I don't have time to think it through, and I really ought not be blogging as I have somewhere to be, BUT, I've been, when I have a moment, following the story of the British School Teacher in the Sudan who was so foolish as to allow her class to name a Teddy Bear Mohammed. She was thereafter arrested and was in real fear for her life as a mob outside was crying for her execution. I'd been reading in prayerful horror over the last few weeks or days or whatever that she was held, and very relieved to hear on the radio yesterday that she'd been allowed to go home back to England, and that she would be spending a very quiet Christmas holiday at home. I can't put proper words to it, but this is one of those small by the wayside lavalike events like a small earthquake or something. You just feel a little shaking and think, oh, that was interesting. The world is not materially changed. But all the while underneath the surface, the plates are moving and scraping and grating against each other. The growing interaction between Islam and the West, feels in the bones, like one such seismically defined conflict. The outrage of the culture around her completely surprised this poor British woman. I don't really even understand it, at least not emotionally. We are diametrically opposed on so many levels.
Blast it all, I don't have time to think this through.
Comment, or something :)
2 comments:
Well, I'm here in Nairobi, somewhat south of the Sudan, and was equally horrified by the escalation of what was an innocent mistake. (Never mind that I know so many people named Mohammed who are not in any way to be mistaken for the prophet.) However, I was impressed by the gentle tone of her response when she was released, and by the mildness of her son's response -- grateful, and not in any way rancorous. "A soft answer turneth away wrath", was one of those verses my mother made me memorize when I was small.
ME
"We are diametrically opposed on so many levels." Sounds to me like you *have* thought it through. It's saints like Francis of Assissi and Therese of Lisieux who really have anything more to say after this point.
--Marmee March
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