A few days ago when it was announced that President Mubarak of Egypt was gone without a bloody fight it seemed almost too good to be true. Peaceful solutions don't happen anymore--not in this world of terrorist attacks, ethnic cleansing, drug wars and decade-long wars. And especially not in a country where 90% or more of the population is of Muslim faith. There are those who tell us that all those people are violent, hateful and believe in nothing but "holy war." When lo and behold the dictator who had the police and the miliatary at his beck and call left the country with barely a shot being fired.
What was the secret to this astonishing turn of events when it had all the components of a bloody uprising? I know only what the media shared but I would gather this much. This multitude of thousands shouted and chanted slogans. They sang. And they prayed. The overhead pictures revealed hundreds and hundreds of people kneeling in orderly rows praying. They had also gathered stones--piles of them. But there were few targets.
There was that brief time when the hired thugs came charging through the throngs on horses and camels. There was resistance but in the huge crowd of people even horses and camels had no place to go, and badly outnumbered they soon turned tail.
Day after day, night after night the people were there. they listened to the hollow, vain promises of the dictator but would not be dissuaded. There they were, their voices worn to a whisper and yet they shouted and sing and prayed.
It echoed of a multitude marching around the walls of Jericho blowing tumpets and with a shout crumbling those impregnable walls. I was made to think of a desperate throng caught between sea and army listening to those strange words, "Stand still and see the salvation of God."
I can't say that the Egyptian revolution equals a biblical account of God's deliverance but it is aboundantly clear that if God works through world events God has writ large that it doesn't take AK 47s or bombs to bring about the change the oppressed long for. That just doesn't compute in this country that was birthed in a bloody conflict and has placed its faith firmly in weapons even those of mass destruction. Again and again in an effort to influence the course of events the first course taken is to export weapons. So we arm the world as well as ourselves ever becoming more fearful and insecure while a country of oppressed people shouts and sings and prays and gains their goal.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Best of Old Friends
For a month I have been plowing through Solzhenitsyn's November 1916. His dense style makes finishing a test of self-discipline since it goes on for a thousand pages. On the plus side I am learning a great deal about the people of Russia as the commoners are described during World War I and the lead up to the Communist Revolution.
But as I waded doggedly ahead I came across a couple sentences that made me pause and reflect. "One thing's for sure, no matter how many marvelous people you meet later on, there's no one like the friend of your youth. No one else will ever be so close. If only because there's no one else with whom you can relieve your past in such detail. Your friend knows all about it, has shared it..."
With even brief reflection I have to say Solzhenitsyn has really nailed it for me. Immediately to mind come images of ten or twelve people who fit that category. And I find that the farther back we go the more significant they become. The very earliest through adolescent years somehow have a claim on my friendship that is beyond my explanation. It must be that together we experienced some of those earliest life-shaping experiences that will never be shared with anyone else. They alone know what it was like to be there, to see, to hear, to feel, to smell what will forever be indelibly imprinted on our minds and personalities. We each expereinced the same, but differently so the events have different meanings for each but we each remember and it is ours.
I shared the "church" experience with one adolescent/teen friend. While we had very different family experiences and eventually different life goals we shared much in the social realm. We played sports together and dated girls together. I think we admired each other for our different strengths and challenged each other to succeed.
One warm Sunday evening we either had no dates or took them home early. We drove toether to my house and instead of just stopping to let me off, he quickly turned off the lights and turned off the moter. For several long minutes we sat in silence listening to the crickets. Both of us were feeling we were in the vicinity of a crossroads. We scarecly knew how to say our thoughts. But eventually we got to the question, "Is this all there is?" And each of us rolled that question around as we thought as deeply as we knew how about the direction of life and what were our options.
His conclusion was different from mine in that months later he would say my course is set while I said there is a different way I must take. But our different choices were being made together and that gives our relationship a different quality. We shared a quiet hour when we were being "real" together, dealing with crucial issues in our "real" amateur way. That makes my friend special and one I will treasure always. The author is exactly right, "...there's no one like the friend of your youth."
But as I waded doggedly ahead I came across a couple sentences that made me pause and reflect. "One thing's for sure, no matter how many marvelous people you meet later on, there's no one like the friend of your youth. No one else will ever be so close. If only because there's no one else with whom you can relieve your past in such detail. Your friend knows all about it, has shared it..."
With even brief reflection I have to say Solzhenitsyn has really nailed it for me. Immediately to mind come images of ten or twelve people who fit that category. And I find that the farther back we go the more significant they become. The very earliest through adolescent years somehow have a claim on my friendship that is beyond my explanation. It must be that together we experienced some of those earliest life-shaping experiences that will never be shared with anyone else. They alone know what it was like to be there, to see, to hear, to feel, to smell what will forever be indelibly imprinted on our minds and personalities. We each expereinced the same, but differently so the events have different meanings for each but we each remember and it is ours.
I shared the "church" experience with one adolescent/teen friend. While we had very different family experiences and eventually different life goals we shared much in the social realm. We played sports together and dated girls together. I think we admired each other for our different strengths and challenged each other to succeed.
One warm Sunday evening we either had no dates or took them home early. We drove toether to my house and instead of just stopping to let me off, he quickly turned off the lights and turned off the moter. For several long minutes we sat in silence listening to the crickets. Both of us were feeling we were in the vicinity of a crossroads. We scarecly knew how to say our thoughts. But eventually we got to the question, "Is this all there is?" And each of us rolled that question around as we thought as deeply as we knew how about the direction of life and what were our options.
His conclusion was different from mine in that months later he would say my course is set while I said there is a different way I must take. But our different choices were being made together and that gives our relationship a different quality. We shared a quiet hour when we were being "real" together, dealing with crucial issues in our "real" amateur way. That makes my friend special and one I will treasure always. The author is exactly right, "...there's no one like the friend of your youth."
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