwait and couldn’t find it, not even at the Tarek Rajab museum. When I bought it, I bought it used, because there were no new copies available, but this morning when I went to include the book in the Warrior Women post, I found that you can now buy it new, and I decided it was worth a post of it’s own. It is well worth a read, and it makes Kuwait so much more alive when you pass sites mentioned in the book and remember what took place there in Rajab’s book.
I have read one other book detailing the horrorific experience in Kuwait, but that is all. Are there others? Are there books on the invasion, and the individual experiences, written in Arabic?
Levantine/Gulf/Persian Warrior Women?
I’m still reading Sarum, by Edward Rutherford, although I am nearing the end. I am still thinking back to a fictional character – I think she is fictional because when I Google’d her name, I got the name of an English queen, but not this particular Aelfgifu.
In Sarum, Aelfgifu is a warrior woman. As a young girl, she hangs out with all the guys, rides with them, hunts with them, and is accepted by them. When the Vikings raid, she fights them. The Vikings are astounded, and more than a little angry, to be fought – successfully – by a woman. Later, her father reluctantly allows her to ride with the men to counter another Viking raid – they need all the “men” they can get, and she is one of the best.
I am intrigued. History shows that these exceptional women pop up now and then, and usually just at the right time. Joan of Arc for the French, the Amazons, Apache women warriors in Native American lore, Chinese Tang dynasty warrior women, Masai warrior women in Africa. We have women in the US Army, and I often hear their commanders say “some of my best men are women.”
It was hard to find a good warrior women illustration which had women with their clothes on. Most of the illustrator, I guess, being men, they protray women warriors in scanty attire, and most of them have exaggerated breasts and hips, and tiny little wasp waists, and legs about twice as long as a normal woman. Sort of Barbie-doll in warrior women attire. *she snorts in disgust* Leaves a fighter a little vulnerable, don’t you think, fighting in a metal bra and tiny little loincloth? That metal would get uncomfortable in no time, and man, how can you ride a horse for very long without chafing your legs? But then reality wouldn’t sell the drawing, would it?
OK, OK, back to the real question – Warrior women pop up in all cultures. I think that is true, but when I think of the Arabian Gulf, or Persia, or the Levant, no one comes to mind, other than Sheherezad, but she triumphed by her wits, not her brawn, not her fighting skills. I remember hearing that nomadic women could be fierce; are there not legends of Bedouin women?
Is there a woman / are there women who were legendary fighters in Middle East culture? Are there women in Persian culture who fought, or held a castle, or were otherwise brave in the face of danger? Speak now!
The Cat is King in Kuwait
The Kuwait Times printed an article in the Friday Times called The Cat is King in Kuwait, a really fluff piece about how the cats in Kuwait own the streets.
In contrast – and I wish I could print out even a portion of this article, but it is not online, and I no longer have the paper – on Thursday, Ben Garcia wrote a truly heart wrenching editorial/opinion piece about how the children living in his building were chasing, catching, stomping, throwing, swinging and torturing cats. Ironically, two cats they killed, either by stomping or drowning, ended up in the building water supply. One of the maids told her employer that the water tasted funny, and the employer told her the water in Kuwait always tastes funny. (I’m sorry, but that part really made me laugh.)
Mr. Garcia’s article was gut wrenching. He found it an irony that the tortured cats ended up spreading their dead bacteria with the entire building, where the children lived. But the fact that these children think it is OK to stomp on cats makes me almost physically ill.
In the Christian religion, Jesus said we are to protect the little ones. He is thought to be referring to children, but as humans, we are to be stewards of all creation. Doesn’t that means caring for all things, great and small? It means protecting our environment. It also means respecting all life, and giving respect to all humans, no matter what walk of life they are in. If there is any justification for a belief in re-incarnation, it is to learn from another point of view the lessons we fail to learn in this life.
Like wouldn’t we be kinder to the Bangladeshi street worker if we knew he might be our grandfather who beat his servants, or imposed himself on the maid?
I don’t think it meant we are to be all vegetarian, as he gave us animals for meat, but I believe we are to be wise and thoughtful in the use of all he gives us, so abundantly, in our daily lives. I am willing to bet that the Qur’an says something similar. (Can anyone help me out, here?)
So cats are abundant in Kuwait, but King? King of the garbage bin, king of skin diseases, queen of the swollen belly looking for a safe quiet place to give birth? These poor cats have a tough enough life without anyone giving them additional pain or harassment.
And what if these small creatures are angels in disguise, and we hard-heartedly allow them to starve, to wander, to be beaten and abused? Can’t we sin as easily by neglecting to do anything as by actively choosing to harm?
How can parents tolerate that kind of behavior in their children, allowing them to torment these creatures? What kind of lessons are the children learning?
I think finding a dead cat in the drinking water supply would be pretty horrifying – and I can’t help but think it is fitting for people who would allow their children to torture small creatures.
Bravo, Ben Garcia, first for speaking up and shaming those children, and second for writing it up for the Kuwait Times. It isn’t easy to read, but it is right to bring it to our attention.
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