Wise Men Still Seek Him
“Oh! You’re putting your Christmas things away!” I noticed, as I was picking up my friend.
“No, no, not until after Epiphany!” she said. “Our tradition is to take down the tree when Epiphany is over.”
Tomorrow, January 6, is The Feast of Holy Epiphany and in celebration, I will post two more works of art I found to celebrate the wise men seeking the child by following a mysterious star. Many people are still looking for a scientific foundation for the Star of Wonder and if you click on the blue Star of Wonder it will take you to a very good discussion of some of the possibilities from BBC News.
I like this one because the Wise Men have on clothing that really looks Persian:
Here, in a painting by Murillo, they look, not surprisingly, Spanish/European, except for the African!
I wonder if in their travels, these wise men came through Kuwait?
An Eye for an Eye – Does Revenge Change Anything?
I have been following my own post with interest. The truth is, there is a huge part of me that agrees with you, agrees with Ameneh, who wants her attacker to suffer as she has suffered, to pay for the life he has stolen from her.
I used to be a lot more idealistic than I am now. I can remember the two times in my life I came face-to-face with who I am, viscerally, in my gut.
The first time, I was living in Jordan, and I awoke in the middle of the night. I heard gunfire. My husband was out of town – that happened a lot. Things like cars breaking down, heaters going out in the dead of winter, ants attacking (don’t even ask), those things always waited for my husband to be out of town. Now gunfire.
I finally called my British neighbors, who called their Security office, who said it was probably just the police shooting packs of dogs who attacked the sheep at night.
I knew, though, that night, that if I had a gun in the house, I would shoot anyone who came through the front door to protect my son. I had never thought of myself that way. I had never considered myself a killer. And I knew I could kill, without a second thought, to protect my son.
We all have times when we find out who we are, what we are made of. Men who go off to war and kill for a living have to live with their actions for the rest of their lives. Many, many live with regrets.
People who lived through the Invasion of Kuwait endured and suffered unimaginable horrors. Many won’t even talk about the things they saw or had to do.
Here is my problem with revenge – you have to live with the consequences.
If I had shot an intruder, even thinking it was a criminal, I would have to live with that the rest of my life. Even NOT shooting an intruder, I have to live with the thought that I would have, that I was fully prepared to kill. It still haunts me, even though I didn’t do anything, even though I just thought about it.
I like what This Lady said. I want this man punished, but if we choose to inflict the same punishment on him, don’t we lower ourselves to his level? I think life imprisonment would be worse. On another blog, dealing with the same topic, one Iranian woman wrote that if this man is blinded, some female in his family will be chosen to take care of him for the rest of his life, feeding him, preparing his meals. She, too, will be sacrificed, lose her own life to the obligation of taking care of this blinded villain for the rest of his life. Wouldn’t we all be better off if he were locked away, never to be free again?
I published the photo with the original article because I was shocked and intrigued by it. In spite of her blindness and disfigurement, this woman is laughing, and her mother is hugging her. In many ways, her life is blessed. Because God works in amazing and wonderful ways, we know that he can use this terrible act to do great things in her life, bring her peace, bring her new understanding . . . we don’t know what he can do, but we can trust that her life is not over, that he can still use her to fulfill his purpose in this world.
Reading your comments, trying to find my own response has been a challenge. As I said – if it were me, if it were my sister, God forbid – I know I would want revenge. I know that fiery outrage lives in all our hearts; the desire to take an eye for an eye. I know that dragon in my own heart.
And yet . . . I am left with this very uneasy feeling that revenge and retribution are neither deterrent, nor satisfying. I trust that if this sentence is carried out, God can even do great things with this violent assailant, that he can work in his heart and give him a new way of seeing, he can bring him to repentance, he can do great works, even in the heart of this sinner.
My greatest, gravest concern is for Ameneh. She seems to be a very stable, courageous woman. I fear that revenge can act as a poison in her soul, that the punishment, if inflicted, will eat away at all the goodness of her life. I fear for any of us who become obsessed with revenge at the cost of who we were created to be.
You have been very forceful in your expression of belief that the sentence should be imposed. Don’t you harbor any misgivings about this, no matter how small?
An Eye for an Eye in Iran – Penalty for Acid Disfigurement?
I found this today in the Washington Post
Woman Blinded by Spurned Man Invokes Islamic Retribution
By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, December 14, 2008; Page A01
TEHRAN — Ameneh Bahrami once enjoyed photography and mountain vistas. Her work for a medical equipment company gave her financial independence. Several men had asked for her hand in marriage, but the hazel-eyed electrical technician had refused them all. “I wanted to get married, but only to the man I really loved,” she said.
Four years ago, a spurned suitor poured a bucket of sulfuric acid over her head, leaving her blind and disfigured.
Late last month, an Iranian court ordered that five drops of the same chemical be placed in each of her attacker’s eyes, acceding to Bahrami’s demand that he be punished according to a principle in Islamic jurisprudence that allows a victim to seek retribution for a crime. The sentence has not yet been carried out.
You can read the rest of the article Here.
You may think you know how I feel about this. The man stole from this woman. He violated her very life. He stole her ability to see, her ability to support herself, he disfigured her for life and stole the likelihood of the love match she was holding out for. He treated her like property – if he can’t have her, then he will have revenge.
She fought – and won – for him to be blinded with the same acid she has been blinded with. She doesn’t ask that he be disfigured, only blinded. The court in Iran agreed. The sentence has not yet been carried out.
I’m interested in what YOU think. I feel sympathy for the woman, Ahmena Bahrami. I love the way she went after her attacker in the courts. I love it that she didn’t just collapse and be a victim.
On the other hand, I wish she had gone after something different. The thought of purposely blinding someone is SO repugnant to me, I can’t support it. I wish she had gone after his money, forcing him to support her at the level she was earning, for the rest of her life – and his. I find myself thinking – what good does it do to blind him?
He committed a heinous act. Hideous, unthinkable. And yet I find the punishment equally hideous, and unthinkable. I worry that in the future, she will regret having enforced this upon her assailant. I think that revenge, getting revenge, can extract it’s own price from our character. Do you think she will feel better? Do you think she will be happier knowing he was blinded in retrubution? I kinda sorta doubt it.
What do you think?
NY Cover Giggle
I can’t help it, this just gave me such a giggle.
From The New Yorker
The cartoon refers both to an American senator, Larry Craig, caught playing footsie with the cop in the next stall in the Minneapolis airport and Ahmadinajad playing footsie with nuclear power.
YouTubers had a field day with Craig’s guilty plea, and then reversal. Here is one:
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!
NYT Article on “Shiitization of Syria”
My neice, Little Diamond wrote this morning referring to an excellent piece entitled Catalytic Conversion about persistent rumors of “Shiitization” in Syria. The article, by Andrew Tabler, is from today’s New York Times Sunday Magazine section, begins here:
The Middle East is abuzz with talk of “Shiitization.” Since the war in Lebanon last summer, newspapers, TV news channels and Web sites in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have reported that Sunnis, taken with Hezbollah’s charismatic Shiite leader Hassan Nasrallah and his group’s “resistance” to Israel, were converting to Shiite Islam. When I recently visited the semi-arid plains of eastern Syria, known as the Jazeera, Sunni tribal leaders whispered stories of Iranians roaming the Syrian countryside handing out bags of cash and macaroni to convert families and even entire villages to Shiite Islam.
You can read the original article from the New York Times Sunday Magazine section HERE.
Even After All this Time – Latifi
A good book can make your blood race faster. A good book may even require underlines, turned page corners to mark the places you liked the best. A good book may compell you to tell others about it. Above all, a good book is a book you think about long after you have turned the last page.
Some of my best “good books” come to me through Little Diamond, my neice who lives in Beirut. We share a family culture, but even better, we share a wacky sense of humor. There are times we can’t even let our eyes meet in family gatherings, because we are thinking the same thing and can’t afford to laugh out loud.
She recommended this book to me more than three years ago, and I bought it immediately. And then it sat in my “read me soon” pile(s), languishing, unread, until early this year.
Oh, what a treat this book is! Once I picked it up, I could hardly put it down!
The book is autobiographical, and begins in pre-revolutionary Iran, where Afchineh Latifi’s father is a soldier. You see the early years of her life with her sweet, struggling parents, and you feel like you lived in their home with them, the images are so vivid.
As a military officer, though, her father is suspect once the revolutionaries come into power, and her family’s fortunes fail. Her father is arrested. As Latifi’s mother bravely goes from jail to jail, trying to find her husband, her daughters are often with her. Once she finds him, she brings him comfort items – shaving kit, washcloth, etc. so he can maintain a small amount of dignity while he is being beaten and imprisoned. Latifi’s mother was young when this book opens, maybe in her thirties, with two daughters and two sons, and I am totally blown away by the courage it took to persist as her husband was transferred from prison to prison, increasingly brutalized, and then, immediately after the last visit – shot. So immediately that the family heard the shots.
And then the real nightmare begine. The young mother and her family have no income, and her (now dead) husband’s mother claims her house, even though they bought her a house of her own while her husband was alive. Latifi’s Mom never gives up. She gets her daughters visitor’s visas to Austria and puts them in a convent school, and then gets them to America – again on visitor’s visas – where they are forced to camp – for years – with a relative. Literally, years. Their brave mother eventually manages to get herself and her sons out of Iran, and join them in the US.
Their mother is a pistol. She is brave in the face of obstacles that would deter most of us. She never gives up. I am in total awe of her commitment to the survival – and thriving – of her family.
I love this book for two reasons – the first being the strength and courage of this family, and the second being that they immigrated to America. You will hear a lot of Americans who say terrible things about immigrants, and how they take up scarce resources better meant for “real” Americans. Who are they kidding? We are ALL immigrants, in America, except for the Native Americans! This family, their will to succeed, is the story of us all, and what makes the country great. It is still a country where you can work hard, and succeed, and thrive. It’s an every day story in our country, but a story I never get tired of hearing.
Here are some excerpts from the book:
She looked at me as if I were an alien, which in fact I was. “Yes,” she said, “You get a library card and you can borrow as many books as you want.”
“And it doesn’t cost a thing?” I asked.
“Not a penny,” the woman said. “Unless you bring the books back late. Then we charge you a late fee.”
This was news to me. There were libraries in Tehran to be sure, but we had never frequented them. Mom would come home every two or three weeks with armsful of new books, and we would devour them hungrily. We were much too spoiled to share books with anyone.
The librarian processed my card on the spot. I couldn’t believe it. It felt like the biggest gift of my life. . . . . By the end of the summer I discovered a whole new world. Books. Words. Stories. I got in touch with my inner geek. Reading was not only exciting, it offered escape. When I was reading, my other life didn’t exist. There were days when I didn’t even think of Mom.
Her Mother was still in Iran at this time, and she and her sister are living with relatives who have loud arguments wondering how much longer they will be burdened with these girls. Finally, the two sisters find jobs, as well as going to school, and save every penny, and get an apartment where they live while putting themselves through university. And, one day, their mother and brothers arrive. Life changes. They all live together again.
“It’s almost Norouz,” she said. “Or have you forgotten?”
I had indeed forgotten. She was referring to the Persian New Year, which on the Gregorian calendar falls in late March. About two weeks before the start of Norouz, many Persians take part in something called ‘khane tekani,’ which literally means ‘shaking your house.’ You will see people painting their homes, washing their carpets, sweeping out their attics, cleaning their yards. One could say that it is a form of spring cleaning, but that is only a very small part of it. In Persian ‘no’ means new, and ‘rouz’ means day. The last Wednesday of the year is known as ‘chahar shanbeh suri.’ At dusk, with the cleaning over, people light small bonfires and sing traditional songs, and those who can manage it are urged to jump over flames. Fire, too, is seen as a cleansing, purifying agent: it burns away all the negative things in one’s life – the bad habits, the misfortune, the sorrows. It’s all about cleanliness: clean house, clean soul, new beginnings.
On the “new day” itself, people focus on family and friends, and for the next two weeks there will be much visiting back and forth. In each house, one finds a ‘sofreh eid,’ . . . Laid out on this garment, one will find the ‘Haft Seen’ (Seven S’s) comprised of seven items that begin with the letter S. These are ‘sabzeh’ or sprouts (representing rebirth); samanu, a pudding (for sweetness in life); ‘senjed,’ the sweet, dry fruit of the lotus tree (representing love); ‘serkeh’ or vinegar (for patience); ‘seer’ or garlic (for its medicinal qualities); ‘somaq’ or sumak berries (for the color of sunrise); and ‘seeb’ or red apples (symbols of health and beauty. In addition there are candles laid out on the ‘sofreh eid” one for each member of the household. The lit candles represent the goodness and warmth that enter life with the coming of spring.
(For the first time, this year we are invited to a new year’s celebration, and I thank God that I read this book just at the right time, so I will know even just a little of what this is all about. I am excited to see the ‘haft seen.’ )
Something else happened that November that I will never forget: Our family celebrated Thanksgiving for the first time. We loved the whole idea behind the celebration. It wasn’t about religion, and it wasn’t about gifts; it was about people sitting down to enjoy a meal together and acknowledging everything that they had to be thankful for. And we had a lot to be thankful for.
By the end of the book, all four children have graduated from university with professional degrees. This isn’t a spoiler. The book is about the sacrifice, the hard work and the commitment it took to get them there. Even After All This Time is an inspirational book, a book you won’t soon forget, and a book you will want to share with your friends.
Amazon offers it used from $4.67 and in hardcover around $25.
And Happy New Year to my Persian friends.
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