doing well by doing good

If love maifests itself within you,
it has its origins in beauty.
You are nothing but a mirror in which beauty is reflected.
(Jami)

wednesday, 3 november

Steve and Ace left this morning at 1 AM. It has been good to have them here. They approach this whole world with different eyes than I do and they helped me to see things I might not have otherwise seen. Certainly they both approach Beirut as businessmen, both of them very successful and competent businessmen, while remaining honest and fair. But Steve is especially astute at politics, national and international, and with his background in journalism and political science it was like having a running commentary by a professional pandit. I was amazed at his ability to remember names and dates, and to tie things together. Ace brings his own perspective as a Shi'a Muslim of Lebanese origin. The two of them didn't always agree on the conclusions, but each always had a valid perspective.

We had quite a few good discussions, espeically with Dr Nayla again the other night, about the place of religion in all this. It is rightly suggested often by many people that if religion, especially fundamentalism, is the cause of so much discord, why not just do away with it? My answer is that religion is not the cause, but is used as a weapon. That's just the very surface of the dialogue we've had going on about this, enough to say that is why we (whoever "we" are) are trying to separate the fish from the bones in religious discourse, get to the essentials, the universals, the "ground we share," the transformative practices, while we try to understand each other. In my interactions with Nayla, for instance, I find absolutely no room for discord, even if we disagree about some fundamental things (though I am not sure we do) as a Muslim and a Christian. The ground we share is a lot bigger than the ground we don't. Why is that? What is that? It's at least the existential truth that religion, or at least the spiritual life, is not, or at least need not be, a source of discord but instead is and can be the "ground we share."

While Ace was off with his relatives in the south on Sunday Steve and I called up Deeb and Nadia, my monk friend Ildebrando's family, in East Beirut and invited ourselves over for Sunday lunch again. Mr Deeb came and fetched us from the hotel and gave us another guided tour across Beirut on the way to their house. Their three girls were all home (as is always the case, so Deeb told us) for Sunday lunch, and they made the gathering even more fun. All three are bright, articulate and friendly, and beautiful. The oldest is already working as a banker, the middle one is the associate producer for an afternoon TV show, the youngerst is just starting university studies. All spoke English quite well and we had a lively conversation throughout. Deeb beams with pride when he looks at them or speaks of them or even when he is not-too-convincingly complaining about them. He is intent on them having a good education. Their mother Nadia cooked up a wonderful lunch with many concessions to my vegetarian viral-wracked stomach, but Steve feasted on everything.

On the way home Deeb showed us a few more famous sites in the city. The most powerful one was the exact spot where former prime minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated in 2005, along with his aides. All told 22 people were killed that day. They say the bomb was so powerful it cut a 100 foot hole in the ground. It's simply amazing. Even more than the Israeli bombing in 2006, it is that event that seems to remain as the latest of bookmarks in a long series of horrific events in this land. And no one is still sure how, or why, or who. That is the business of the STL, the UN's Special Tribunal on Lebanon. Some thought it was Syria, but the current prime minister, in London the other day, publicly said that it was not them. (How is he sure?) Some say it might have been the Israelis; if the tribunal were to find that, there would be apocalyptic repercussions, but many say that if the STL were to find that they would hide it. Of course some think that it was Hezbollah, and it looks even worse for them now since their leader Nasrallah recently demanded that his followers not co-operate with the investigations of the STL, becaase doing so would be like co-operating with oppression and because, he said, everything was being reported back the Israelis.

Some say Hariri was killed because he was too close to Saudi money, money that was actually helping to rebuild Beirut. (It was helping rebuild Beirut and still is.) Everywhere we went we saw construction going on, large new malls and office buildings, and of course the wonder that is Solidaire, a high-end shopping district down by the water, with a mammoth new mosque, lots of fine dining, many restored old buildings from the French period--the time arguably of Beirut's modern glory days, when it was the Paris of the East. This was the part of Beirut and the thing about Mr Hariri that Ace and Steve were particularly interested in, how a man of business could do so well by doing such good.

I decided to spent the whole day with Steve and Ace yesterday, since it was there last day, no matter what they wanted to do. So we went to a distirct known as Basta, an antique district. The stores where we started were crowded dirty little places stuffed with room after room of stuff, some of it good, some of it just junk. It was strange to see ancient Oriental items next to Art Deco French furniture, Persian rugs and Herb Alpert and Tijuana Brass LPs. As we moved on the stores got nicer and the prices as well. The two of them knew a lot about what was there, and it was fun to watch them bargain and search, though not much was bought. Then we walked down to Solidaire, for a little snack (Ace chose for us to stop at Starbucks, ignoring my protestations), to get a wider view of the place (we had been once before) and to make a stop at the Virgin Mega Store, into one of which neither Ace nor I had ever been. In Amin Maalouf's book "On Identity" he points to Toynbee's thesis about history in three phases, that has been very much on my mind these days: first the slow accumulation and dissemination of knowledge, when many cultures grew at pace; then a large increase of knowledge but slow dissemination when some cultures advanced ahead of others so greater differences emerged; now the massive increase in knowledge but an ever faster dissemination which homogenizes cultures but doesn't necessarily make them smarter. Talk about homogenization! So there I was in Beirut looking at the same Top 10 CDs and movies that I would in Monterey, and having a snack at Starbucks.

We were going to go and see the mosque as well but on the way in we found something that we had had no idea was there. It was a large tent-like structure with armed guards that contained the grave of Rafiq Hariri and his bodyguards. It was perched right there on the edge of Solidaire near the entrance to the mosque, both of which were of course his dream come true.

I've got our modest business suite to myself this morning. I turned the living room into a little yoga room and did my asanas while watching the results of the American elections, about which many people here have been fascinated. I am feeling just about 100 pecent better now, so then I ate the equivalent of all three of our free breakfasts down at the buffet. In an hour or so my young Danish friend Petter, who we met on the way to Minyara, is coming at noon to show me a few more things in the city and have lunch. Then Fadi is picking me up at 2 to drive me off to the Convent of Saint Maron, patron of the Maronites and the Oasis Saint Charbel, named for the most famous hermit monk saint of that place, whose picture you see everywhere. I was thinking this morning, I have gotten a really good dose of the political, cultural and even religious landscape of this region, but I am not sure if I have caught anything of the spiritual genius of this region. The closest I got was the few moments in the mosque yesterday, seeing how many people, even young ones, and especially young men, were coming in and performing their salat, putting their hands to their ears, bending low at the waist or prostrating to the ground, kneeling on their calves with eyes closed silently facing Mecca, listening, attending. I am sorry that we never got to Mar Musa or any of the monastic areas of Syria but maybe this little sojourn to the lap of Saint Charbel and reading Kahil Gibran will cure that.

I have this sense that it is that monastic impulse, of Christianity or of religion in general in its simplicity, that is the only real response for me, and the best thing I have to offer. A life rooted in purity of heart, mind, body, emptying oneself completely, content with the grace of God. Nothing else seems to really be able to make us really well nor bring about real good. But that combined with the Sufi impulse--to live in the world and still pursue the highest mystical goals. (Robert Frager). Is this not also "To do well by doing good"? I keep remembering the line that Gitanjlai and I heard in Delhi that I typed immediately into my iPhone: "What I thought was hidden in mystery, I found in the marketplace." To be in the world but not of it, Jesus asked of his disciples.

the tension

Would that I were a never blossoming tree, which gave no fruit.
For the pain of fecundity is more bitter than the pain of bareneness,
and the torments of the well-to-do with their inalienable wealth
hold horrors greater than any suffered by a pauper who goes without food.
(Kahil Gibran)

hallow's eve, beirut

It has taken me this long to realize that I should be reading Kahil Gibran here in Lebanon in the same way that I read Tagore in India. The small volume I picked up is called "The Vision," meditations, essays and prose poems on the nature of the spiritual life, maybe a companion to Tagore's "Sadhana." But even more than that, these above verses reminded me of the Book of Job, which I inexplicably have wound up reading during this trip, though a whole different kind of mourning.

Everything seemed to conspire against me getting to Mar Musa, the ancient monastery of Moses the Ethiopian prince turned desert monk, now a great site of cultural artifacts (especially the Coptic iconography) as well as for Christian-Muslim encounter under the prophetic hand of Don Paolo. First of all, because of some dispute with the community (over commercial and/or environmental issues, or simply because the leader of the community is a firebrand Italian Jesuit), the government would not give the necessary permission for me to do a concert there. We were still going to go, though I was requested not even "to take the guitar out of its case" so that no one would get the impression that I was sneaking a performance in. But then, as I wrote last week, we had all gotten a variety of levels of deathly ill, even Linda and Agnete by the time we left Aleppo, except the intrepid Dane, Jonas. So Steve and Ace had decided that they were going to go straight back to Beirut via Damascus, because Ace had had a particularly bad bout of the yuk. But Linda, Jonas and I were till going to brave on. But to crown it all, we heard from Dr Riad of Adhyan, requesting that we three not go either. It was still my call, but by that time it felt like a losing battle. I was pretty weak and Linda looked worse than I felt. So we all piled into a mini-bus and headed out of Aleppo Thursday morning, without any of us (outside Jonas!) having gotten to experience any of Aleppo's ancient majesty.

It was a long long journey along the east side of the mountains. We were told a number of times that Lebanon was "just over those mountains." It was a very harsh landscape, about what I was expecting, dotted with villages and some small cities, washed in a kind of dove grey. I was imaging, no doubt way too romantically, the early Christian monks in this region. We saw all kinds of folks on the road, the Bedouins with their herds, many smiling young men with the typical red headscarf and black sunglasses zipping along full speed on small motorbikes. At one point, we stopped at a large modern road market, and our driver Muhammad pointed out that just over the hills to our east was Mar Musa itself. I remember it as being kind of a happy ride, that first leg at least, much conversation and a lot of us sharing snacks along the way, having recovered somewhat, kind of relieved that the worst was over, also knowing our merry little band of six was going to part ways in Damascus. At Damascus we left Agnete and Jonas behind, as they were both to be leaving from there the next day, and piled into another taxi, which took us through the various check points, obstructions, greased palms and genuine official border business, all of which took some time. Then a few more hours into the outskirts of Beirut, which was hopping with early evening traffic. Syrian cars (in one of which we were) cannot drive into Beirut, so we stopped at a gas station outside of town and transfered our persons and stuff into two other cabs, one for Linda and the other to take us to our hotel in Hamra. By the time we got there, between the noise and diesel fumes let alone the sheer number of hours driving, we were not such a happy bunch anymore. Luckily we found out that the Casa D'Or, the modest hotel where I had stayed the week before, had a business suite that could accomodate the three of us and was available until the guys leave on Wednesday. Steve and Ace were ready to go find some food, but I was done and decided to just get a simple soup and rice downstairs. But I couldn't get the rice down. And when the guys came back, Ace had had much the same problem. The next morning I was feverish and not holding things in again and spent the day in bed, and the past three days have been pretty much alternating in that pattern, with only Steve hardy enough to withstand all.

The latest diagnosis is that it has been a viral infection all along, not food, which explains why we all got it and why it won't just go away just like that. But we've somehow kept going anyway. I've been getting out in the early morning and walking (if not running) on the corniche along the sea coast before the other guys get up, along with hundreds of other Beirutis, who are often drinking coffee, smoking the ever-present argille (I'm not sure of the spelling but in 'merica we call it a "hookah pipe"), fishing or even exercising.

The education about the complexity of this country is ongoing and makes one more and more humble if not maddened and mystified. Saturday I was invited to attend Adhyan's annual Day of Spiritual Solidarity. (Recall, Adhyan is the Christian-Muslim organization that partly sponsored my being here in partnership with Danmission.) We met our friend Nayla (Dr Nayla Tabbara, whom we have come to enjoy immensely) and a few dozen other pilgrims in front of the National Museum, where we boarded the bus that was to take us deep into the south to Sour, the biblical city of Tyre, where the event was to be held. We actually dropped a happy Ace off just north of the town of Saida where he caught another ride up into the hills to go spend the night with his family there. We had no idea what the event was going to entail, and Steve spoke about drifting off to visit the old souq (market) in Tyre, but in the end he generously, though perhaps a little reluctantly, agreed to stay with me for the whole event.

Travelers have been warned by the State Department not to venture south of the Latani River, but we were well below the Latani River now, in Hezbollah territory, predominantly Shiite Muslims, very much in sympathy with Iran. There were innumerable posters Hassan Nazrallah,the Secretary General of Hezbollah, hung by the roadsides, and even some of Aytollah Khomeini, so I was told. This is the area that some feel has "met with indifference" at the hands of Lebanon's powerful Maronite Christians and Sunnis with Saudi money. This is where the largest Palestinian refugee camps are. We passed one coming into town. It's also a place mentioned over and over in the Jewish Scriptures as well as in the Gospels, a place Jesus visited. It is from here that Hiram made a bond of friendship with King Solomon and supplied the cedar wood and workers for the Temple in Jerusalem. I yelled out to Steve in the hotel room last night, "Listen to which psalm I just ran into:

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,
and Sirion like a young wild ox.
The Lord shakes the wilderness;
the Lord Shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. (Ps 29:5-8)

These are not war images, mind you, but a confession that the power of God is so awesome that it is mightier than the glory of this great land, which would have been renonwed in the psalmist's day.

The event was being held at the Musa al-Sadar Center (not to be confused with Muftattah al-Sadar of Iraq). He was the prominent Shiite civil leader who did great things for the people of the South until he got on board a place bound for Libya and mysteriously disappeared, never to be heard from again. His sister now runs the organization that bears his name, and it was at her invitation that Fr Fadi and Nayla had chosen to hold the event there. By the time we arrived another several hundred people had already gathered. We still had no idea what to expect. Steve and I sheepishly walked into a circular aula that was the initial gathering space and the first thing to notice was dozens of men in mostly black costumes, with various headresses, and many women gathering around the outside of the circle. The men of course were Muslim and Christian clerics, but it was interesting that at first the difference isn't what struck me. It was the visual impact of all those black robes and the variety of headwear. Of the Christians, my guess is all were either Syrian Orthodox or Catholic; there was no note of Protestant presence that I could tell. Nayla helped us distiguish some of the Muslim ones.

We had arrived just as the events of the day were beginning. The first thing we did was split up into two groups: the Muslims went to another building to do their evening prayer and the Christians went upstairs to another hall to do theirs. (I was warmly recalling this year's Tent of Abraham, and how moving it was to share ritual, and even for us non-Muslims to "hold sacred silence" while they performed the salat. We are fortunate; it is a lot easier for us in California to do such things.) We went up with the Christians and that's when we discovered that everything was of course going to be in Arabic. Our prayer service was a type of evening prayer, with a lot of lusty (if you'll excuse the word) singing, I believe a psalm recitation, various prayers and even a short homily. There were also an annoying number of photographers and videographers.

We then gathered in the main hall for the program proper. There were even more cameramen there (there were definitely all men), and a number of press microphones on the dias as well. It became obvious to us that this was a big deal, and I felt pretty pleased that our friends had pulled off something like this, about dialogue and solidarity, that merited this kind of national attention. Fadi presented a short speech, there was a sldie show, and short film, two different young peoples' music performances (the second one was all girls in white clothes with rose colored hijabs, quite picturesque), the dramatic recitation of a poem and also an award given out, as is done every year. To our surprise the humble little bishop Samil, whom we had met in Saida the week before in his dusty cassock and beautiful smile, was the guest of honor and honoree of the award, now with his own proper Maronite archibishop's headress, a crozier and a beautiful Byzantine cross around his neck. Still smiling beatifically, he reminded me of what I imagined GK Chesterton's Father Dowling to look like, blinking and wondering what all the fuss was about. There was a slide show of his life, a tribute and his acceptance speech. We were told later that his known for both his work for people of all faiths and for his humilty. May that be said of us!

Afterward there was a lavish spread of food. We were a little shy, both gastronomically and culturally, but we did okay. During the second helf of the bus trip home, Nayla came back and offered us a ride back to the hotel, then stayed and talked with us, and we were able to pepper her with questions about the significance of what had taken place. During the walk to her office and on the ride home we had another very educational conversation, as we walked or drove along the infamous Green Line that divided Muslim West Beirut from Christian East Beirut during the civil war years in the mid-1980s. She told us the story of her mother in their Buick Skylark defying the snipers along the demarcation zone to go and visit her Christian friends on the other side of the line, and telling young Nayla to duck down under the dashboard. She told us about the times when there was no government at all, no water, no electricity. Every time we venture out across town I see more evidence of those years, rubble, walls pock marked with bullet holes, and I don't have to ask anymore, "Is that from the war?"

A man asked me on the bus what my impression of Lebanon was. I said, "I find it very tense here. There is a lot of tension." Where, he asked me, where do you feel the tension? "Here," I said, pointing to my belly. "I feel it here."

from aleppo

Yet it was I who taught them how to walk.
It was I who held them in my arms.
I nurtured them like infants and I
raised them to my cheek,
yet they knew not I was their healer.
O Israel!
(Hosea 10)

28 october, Aleppo, Syria

As I said, none of us was in very good shape for the concert here last night, but it went very well. Our immediate host here is a man named Razik, who has done a very good job of advertising the event. It was being held in a Syrian Orthodox church, which at first seemed like it would be a rather incongruous place for a concert. They had specially constructed a stage in front of the sanctuary, and there was a full sound system brought in, with four speakers, a monitor and a sound man in attendance. We were going to do a sound check at 4:30 but prayers were just starting then. A dozen or so priests or monks clad in black came in and were singing antiphonally, in Syriac, with the congregation which appeared to made up mostly of elderly women with heads covered. By the time they finished it was already nearly 5:30, the time when the concert was supposed to begin. We had to wait for the archibishop to show up, and he was placed right front and center in a special chair. A really good crowd showed up, nearly filling the church, by far the largest audience of the tour. Razik introduced me, first in Arabic and then in English, and then the archbishop got up and said some words of welcome too, again first in Arabic and then in English, about how happy they were that I could come there and sing, and how important the work I was doing was, spreading peace and understanding through music and dialogue.

And then I launched in, doing pretty much the same set that I had done the other night at the Danish Institute in Damascus. The acoustic in the building was stellar, though I was really backing off the microphone (Steve thought just enough). Razik was translating the introductions to the songs for me, which I was trying to keep short and to the point. I had asked permission to not do Bismillah this time, partly because I didn't think there were going to be any Muslims there and partly because I was not doing audience participation--very difficult in translation. The audience applauded loudly and appreciatively after every piece. The only chilling moment came when I did "When Israel Was A Child." I introduced it as I usually do, that it was from the book of the prophet Hosea, one of the few places in the bible where God is imaged as a mother--holding the infant tenderly to her cheek--and that I sang it with the hope that there will still prophetic voices that would call Israel and all of us back to our loving relationship with God. Several people left as I was singing that. I was wondering if they were leaving because of a mention of Israel. Then I did "The Ground We Share." I didn't sense any negative emotions from the audience from that one.

Many people came up to talk to me afterwards, mostly young people, and I was surprised at how many of them actually did speak English. I noted how many of them wanted to be able to find the words to the songs because they wanted to read them again. (I have to find a way to get them online.) One of the guys who came to talk was yet another Iraqi refugee, an engineer who is to be moving to California soon. He was very eager to talk, and told me that I should sing a song for the children, since so many Iraqi children are displaced and in dire situations now. I told that I actually did have a song--"Rachel's Lament"--specifically for the children but I had left it out because I had been told that not many people spoke English and I was afraid that a song that long would have been taxing to them. Too bad, it would have been perfect.

Agnete and I talked a bit afterward, and she too thought that the folks had walked out because of "Israel." She said that Razik had told her that when I said "Israel" it had been like a slap across the face, and I did notice that he hesitated when he was translating. Agnete said something even more chilling, that she hoped there had been no government agents there, to hear "an American singing a song about Israel." Of course the song is not about Israel, and it certainly is not in anyway in praise or support of Israel's actions in these last years. On the one hand, if we are about dialogue, then the Jewish tradition has to be brought into the conversation, and the Gospel still must be preached. At the same time, that is easy to say from my perspective. I spoke with one man afterwards who had lost his hands and eyes in an "accident" with the Israelis, for instance. That's all of the story he offered, but he was keen on getting me copies of his books on Syrian folk tales and his writings about the Israeli-Syrian conflicts. No one said anything negative to me directly, and I haven't heard anything from Razik, but it's pretty sobering.

It's hard to describe the, dare I say, hatred of Israel in this part of the world, both Lebanon and Syria. Several people have tried to tell us that it has nothing to do with Jews, per se, only for Israelis, but that only goes so far. Agnete says many people in this region simply ignore the Jewish scriptures (Old Testament) completely, Muslims and Christians alike. I have heard the word "Zionist" many many times. As a matter of fact many seemingly reasonable people have a deep seated belief that the US is being controlled by Zionists. We even ran into someone who was showing us a book by David Duke, the former Klansman, about Zionism, that had been translated into Arabic. (Steve very diplomatically told him some more background about David Duke and warned him that this was not a good source.) The depth of the hurt and the indelible scars of history collude to make it seem impossible for there to be common ground. In recent memory are Israel's incursions into south Lebanon and taking the Golan heights from Syria, not to mention the very recent restarting of the building in the disputed Palestinian territories amid boisterous celebrations. It seems to me that folks here are steeled to the fact that Israel is here to stay, but they want the borders readjusted to the pre-1967 configuration and an end of the Palestinian crisis. And they also feel helpless to do anything because Israel is a formidable military force backed up by a superpower, the US. Israel is right to be paranoid--they really are hated here. But who stops first? Will Israel ever feel secure enough to stop being offensive or downright aggressive? Will the surrounding countries ever be able to trust them? And how does the Gospel of Jesus apply?

back to beirut and meeting a great man

Today many want to transcend the world of forms with possessing the forms. But we cannot throw away what we do not possess. The Sufis who were inviting people to throw away the external forms were addressing persons who already possessed the forms. (Seeyed Hossein Nasr)

26 october, back to Beirut

It's funny how these themes creep and then we see them everywhere. In Dr Nasr's book on Ideals and Realities of Islam, which I am enjoying greatly (belated thanks to Shannon and John), searching still for these universal truths, I got fascinated by the chapter on the Tariqah, usually known as Tasawwuf, which is the inner or esoteric dimension of Islam, better known yet as Sufism. Dr Nasr is showing how it is related to the Law, or Shariah, to make the necessary connection clear both to observant Muslims, who need to find the inner meaning of the Law, much in the way that Jesus preached to his contemporary Jewish co-religionsists, and to those who want to transcend the Law without having gone through the law. He brings these three together: the Shariah, the Tariqah and the Haqiqah, the Ultimate Truth. One leads to the other: you can't have the Way without the Law, you can't have the truth without both. I wonder if we couldn't reconfigure Jesus' words again (remembering Fr Fadi's formulation of the truth sandwhiched between the Way and the Life) and see here the progression of the Life (Shariah or Law) leading to the Way (Tariqah) which leads to the Truth (Haqiqah). And the Gospels record Jesus as claiming of himself that he is all three, which of course is shirk, or heresy to an observant Muslim.

As I wrote before, my friend and collaborator John Pennington has been here as well, in Lebanon, working for the US Embassy, a cultural envoy, offering clinics besides performing with the Lebanese Philharmonic and the Lebanese Orinetla Orchestra. After some difficulty, he arranged for us to do a performance at the US EMbassy itself for the Ambassador and her staff, Tuesday evening. So we all piled into two taxis and headed out of Damascus on Tuesday morning, one car bound for Aleppo in the north, where the lasty concert was to be on Wednesday, and the other headed back to Beirut, myself with Linda and Jonas, a bright young Danish man who is stationed now in Cairo as the director of Danmission's operation in the Mideast. But before going our separate ways, Agnete had another unexpected treat for us. We were guests of Sheikh Dr Salah Eddin Kuftaro the president of the Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro Foundation, with whom Agnete has built up a strong working relationship over the years. The Kuftaro Foundation, appraently to the displeasure of the Syrian government has been very involved in dialogue work for many years, especially under Dr Salah's father, Ahmad, who passed away six years ago. Dr Salah himself was just released from prison a month ago, arrested on some trumped up charges of tax fraud which were later dropped though he continued to be held, but reallyt for his work in dialogue and meetings with Christians and Westerners. Agnete thought that he might be taking a risk in meeting with us then, but he assured us not. His home was a good half and hour drive outside of Damascus, a beautiful little villa with a green lawn and a pool in the backyard, everything very neat and clean. He gathered us in a circle of chairs near the pool and just began speaking, with a gentleman named Mahmoud, who we had met the night before, translating throughout. He welcomed us as brothers and sisters, "grandchildren of the great prophets, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad." He talked about his experience in prison, and about his ongoing work, even offers that he ahd to live in other countries, including Russia. He told us too that he is to have an audience with the president of Syria soo, "And I don't think it will be to compliment me." He said he thought that there were three great problems that we are facing in this day and age: religious ignorance, religious fanaticism and Western exploitation of Mideasrn nartural resources. (I think that translates as "oil.") He has an obvious high regard for his relationship with Agnete and Danmission, and Agnete too was effusive in her praise of and affection for him.

Agnete then introduced me more amplyt and explained what I was doing there and elsewhere in the world--promoting peace and understanding between religions through music and dialogue. It sounded so lofty to hear it coming out her mouth! Is that what I'm doing? I'd like to think so. That is surely what all these other folks are doing and I am honored to be able to play my small part. She turned it over to me and suggested that maybe I had some things I wanted to say or ask the Sheikh. I was a little frozen, but I started talking and probably talked for ten minutes or so, about both the heart approach, through music, but how also I thought the head approach was necessary too, through study and understanding because--I have used this line a hundred times so far this trip--in these days ignorance is dangerous, and peope say a lot of stupid things out of a lack of understanding, and saying stupid things is what starts wars. I also mentioned that for all of his missteps, I thought that this was the area where Pope Benedict was correct and misunderstood: that he was trying to shift the dialogue from theological debate to cultural dialogue, sharing our common concerns as human beings; and how he was trying to bring a level of rational discourse to the conversation. The point he was trying to make in the ill-fated Regensburg address was that it is not rational to kill in the name of religion. He asked me to sing something for him with the guitar. Everyone wanted me to do the "Bismillah" again, since Mahmoud had told him all abou that song, but it just didn't feel like the right setting. And for some reason I really wanted to sing the Vedahametam. I explained the Indian idea of the purusha, and how I thought there might be resonances with the Sufi ideal of al-insan al-kamil, the perfect one. He liked that a lot and agreed. Then we had a very nice snack there at poolside, and some Turkish coffee in his private cottage-office-library at the back of the property. The Sheikh gave us a handful of little presents, books and prayer beads made by prisoners. It was really powerful to see someone who has been so persecuted and yet has not had his spirit broken nor his optimism shaken.

Then Linda, Jonas and I headed to Beirut. I met John at this hotel later that afternoon and, after a quick meal, his contact from the Embassy, a Lebanese woman named Diana, met us to drive us across and out of town up to the Embassy. You may recall that the US Emabssy was bombed in 1983, some 60 people killed, besides the Marine base being bombed a year later and the torturing and killing of William Buckley, the CIA chief, and some other aossorted killings and kidnappings. Now the Embassy has rented an entire village north of town of town, and heavily fortified it. It is very much self-contained, and no one leaves there without an armed guard. Also no one is allowed to have family living there with them. It was a comedy of errors getting into the place. John had inadvertently brought his wallet but not the pouck in which he has been carrying all his identification, and so wound up being without driver's license or passport. The two Lebanese soldiers who were at the first check point were not happy about that, even when Diana came up and tried to explain, nor when they got Ryan, the one who had brought John over, on the phone. They decided to check all of our equipment outside the check point. After rubbing the cloth over all of the cases and going to check it on his detector, the one soldier came back and rubbed them all again because something was giving off an indication that there was something explosive somewhere. A second check on a different machine cleared of us that. Then we went through individually, me first. Even after emptying my pockets completely the soldier's wand kept registering that there was something metal near my left ribs. But there wasn't! After patting me down, he went through my guitar case and one of the John's bags that I was carrying. Then another osldier led me down to the next check point where I had to turn in my passport and get a badge. At this point I had left John way behind and I was put in a cold bright waiting room for another 10 minutes or so, various soldiers coming in and out glancing at this guy with his guitar looking vaguely guilty.

Finally John got through as well and we were driven up to the Ambassador's private residence where the our performance was to take place. We were already about half an hour late so we were scurrying to set up. I didn't want to make a big deal about it, but I told John that I wasn't feeling well, sort of sick to my stomach and shaky. He asked if I was just nervous, and I said no, I wasn't sure what it was. I had already been feeling a little nauseous in the car, but I thought it was Diana's perfume of the crazy driving through Beirut traffic. We got going, but at about the third song I was feeling very queasy. I apologized to John and the audience and asked our host, Ryan, to show me the bathroom. I thought I might vomit but just stood there and breathed deep a few times and felt better. So I went back out. But not for long. As we were performing the Ambrosian Gloria, my stomach started heaving and I could feel my throat filling up. I barely made it through and had to rush off to the bathroom again and this time I was very sick. Somehow I made it back, with a mouth full of bile, and made it through the rest of the performance. By that time they had gotten a hold of the Ambassador's nurse and she was waiting to tend to me. While I was talking with her I started shaking and had to go again and this time even more came out. It was pretty gruesome, right there in the company of the Ambassador and all her invited guests. After that I was better and was able to have a conversation or two with her and some of the other guests. I spent a pretty dazed night back at the Casa D'Or, but I was never so happy to see a bed. By the time I woke up in the morning I knew my stomach was better but I was achy and feverish still. There was a long six hour car ride to Aleppo, Syria then, but I slept most of the way. Come to find out, both Ace and Steve had gotten sick too when they arrived at Aleppo the night before--it had to have been food poisoning from something we had all eaten. Ace probably had it the worst of all of us. He had actually passed out at one point in the bathroom and bumped his head on the toilet. Steve had to revive him and put an ice pack on his head. So we were none of us in very good shape for the final performance last night here in Aleppo... more on that, next entry.

from damascus

Now as Saul was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?' He asked, 'Who are you, Lord?' The reply came, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what to do.' (Acts 9:3-6)

25 october, damascus

We piled into a mini-van and headed to Damascus, Syria on Sunday. I could somehow feel right away that we were not in Lebanon anymore, though I am still not sure I could say what the exact differences were. Perhaps this will explain it: when we were coming back into Lebanon on Tuesday (more on why we did that later) at the border the driver, who was Syrian, said to me, "Now you are leaving Asia and going into Europe." Syria is pointedly an Arab Republic, at this point pretty much run by a one party system, though that party insists that it is heading toward democracy. There is much less English or French spoken here. And the Syrians and Lebanese don't seem to be too fond of each other. One Lebanese told me that the Lebanese are more proud and think of the Syrians as backward because of the language issue and because they are more simple. I haven't met anyone who was disagreeable to us, though folks have been a little less forward with their hospitality while still generous.

We all stayed at Mar Elias, a monastery guesthouse quite near the walls of the old city. As we drove in Agnete pointed out to us the place where St Paul was lowered over the wall to escape the the Jews that wanted to kill him fort preaching Jesus immediately after his conversion. Right next to the guesthouse was the chapel of St Paul's conversion, surrounded by rather modern architecture covering over a cave into which has been placed an altar, with ampitheatre style seating sweeping up beyond it. It would have been a great place for a concert too, with no microphones. Steve and Ace and I took a little tour of the neighborhood for about an hour before dinner, just as it was getting dark. It was certainly not as Westerner-tourist friendly as the areas in Beirut where we stayed. We stopped in and had a halting conversation with a man who ran a music store with all kinds of stringed instruments, espeically ouds. He was hard at work installing an electric pick-up in an oud when we walked in and he happily turned it on and tuned it up and played for us for a while. Then Agnete bustled us off for a sumptuous meal at a restaurant near the Bab Touma-the Thomas Gate. The Syrians are quite proud of the fact that they sent St Thomas off from here to evangelize India, hence eventually the Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malakar rites. (Syrian is not really spoken much anymore, replaced by Arabic centuries ago, but it is still used for prayer. I was remembering how Fr Bede spoke so fondly of those rites, which he and Fr Francis were translating into English, because the Syriac was so close to the Aramaic that Jesus spoke. We were told that there are still a few villages in northern Syria where that Aramaic is still spoken.)

The restaurant was built into a large courtyard which Agnete told us was a typical Damascene house. It was quite crowded and is obviouslty popular with Westerners who come this way, as we were not nearer to the tourist center, the old city. The food here has been wonderful, but I desparately wanted something a little closer to my normal diet, and so with Linda's help I asked the waiter if it was possible to just get a plate of rice and some vegetables, since that was what accompanied all the meat dishes anyway, "because I don't take meat," I told the waiter. He said, "Why not?" and brought me a meal worthy of Santa Cruz county, a big plate of vegetables and a mound of rice. As we were leaving later I thanked the waiter for getting me that special meal and he tapped his stomach and said, "I hope you feel better." Apparently he thgouth that anyone who doesn't eat meat must be sick. His remark was prescient, as you will see below.

Monday we had a grand tour of the old city. Agnete had asked me the other day if I was enjoying myself. I told her in my own obtuse way, "I'm not not enjoying myself" but I was focused right now on the work at hand, not really able to relax. But that day, I really enjoyed myself. We walked right up Straight Street, the street mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles where Ananias went to meet Paul (then Saul) and pray over him to cure him of his blindness. As a matter of fact we were able to spend some time praying in the Ananias' chapel, a beautiful subterannean stone structure. We walked up past many artisans' shops and wound up at yet another sumptuous restaurant that also seemed to cater to Westerners. All of the wait persons were dressed up in period costumes as if from Ali Baba. I thought we were going just for a snack but it wound up being a bit of a feast again. I th9ink that there is no such thing as a simple meal here in the mideast. By now I'm on it though and have figured out how to order for myself, and I got a delicious lentil soup and an artichoke salad. After that Linda took us on to visit the souq and the grand Ummayad mosque.

A souq is a marketplace, and this is one of the most famous in the mideast. It appears to be miles of covered rows of shops, many of them specializing in just a few items, coffee, gold, cloth, produce, etc. And it truly is where people do their daily shopping. The biggest delight of the tour of the souq was that Ace found an old friend of his there, a gold merchant that he had known and worked with in Abu Dabi some years ago. As a matter of fact, the guy had an old photo of he and Ace under the glass that covered his desktop. He was a gold merchant, and after exchanging some greetings and family news, the two of them and Steve launched into a discussion about the price of gold and the economy and how Ben Bernanke's decisions on November 3rd are going to effect the global market.

We then went into the Ummayad mosque. The place had started life in the 9th century as an Aramean temple to thier god Hadad, then became old Roman temple to Jupiter, which during the time of Constantine was converted to a Christian basilica, and then to a mosque in the 7th century. At first the Christians and Muslims shared the space half and half, but slowly the Christians were elbowed when the caliph decided he needed to buld a mosque equal to any one in the world. In it is also a large sarcophagus that is said to contain the head of John the Baptist who is revered by both Christians and Muslims. Pope John Paul II visited there in 2002.

A young man motioned to us that he wanted someone to take his picture next to John's monument. Steve obliged and struck up a little conversation with him afterward. He asked Steve were he was from, Steve said USA and asked where he was from. Iraq. I don't remember the rest of the conversation, but the young man, Mustafa, couldn't have been more gracious. He kept saying, "You are most welcome here. You are welcome. Most welcome." We ran into him again later outside and again he wanted a phot take. This time I did the honors and we talked some more. He was an engineer but there was no work in Iraq. He was there with his mother and father; he was pushing his father around in a wheelchair. This was the first of many encoutners with Iraquis, and I must say they were all that gracious to us, but it is chilling to hear their stories. Many of them are applying to the UN for refugee status, and several we met are trying to move to the US. There are millions of Iraqi refugees in Syria. Syria has been very good to them, but the Syrians are not quite as gracious in their assesment of our involvement in Iraq. One told us that "they," meaning the Americans, destroyed the country "past, present and future." One Iraqi told us, "Before there was one criminal running the country, Sadam Hussein. Now there are hundreds of criminals and we don't know who they are." Another told us that Christians are now being persecuted in a way that they never were before, and indeed many of the Iraqis we met were either Chaldean or Syrian Orthodox. When you are here in this region and realize just what a different culture and mindset there is here, it is hard to imagine what would ever made President Bush and his team think that they could simply go in and depose a regime like that, for no legitimate reason. I couldn';t get the words out, but I wanted to say to young Mustafah, "I'm sorry. Not in my name."

That night the concert was at the Danish Institute, another beautiful large Damascene courtyard dating back to the 6th century. There was a fount in the middle, a raised stage area with a Persian rug underfoot and I was surrounded by candles. There was also large cool salons on either side of the courtyard, in one of which I sat and chilled out a little before singing. Acoustically, it was heavenly and I had decided to do a whole different kind of performance. I started with Clarence Rivers' spiritual styled "God Is Love" a capella, and then went right into "How Can I Keep from Singing." I even through "Put Love First" in there later in the concert as well as Rachel's Lament again, which seems more and more poignant.

rachel's lament

Softly and far there sounds a lament
and a warring behind and before,
the grief of a mother whose life is rent
for her children are no more.
("Rachel's Lament," Tim Manion)

24 october, last day in Beirut

The other day we arrived in Saida a little earlier than we thought we would, and everyone, espeically Abdo, the driver, was a little hungry. So our intrepid organizer, Linda, got on the phone and found us the best Falafel place in the area. While the others were inside waiting for our orders to be prepared, Agnete and I stood outside looking over the city below us. We were already high in the hills. Agnete asked me what my impressions of Lebanon were. I said something about how hard it was for me to find a center anywhere, that there were so many ideologies and factions in tension. Suddenly, as if on cue, from our left a little boy came running down the hill. He was followed shortly by another young boy carrying a toy machine gun. As the first boy rounded the corner and disappeared further down the hill, the second boy got up on a mound of rock and aimed his gun at him and started "shooting," making noises with his mouth, "Pchew! Pchew!" Then four other little boys came down from the left, each carrying his own gun and they all stood up there on that mound and started shooting at the escapee. Who were they pretending to be? Who were they pretending the other boy was? Agnete said unfortunately, this is what they are used to. We used to "play war" and "cowboys and Indians" when I was a kid too, but it had no relation to anything in reality. For these kids, they may well have been imitating something they knew only too well.

We then went up to the Circle Dialogue and Developement Center. We were warmly formally welcomed by various members of the staff, then by the director, Mr Emil and the local Maronite Bishop Samil, neither of whom spoke English, only French and Arabic, so Linda did the honors of translating for us. Mr Emil explained to us some of the history of the place. They have been at it over thirty years, even before the construction of the beautiful facility they have now. They concentrate both on bringing together Muslim and Christian youth, but also on educational programs and vocational training. We asked who they thought might be coming to the concert, and Mr Emil said, "Nuns and politicians, faculty members and maybe some youth." We ascertained that there would certainly be a few who did not speak English, so Linda would continue her task of translating.

The concert that night was "a lot of work," I said later. Trying to figure out what songs would speak to that particular crowd and how to explain them as simply as possible to put them in the proper context. It went fine and I think that the crowd received it well. Again, the Bismillah song was the hit of the night. I had been wanting to sing Tim Manion's "Rachel's Lament" as part of this series of concerts, both because of its allusions to war and its topographical references--the valley of bones and the river of tears--that seem to fit so well in this region. I sang it at the concert Thursday night, prefacing it by telling the crowd about that scene in front of the falafel shop, and that there were many ways to kill a child, and that it was too bad that these kids knew so well how to play with guns, and how it was too bad, too, that I had as well when I was a child, and that the whole reason I was singing these songs is to raise up "the strength of a people whose lives will be spent / so that the children may die no more."

That night when we returned to Beirut, we met Rev Dr Riad Jarjour. He is the chairperson of the Forum for Developement, Culture and Dialogue, Linda's immediate boss, and one of the people directly responsible for my being here. Though he has not been in the area and so not at any of the events yet, he has been checking in regularly. This was to be our only opportunity to meet. He treated us to a feast of a meal at a very luxurious restaurant, once again three times as much food as we could possibly eat, complete with four different waiters tending to our every need, even replacing the plate and silverware ever time we finished a course. Ace and Steve were also with Agnete and I, and I spent more time listening than talking. Dr Riad travels all over the mideast both for the FDCD and for his own Prebyterian Synod. He had just arrived from Qatar and had spent the day dealing with some problems within his own synod. He is also very well respected by the government, so his perspective was rare and insightful. He seems to be the kind of man who can make things happen with a single phone call. I am coming back to Beirut to do a concert with John on Tuesday and there was some speculation as to how I would get here and who would come with me and whether or not we would stay the night or go right on to Aleppo, Syria where the rest of the group would be. Dr Riad decided that I would come in by taxi and that Linda would accompany me and, in spite of the fact that we had been told that were no rooms available at the Casa D'Or for me to stay the night, he made a call and, alas, there was one. Fait accomplit.

Yesterday then we had a concert up in Minyara. Luckily, John Pennington had a free day from his extremely packed schedule here in Beirut and was able to go with us and perform with me. It was the farthest out of town I had been thus far. We drove north past Tripoli and then headed inland and up into the hills of Akkar to the little town of Minyara. Our caravan this time included two others, Simiha, a young Muslim woman who has been to several of Agnete's Dialogue Camps and other events, and Petter, a young Dane who is studying at the American University of Beirut. Both of them were well informed about Lebanese history and politics. I had brought along my Lonely Planet guide, which has a pretty good essay about the poltical history of the region, but there were still some blanks and nuances that I was unable to fill in. Speaking with them both, I felt like I understood a little more and could also see why it is so complicated and frustrating. There are so many factions, each with its own agenda. There are the Sunni Muslims who are in the majority and who tend to be more pro-Western and pro-Saudi Arabia with all its wealth. There are the Shia Muslims, generally poorer, in the minority and more prevalent in the south. They are the ones who were thrilled by the visit of President Ahmadinajad last week, and are often the proterctors of the Hizbollah, and friends of the Palestianian refugees in the south of Lebanon. There are also two other Shia sects that are very prevalent here, the Druze and Alawites, the latter whom we will meet more in Syria. (I'll try to write more about them later.) There are various Christian denominations but most prevalent is the Maronites, who are also for the most part pro-Western. Some Christians also aligned themseves with Israel, who is for the most part considered all around the greatest enemy of Lebanon because it has blanket punished the whole country for the actions of one portion of the population. There are other Christians who align themselves with Hizbollah however, as well. And then there are some who are rather neutral. There is no real agreement whether or not the division of this region into two separate countries--Syria and Lebanon--was arbitrary, or positive or negative. And that it still only a crusory look.

And so, back to what I said to Agnete: it is hard for me to find a center, to find a specific spirit of Lebanon. I have this image of this country as a chessboard that the surrounding countries and some Western ones as well have been using for an ongoing confusing and deadly game of chess, but the children of Lebanon are the pieces. It is not that long ago that the US Embassy was bombed by a jihadist nor that American and British hostages were taken, so those of us visiting here also have the possibility of being used in the game.

The concert at the National Evangelical Presbyterian Church last night was easier, even though more translation was needed. Rev Hadi Ghantous and his wife Anna were our hosts, and again took us way up in the hills for a sumptuous lunch. From the terrace of the restaurant we could look out to our east and see Syria, and to our west and see the Meditarranean Sea. It was chilly and cloudy, threatening rain the whole time. They and Agnete are old friends. Hadi has built a beautiful new modern church with an ample hall below, where we performed the concert. There was some discussion about Bismillah (that song is the center of everything!), the fact that there might be some Christians this time who would object to it. I was sincerely questioning whether or not I should sing it, because I am here to encourage their work in dialogue but not here to "provoke" anyone. But Agnete was insistent and Hadi just wanted me to put it in the right context, which of course was going to have to be conveyed in translation. I put it in the context of how surprised I was when I found out that Christians in Indoneisa use the word "Allah" for God and how beautiful it was that we shared a word with Muslims. And then I talked about our own Tent of Abraham gathering in California and how beautiful it was that we--Jews, Christians and Muslims--have a song that we can share in common, something which isn't the easiest thing to do in America either.

Anyway, it went fine, as did the whole concert. The young people especially loved John's playing and were staring at him throughout. The crowd sang along well, even though in English, on Lead Me From Death, and I taught them my ostinato of The Lord is My Light as well. Hadi had thought it best if I accented the Christian biblical songs more for this concert, and I did, with a few of the others peppered in. There was still one old gentleman who complained that he hadn't known that there were going to be non-Christian songs sung, but I think he was in the minority. I am beginning the think the nervousness I feel before each of these performances is actually good for my focus--I don't take anything for granted--but it may eventually take a toll on my stomach...

We leave today for Syria. I fill in a little more later but I wanted to get this muich off to you all now. Ma'a salama!

the deepest thing inside

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
You must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
Catches the thread of all sorrows
And you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore...
(Naomi Shihab Nye)

thursday october 21, 2010

I found the event at the Haigazian Armenian University difficult, though my friends all said it went quite well. I was having trouble reading the audience, so I wasn't sure I was connecting, and when that happens I have this bad habit of talking faster and faster and running thoughts together, which I thought I was doing. But apparently it didn't show. There have been several times when I have been asked to do events where folks can't decide whether they want me to sing or to speak, and so I will do about half and half, but generally I opt on the speaking side, giving long explanations of the songs, because each of the songs I do have quite a story behind them. And that's what I did yesterday, with a long introduction first about Bede Griffiths' particular approach, which I have adapted and adopted. Part of the issue for me was that about half the attendees seemed to be the university faculty, including the president of both Hagazian and NEST Near East Shcool of Theology), and others who I knew to have their doctorates in the area of religious studies. And another part of my nervousness was knowing that I would undoubatbly be speaking to some Muslims as well, and I so don't want to misrepresent anything nor dishonor their tradition by making any kind of facile comparisons. Yet another element is knowing that in this war-torn country there are no easy answers, no quick solutions. It is the patient work of building (re-building) relationships and bonds of trust based on our common humanity and what we share in the praxis of spirituality.

But, as I said, it went well enough. The others who have heard me do what I do already enjoyed hearing the "stories behind the songs." At one point I mentioned that I had been so nervous the night before singing in Arabic. Then a little later during the presentation when I was fielding some questions, one woman raised her hand and said, "I don't have a question. I just want to hear you sing in Arabic!" So we did the Bismillah again, along with the story. I had a number of wonderful conversations afterwards, mostly with young people who were in attendance.

Then our friend Nayla whisked the lot of us--Agnete, Ace, Steve and I--away to her home for dinner. Fr Fadi joined us as well. Nayla lives in a spacious airy apartment in the Verdun district of Beirut. It has been in the family for some time, I take it. There were polished stone floors throughout and long floor length curtains all around. The walls were tastefully decorated with religious art from around the world, a Tibetan tonka, a Buddhist icon, Arabian paintings and calligraphy, photos of whirling dervishes, various prayer beads. We ate in a sitting room at the far end of the apartment, at a large low sqaure table that was surrounded on two sides by a divan and on two sides by carpet and cushions. In other words, we actually did "recline" at table. Nayla brought out dish after dish of mideastern food, many things I had eaten before and several dishes I had not, including a chickory recipe and a new kind of cheese. It was quite a feast. Ace and Steve had also brought along a large box filled with sweets that they had acquired on their journeys up into the hills during the day.

At first our conversation centered around philosophy and theology, since Fadi and Nayla are both experts in their fields, one Christian, one Muslim, and also co-founders of Adyan. I was picking their brains about some of the theory behind their praxis. I was especially interested in Fadi's notion of "truth," which he says underlies his own work in dialogue. If I may try to express it: he thinks that we often have too Western a notion of truth that comes from Roman law and Greek philosophy, truth as a static objective thing. Whereas he suggests that the Eastern view of truth is more dynamic, and he gave as an example how Jesus says of himself, "I am the way, the truth and the life." So perhaps we could see truth as situated between the way and the life, that is, a practical way of living and an actual life situation. (I can almost see poor Jos Ratzinger rolling his eyes and sighing over yet another example of relativism, but still...) The conversation at some point turned to the war here (it's never fasr from anyone's mind), and where each of them had been especially during the last 34 day war with Israel, which, the more one hears about it, seems less like a war than an initial skirmish on the southern border followed by Israel bombing the dickens out of Lebanon for a month. Agnete was also here exactly then, with an interfaith group, and regaled us with stories too of how she had to usher those under her care out of the country via Syria.

We are still trying to figure out what to do after the work is done and we return from Syria on the 29th. Nayla and Fadi had some great ideas, one of them being for us to join them on one of their Spiritual Solidarity days that is taking place on the 30th, a gathering of Christian and Muslim leaders somewhere to the south. I said "Absolutely" and Fadi said, "Under one condition: that you lead the crowd in singing the Bismillah song." Okay, though at the same time Nayla said that they would have to check with some of the imams and sheikhs in the crowd to make sure that no one would be offended. The offense this time could possibly be not necessarily that a non-Muslim would sing words from the Qur'an, but that it would be accompanied by a guitar. Some Muslims don't approve of musical instruments as part of worship.

I have a close monk friend in Italy named Ildebrando. He is from San Miniato al Monte in Florence, the community I lived with several times, especially when I was studying Italian. Ilde is actually from Lebanon though, and connected me with his family before I arrived. His sister and a niece came to the concert the other night, his niece has been in touch several times with all kinds of helpful information, and then his brother-in-law Neeb called the other day and basically told me that he was going to pick me up at one o'clock on Thursday and I was welcome to brinbg along anyone I wanted and we were going to spend the day with them. So he came and Steve and Ace and I piled into his Hyundai and he whisked us across Beirut. To avoid the traffic jams he made a long loop south out of town and then back up into East Beirut, pointing out the different districts as we drove. "Here was the very poor area, mostly Shia Muslims. Here was the region dominated by Hizbollah. Here was the Druze area and here the road that divides the Druze from the Christians; notice the soldiers who stand at other end of the street keeping the peace and keeping them apart." The family compound is built high in the hills, overlooking both the Druze region and the airport right on the shore of the Mediterannean Sea. As we had flown in the other day I shuddered just a bit thinking that this very runway had been blown up by the Israelis as they sought to destory the Lebanese infrastructure. The Wehbe family had had a box seat in the balcony for the whole spectacle. He also pointed out to us different bombed out buildings and bunkers with gun turrets right across the street from their property.

I keep having flashes both of Italy and of India, as if this place is somewhere between the two. As a matter of fact it is, both geographically and culturally. Some of the buildings and shops as well as the crowded dirty streets and madcap traffic remind me of India; but the hospitality and outdoor terraces and long curtains and awnings remind me of the Italy, particularly Sicily. We gathered under an awning and ceiling fans outdoors along a long table set for a feast. We were quite a crowd, besides Deeb and Nadia, there was Ilde and Nadia's brother Naseeb with his wife and infant son. They live in Italy as well, but Naseeb is working here in Lebanon again for the Italian army that makes up part of the UN peacekeeping troops. Then there was Deeb's cousin and his American wife, who live in LA where they run a restaurant among other business ventures. He told us the whole story of being sent away from Lebanon by his father during the civil war because his father thought he was hanging out with the wrong people and might get into trouble. So he escaped first to Mexico, but then told us the whole story of slipping into the US--this was back in the seventies--where he started working right away and indeed worked his way all the way up to citizenship, marriage and becoming a very succesful business man and civic leader. Then there was Ilde, Naseeb and Nadia's old father who only speaks Arabic and didn't participate much in the conversation, though his face lit up with a delighted smile both when he met me and when his little grandson Antonio came in. The languages flying around the table were amazing--Arabic, French, Italian and English. Lucky little Antonio will grow up with all four languages. So many things were discussed. Certainly Steve and Ace got on well with Deeb and his cousin, all men of "affairs" (business). We spoke at length about the political situation, relations with Israel, internal problems in the country, the assasination of Rafiq Harriri, even various conspiracy theories about 9/11 (that perhaps it was not Osama bin Laden nor the Bush/Cheney team who masterminded it after all, but a Jewish team...) and Fascism. Quite an education. I suppose one cannot go very long nor have to scratch very deep for these topics to come up in this area. The wounds are deep and running, the emotions are ancient and raw. There are certainly no easy answers.

I've also been back to NEST twice now. Yesterday I did their noon devotion for them. It's a free form service and I was told I could do whatever I wanted. I sang the new call-and-response setting of the Beatitudes that I wrote recently with them called "I Will Give You Rest," and then had Romans 5 read (by the professor of New Testament Theology, who introduced by putting it into its content about "Paul concluding his argument about justification by faith rather than the works..."). Then I spoke a wee bit about that reading in relation to the Spirit being poured into us not just covering over us (a subtle nod to the difference of Lutheran and Roman spiritual anthropology) and then had them sit in silence for time with the aid of the little Japanese rin that travels in my sea foam green Colton guitar case and ended with Streams of Living Water. They had wanted me to stay for lunch yesterday but I had already made the plan to go to the Wehbe household, so we went back today, attended the devotion and had lunch with a few of the faculty members and coffee (Turkish) with the students out on the breezy veranda afterward. There is quite a mixture in that place! Both students and faculty come there from all over the mideast as well as from Europe and the States because of NEST's specialty in Islamic Studies and Eastern Christian churches. We had lunch with two Americans and afterward over coffee I met Armenians, Palestinians, Syrians and Germans. One woman is specializing in religious violence and is here to focus on the Armenian-Turkish conflict of last century, which many of you will know of as a very contentious issue. I marvel how some of these young people (they seemed to be barely out of their teens) could already have decided to come to Lebanon so as to be able to specialize in Islamic Studies and Eastern Christian churches.

This afternoon we are headed south to Saida (the biblical city of Sidon) for a solo concert.