When the Wicked Prosper
I learn so much listening to my Kuwaiti friends. The other night, over dinner, a good friend explained to me about how Islam teaches you that if someone slaps you, you are supposed to turn the other cheek. That is exactly what Jesus told us to do, and I had NO idea it was also in the Qur’an.
So here is my question for today: What does the Qur’an have to say about people who appear to prosper, even though they are bad, through and through.
In my culture, many times I have heard people ask how people who do such evil can also appear to be so blessed? The question crosses all the boundaries of church alliance, religion, morality. Isn’t good supposed to be rewarded? Why do the wicked appear to have abundance, and to be kept safe, while bad things happen to good people?
Psalm 37 has all the answers. My favorite is line 13 – The Lord laughs at the wicked; he knows their day is coming. I think I’ll write it out and put it on my dashboard, and instead of cursing when some yahoo cuts me off with only a millimeter to spare, I will repeat that verse.
Today’s Psalm from the readings of The Lectionary is about that very subject.
Psalm 37
Of David.
1Do not fret because of the wicked;
do not be envious of wrongdoers,
2for they will soon fade like the grass,
and wither like the green herb.
3Trust in the Lord, and do good;
so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
4Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him, and he will act.
6He will make your vindication shine like the light,
and the justice of your cause like the noonday.
7Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
do not fret over those who prosper in their way,
over those who carry out evil devices.
8Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath.
Do not fret—it leads only to evil.
9For the wicked shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.
10Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look diligently for their place, they will not be there.
11But the meek shall inherit the land,
and delight in abundant prosperity.
12The wicked plot against the righteous,
and gnash their teeth at them;
13but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he sees that their day is coming.
14The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows
to bring down the poor and needy,
to kill those who walk uprightly;
15their sword shall enter their own heart,
and their bows shall be broken.
16Better is a little that the righteous person has
than the abundance of many wicked.
17For the arms of the wicked shall be broken,
but the Lord upholds the righteous.
18The Lord knows the days of the blameless,
and their heritage will abide for ever
Obvious Paternity
Today’s LOL from I Can Has Cheezburgers – no DNA testing necessary:
moar funny pictures
Niemoeller and “When They Came for Me. . . “
Today’s quote from A.Word.A.Day:
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the
tormentor, never the tormented.
-Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b.1928)
When I read this quote, I was reminded of Pastor Martin Niemoeller’s poem about Nazi Germany, “When They Came For Me:”
In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
We are all by nature cowards. We take the easy way out, we look the other way, we tell ourselves “later” I will do this or that, “later” I will get involved. When our nations and our character slide into the dumps, we have no one but ourselves to blame.
Berry and The Alexandrian Link
On his way back from a recent trip, AdventureMan bought a book in an airport, which he read and then asked me to read. Here is what he said:
“It’s not a great book, but I don’t know why I say that. It has an interesting idea and I want to know what you think.”
So just after I finished Inheritance of Loss I started in with this book, and it was the second book I will not recommend to you.
It is wooden. The characters are about a millimeter deep. The plot is unbelievable and doesn’t make sense and doesn’t hang together. It is full of adventure and travel and shoot-outs, which our “hero” miraculously comes through without a scratch while all around him his foes are dropping like flies.
It DOES hinge on an interesting theory, one I had never heard before. There is a Lebanese historian and archaeologist, Kamal Salibi, who published a book called The Bible Came from Arabia. In this book Salibi makes his case for the “holy land” which was given to Abraham not being in Palestine at all, but rather in what is currently Saudi Arabia, along the western coast. He uses the utter lack of archeological findings in current day Israel/Palestine which support biblical accounts, and the plentitude of place names in the Asir region which closely resemble what the place names would have looked like and sounded like in ancient Hebrew, the language of the earliest biblical times.
The book, and the theory was, of course, controversial. If the contentions were true, it would undermine the foundation of the state of Israel in Palestine; it would mean that people have been fighting for the last 60 years over the wrong piece of land.
Here is a (very bad) photo of the map in the book which shows where Salibi believes the biblical cities were actually located. He believes “Jerusalem” was not a city, but an area within which were several cities. He believes “the Jordan” was not a river, but a mountain range, and that here, also, Moses and his refugees from Egypt wandered.
Unless you really love reading badly plotted books with cardboard characters, I would not recommend reading The Alexandrian Link. As a jumping off point for an interesting line of research – AdventureMan was right; this book gives you something new and different to contemplate.
Lapsang Souchong
When I was in college, my aunt sent me a box of Lapsang Souchong tea. Winters were long and cold, rainy and windy, and lapsang souchong has a very smokey taste. Often as I was studying, I would have a cup next to me to warm me from the inside, but also because I was so totally addicted to the smell, which is like that of a wood-burning fire.
I checked lapsang souchong on Wikipedia, and this is what they say:
Lapsang souchong is a black tea originally from the Mount Wuyi area in the Fujian province of China[1], sometimes referred to as Smoke Tea. The tea leaves have been withered over pine or cedar fires, pan-fired, rolled and oxidized before being fully dried in bamboo baskets over burning pine.[2] The result is a smoky, robust tea with an overriding scent and flavour of wood smoke, which dominates the flavour of the black tea itself.
The name in Fukienese means “smokey sub-variety”, and is a variation of the older WuyiBohea tea.[3] In popular legend the tea was created during the Qing dynasty when soldiers camping in a tea processing company delayed the drying of the tea leaves. After the soldiers had left, the workers sped up the drying process by hanging the tea leaves over burning pine wood. [4]
Lapsang souchong from the original source is expensive, as Wuyi is a small area and there is increasing interest in the tea. [5]
the Wikipedia article on lapsang souchong (which you can read for yourself by clicking on the blue type) also says lapsang souchong is “an acquired taste.”
They are right. It is strong, not at all refined. I haven’t seen Lapsang Souchong on the menus anywhere in Kuwait. It is beginning to appear on a menu or two back in Seattle, where tea shops are plentiful and tea is widely appreciated.
I fixed some for a friend who dropped by the other afternoon, and revelled in the smokey scent that lingers, even this morning, in my clothing from having brewed it up.
I wish I had a fireplace!
(It is 2°C this morning in Kuwait (36°F) at 0800, and tonight is expected to be even colder than last night.)
Well of Good Will
There are some days when ideas just come tumbling into my head, faster than I can write them, and days that I struggle to think of anything that interests me enough to write it up, much less interesting you, the reader. This is one of those days, and then, a flash! an inspiration!
I read so many other blogs dealing with betrayals in love and friendship, disappointment, personal relationships gone bad, and grudges carried forever. When I read them, I get the image of Gollum, from Lord of the Rings:
Gollum is one of the scariest characters ever created, because we know how close to Gollum we are. As he hunches over his “precious” ring, we hunch over our grudges, carrying them, petting them, talking to them, and as we cherish our hurt feelings, our anger, our resentment, our feelings of betrayal, we feed them, they grow, they take up more and more of our attention. We hide these grievances away, taking them out and petting them from time to time, outwardly looking normal, but, in time, wasting away spiritually while we focus on our “precious.”
I prefer to think of The Well of Good Will.
In a relationship, the longer you are in it, the more deposits you make into the well of good will. It is the little things you do in a relationship – how you hold the door when the other is carrying a package, how you bring a bowl of hot soup if they have a cold, how you pick up their meal when they are short of cash, how you listen when a friend has a problem, or remember to ask about their mother when she is having a bout of ill health. These tiny, consistent deposits into the well grow, they earn interest, they earn dividends, small as they are, they fill the well to the brim.
The well of good will never overflows, it just grows to hold the treasures of the relationship.
From time time time, circumstances will arise which require a withdrawal from the well of good will. We all have circumstances in which we become selfish, we strike, even at those who love us, because we are in pain. We all have times when we are tired and say something mean. We all have rough patches in our lives when we have nothing extra to add to the well of good will, and make sizeable withdrawals against the good will of those who love us.
Fortunately, all those prior deposits have earned interest, and it would take a long time for the well to run dry.
In relationships which have not existed long enough to build up that well, when a person disappoints you or betrays you, you are much likelier to just walk away. There isn’t enough history, there haven’t been enough deposits in the well to make such a sizable withdrawal. We say “shake the dust from your feet”, it’s just another way of saying “move on.” Walk away from a bad investment. Don’t look back. Just move on.
If, like the Gollem, you focus on those losses, if you carry around your resentments and grudges as if they were something precious, you starve the well of good will. If you choose to nourish your anger, you neglect your well of good will. We carry negative energy at great cost, cost to our body, minds and to our spirits.
Choose, instead, to focus your investments in the well of good will, doing good even when you don’t see the rate of return. An investment in doing good, in doing the right thing, is an investment in yourself, in your spirit, in your character, reaping dividends in peace, serenity, calmness and good cheer.
Do I Know You?
I was at a joyful event, full of people I know well, full of people with whom I am acquainted, and full of people who know the people I know, but don’t know me. It was a great party. Even AdventureMan had some great conversations, and enjoyed himself.
You know those little hairs at the back of your neck, the ones who rise up and tell you to pay attention? I found those little antenna standing up, and wondered “do I know you?” looking at total strangers. I had a strong feeling there were bloggers in the room.
As It Snows . . .
Catching up with the news, I was looking at the Thursday Kuwait Times when I came across a photo. I am not going to print the photo in my blog, but if you want to look at it, or one like it, you can see it at Yahoo News, just click here on the blue type.
The photo of the execution, titled Iran hangs 13 on a single day is extraordinary enough. I don’t think we print those kind of photos in American newspapers. Maybe in the tabloids; these photos are considered disturbing. I know they disturb me. This one in the Kuwait Times has big white balls in it and the caption reads: QOM, Iran: Three Iranian drug traffickers hang limply from the nooses as it snows in a square in this central city yesterday.
I remember cutting out a similar one from a paper in Saudi Arabia when I lived there. It didn’t have a photo, but the article was about the Taliban hanging of a convicted man in the stadium in Kabul. It stated the man was wearing a blue sharwal khamis. There was no mention of why this man was hung, of what he was convicted.
The Yahoo version of the same hanging of 13 states: Three Iranian drug traffickers hang limply from the nooses after being executed in a square.
To me, the mention of snow falling as people are executed, of the executed man seems . . . maybe poetic? Maybe some way of softening the horror? I don’t know. It’s not something we would do. Bad news is left bare, without a lot of dressing it up. I would love to get your input on this. For me, it’s a different way of thinking.
End of Year Musings
Hello, friends, I am back. We had the most amazing and wonderful adventure, and we are refreshed and happy to be back sleeping in our own bed again.
So of course, one of the first things I do when I get back is go through all my e-mail and then take a quick look at the blog. Even in my absence, the stats stayed high – until Christmas Day, when they dropped to about half. . . and there they stay. (Big grin) If this hadn’t happened last year, too, I would be shocked, but remember last year when I published all those great Thanksgiving and Christmas recipes? Those are what has pumped up the statistics. Most days in November and December, the Christmas Punch – Rum, and Rumless and the Christmas Divinity Candy have pumped those stats up above the thousand visitors / day mark several times.
Last year, it took me until September to match my December statistics. I wonder if I will ever match this December’s?
Like many bloggers, I write this blog for the sheer joy of writing. I don’t want to be a person who watches my stats, and at the same time, it interests me what interests YOU, the reader. What interests me also is that many times the most visited entries keep getting visits months later, even over a year later, and from time to time these earlier entries get a comment. I have seen the same thing on Jewaira’s blog, and although we are very different bloggers, she is still my primary blog-role-model. She is a blogger who, through sheer imagination and good writing has kept a loyal and enthusiastic readership. . . I want to be Jewaira when I grow up, bloggily speaking.
Don’t we all do a little personal inventory as the old year ends and the new year is about to begin? I’m not big on resolutions, but I am big on behavioral changes, and this week is a good week to muse, to ruminate, to think about what I want the future year to look like.
Is there some area YOU would like to explore in the new year? Some aspect of your character you would like to develop? Some talent you would like to give an opportunity to grow?
What Will Matter?
I am thinking about all the people who are making resolutions for the coming year. I don’t do resolutions – for me, it’s too depressing, I fail so often. I do try to change my behaviors, small changes that I hope will lead to grander changes in the long run. I try to keep things in perspective. I try to make good choices.
AdventureMan shared this writing with me, it is a writing by Michael Josephson called What Will Matter sent out by an organization called Character Counts.org.
What Will Matter
by Michael Josephson
Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned of what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.
Soon, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.
So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?
What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built,
not what you got but what you gave.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched,
empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.
What will matter is not your competence but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew,
but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.
What will matter is not your memories, but the memories of those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom, and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.
It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.
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