The Wonder of Nothing

Justine Buisson, in a chapter called, "The Gifts of Andrew" (in Rohr, Grace in Action), describes how the devastation wreaked on Miami by Hurricane Andrew brought the unlikeliest of comrades together as they shared the few supplies of water, food, and batteries that were available.

Her tale reminded me of the every-month-or-so neighborhood party in Amman, Jordan. In Jordanian apartment buildings, one family lives on each floor. Usually, the families living on each floor are related to the other families in the building (fathers, brothers, sons). However, that was not so in our case. Donnie and I, Americans, lived on the top floor. The Arafats, Palestinians, lived on the second floor, and Abu Yelez, with his family, lived on the first floor. Over time, we all got to know each other pretty well, sort of becoming like a family, bonded by our building.

Now, the building had help in fostering our bonding by the city of Amman. Periodically, especially frequently during the hot summer months when everyone is trying to run air conditioners and fans (fans were my preference), the city experiences brown-outs. So, with nothing else to do and having no light inside, the Mahlous, Arafats, and the parents and siblings of Yelez (who, himself, had emigrated to Chicago) gathered on the small square of lawn in the front of our apartment building and passed the time of day for minutes, sometimes hours. Om Yelez, living on the first floor where things were retrievable by candlelight, would bring out drinks and snacks, typically dates or figs and limonad bi nana (mint lemonade), and we would sit quietly munching. There is nothing like building camaraderie than quiet munching -- doing nothing together, sometimes even saying nothing together, just being together. Enjoying the wonder of nothing.

Then the lights would come back on. We would say our good-byes to Abu and Om Yelez and climb the stairs together with the Arafats, saying good-bye to them at their door, and continuing on up the additional two flights to our apartment. It was always easy to fall asleep after that. We were already in a relaxed state from an evening of nothing.

We came to appreciate the bonding power of nothing when Abu Yelez became quite ill near the end of our days in Amman. Om Yelez worried about him and took care of him in the special way that Arab wives take care of their husbands. One day when I was out of town, doing some consulting in Bahrain, Om Yelez died. Yes, that is correct; the healthy wife, not the ill husband, died. Om Yelez, it turns out, had a heart problem about which we had not known. The shock reverberated all the way from Amman to Manama. I could not return, though, in time for the sitting. When I did get back, I apologized to Abu Yelez and the unmarried adult children still living at home -- an Arab custom, as well -- for missing the sitting. Sami, the only son among them, replied, "We understand. We know you loved Mom, too, and would have been here if you could."

Barely a month later, Abu Yelez died. This was not unexpected, but it was still sad. It felt like our family was falling apart, our family that had bonded by doing nothing.

This time I went to the sitting. In the Arab world, the men sit at a different time from the women. Donnie went down and spent part of the male sitting day with Sami and his male relatives and friends.

Then I went down to the first floor and sat with Lana, Maha, and the female relatives and friends. I took my turn at silent reading one of the suras (books/chapters) from the Qu'ran; of course, I did not place it back into the case with the other suras, having learned from other sittings that my Arabic, especially classical Arabic, was not sufficiently good for anyone to have considered that my reading of the sura constituted it having been read. Sure enough, someone else picked it up after me, read it through, and put it back into the case.

As the sun faded and the day waned, the remaining handful of women began to depart as a group as a caterer brought in supper. I stood up to leave with them.

"Where are you going?" asked Maha.

"Upstairs," I replied, "so that your family can have time to yourselves for dinner." This was, I knew by then, in accordance with Arab culture.

Maha, however, looked at me a bit stricken and protested, "But you are family. Please stay." I did.

That is when I knew that we belonged in Jordan, that we were no longer outsiders. We had a family, and it was all thanks to the wonder of nothing.

(Photo: Our neighborhood in Jordan, taken from our third-floor apartment window.)

My Jordan

It would be a shame to be here in Jordan and not share something about this remarkable land. The picture above is taken from my hotel window in Sixth Circle. In it, you can see how the white stone buildings stretch on and on and on. No picture, however, can provide the feeling of standing anywhere in the city of Amman and seeing the seven hills strewn with houses that, for the most part, look little different today from what they have looked like for time immemorial. Even more difficult for a photograph to show would be the feeling that many report, the one I felt a little more than six years ago when I came here for the first time: a sense of belonging. Not to the city; the belonging is greater than that. Not to the country; the belonging is greater than that, too. Not to the land, for the belonging is greater than even that. The belonging is more than simply to a place, it is to a time. And it is more than to a time; it is to all time. As I stood for the first time, looking out over the ancient hills that comprise and surround Amman, the sand and dust beyond that will eventually turn into the Wadi Rum desert, the crumbling stone artifacts that represent the old Roman Ampitheater or the Citadel, the modern cars that swoosh past with seeming oblivion to the holiness of this land, and the people dressed in anything from total-cover garb that goes back to the days before those modern cars and modern buildings to Western t-shirts and jeans, one suddenly understands where one belongs in this life. Amman joins the past, the present, and the future into one time. Where one belongs is in the middle of this mixture, in the "now." We all have a place in this universe; it just can be felt a little more strongly and a little more clearly in Amman than in any other place on whose soil I have trod. Many visitors have told me that they have felt the same thing.

I suppose there are other cities in the Middle East that might awaken similar feelings. Damascus is one of them. I have been there. It is a great, ancient city, but the lightness of the stone in Amman and the lightness of being that it awakens is, for me, more comforting, more enticing.

There are some wonderful places in Jordan besides Amman. Most are fairly well known, but just in case, let me share my favorites and the reason for that.

There is, of course, the Dead Sea. I have a special relationship with the Dead Sea for in 2004, when I first visited it, my arm had had been bleeding every day for more than two years from a dermatofibroma. A cancer surgeon had done a biopsy and declared it benign, but it created a malignant mess on all my blouses. After swimming (or bobbing) in the Dead Sea, I fell asleep under the warm, soothing sun, awakening only when the sun climbed higher into the sky and began to bake me like a pie, literally, for by that time, the salt and minerals had encrusted me. Itching from salt on skin, I walked over to one of the many spigots available on the beach and washed off all the salt I could find. I was still partially encrusted and decided to take a shower in the hotel day room that friends and I had rented on the beach. After a leisurely, cool shower, I noticed quite by chance that there was no blood on the towel. There was always blood on the towel after a shower. I looked at my arm. What the heck! I could not find the dermatofibroma. I trotted over to the mirror for a closer and fuller look. By golly, it was gone. All gone! No sign that it had ever been there. Unbelievable! So, indeed, I will always have a special relationship with the Dead Sea.

Then there is the great desert of Wadi Rum. One can easily understand why the Israelis were lost here for 40 years whether by Divine plan or simply by the nature of the terrain. Watching the Bedouin navigate the sand dunes in their contemporary four-wheeled vehicles is quite a contrast: the land of old and the people of new. Not that new, though. Many old traditions remain. I love Wadi Rum. I have a special relationship with the desert, as well as the sea, for Donnie and I spent a blissful week living with Bedouin desert dwellers during the Eid of 2005. Donnie would spend early morning and evening hours photographing the desert at the time when it was most fully clothed in splendid colors while Sabah, the youngest son in the Bedouin family, would lie on the desert sand, watching him, not moving so as to encourage the birds that would gently settle down near us to stay just a little longer, and marveling at the caravans of riderless camels making their way back home to their Bedouin owners. I particularly adored the baby white camel that Sabah's parents owned. I knew that some day she would grow up to be as ornery, even vicious, as the camels that we were gazing upon from the safety of our piece of desert sand, but for now I enjoyed her willingness to let me sit nearby and observe her relaxing in the sun and chewing on grass, completely oblivious of any needs except those of nature.

Other places for which I have a special fondness in Jordan include some of the expected places: the Red Sea, Jerasch, Mount Nebo, the Madaba Church, but not Petra. That is only because I have not been to Petra (I know; that is scandalous), but Donnie has and is love with that place. I would provide some additional pictures and words for those places, but I am out of time and space, so I will leave to your imagination, if you have not visited this charmed and charming land, just what is so special about each of them. (Oh, uh, yes, there is always Wikipedia if you cannot stand not to know!)

Monday Morning Meditation #34: Care for Your Enemy

This week I wandered into the next chapter of II Kings. Here is the narration of the foray of troops of the King of Aram against the King of Israel, whom Elisha forewarned. With the help of God, Elisha delivered the warring troops to the King of Israel in Samarria. The King of Israel wanted to kill them, but Elisha persuaded him instead to feed them and let them go.

Reading: II Kings 6: 8-23

Meditation: This passage gives substantive meaning to "love thy neighbor as thyself" and "love thy enemy." I cannot see significant differences between a stranger, neighbor, enemy, and friend. A stranger is typically, in my experience, simply a friend in waiting, as are neighbors and even enemies. So often, we have much in common with enemies if we just take the time to find out. Elisha spent time with the warring Aramaeans, and he showed great compassion for them. It is difficult to spend time with anyone, friend or foe, and not feel compassion. Living for two years in Jordan taught me that Arabs, in general, are friends, not enemies. Living in the Soviet Union during the Cold War showed me that Russians are friends, not enemies. It was difficult in both eras of our country for many people to see that. Governments are not people, and people are generally peaceful. (Yes, admittedly, there are some misled groups of people, who choose a violent approach to living their lives and need to be managed -- with love, not hate, otherwise it just becomes one form of hatred over another.)

So many times I have been assisted in all sorts of things, including learning language and culture, finding a place to live, assistance with my kids, and much more by people considered to be my enemy. One of my favorite meals was dinner with the vice president of a Belarus university who at one time had been a captain in the Red Army, specializing in American order of battle. At the same time, I had been a captain in the US Army, specializing in Soviet order of battle. Oh, my! That was a highly emotional meeting, and here he was, giving food and drink to me, his enemy, the same way that Elisha had urged the King of Israel to feed the troops of the King of Aram.

The height of bad thinking about enemies was exhibited by my own mother years ago, who at the time had just met my best friend, an immigrant from Russia. "I thought you told me Sonya is Russian," Ma said, implying that she did not view her that way and was confused.

"She is," I replied.

"She cannot be," Ma objected. "She is normal."

Yes, our enemies are often every bit as "normal" as our friends. When we learn that, perhaps there will be a chance for a little more peace in the world.

(And if you want to read a heart-warming war story in which the heart of one German soldier, invading Belarus, was touched by an enemy baby, related to me years later by a survivor from that family, click here: Three Vignettes and One Thought about an Enemy).

And that is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to lead me to treat my "enemies" as friends, to thank Him for his daily guidance even though I sometimes pay scant attention to it or am aware of it later than I should be, to praise Him for the wonderful ways in which He can and does set us free from our hatreds and petty annoyances with neighbors simply by our turning to Him for help. After that, I will spend as much time as I can in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:
Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Monday Morning Meditation #34: Care for Your Enemy

This week I wandered into the next chapter of II Kings. Here is the narration of the foray of troops of the King of Aram against the King of Israel, whom Elisha forewarned. With the help of God, Elisha delivered the warring troops to the King of Israel in Samarria. The King of Israel wanted to kill them, but Elisha persuaded him instead to feed them and let them go.

Reading: II Kings 6: 8-23

Meditation: This passage gives substantive meaning to "love thy neighbor as thyself" and "love thy enemy." I cannot see significant differences between a stranger, neighbor, enemy, and friend. A stranger is typically, in my experience, simply a friend in waiting, as are neighbors and even enemies. So often, we have much in common with enemies if we just take the time to find out. Elisha spent time with the warring Aramaeans, and he showed great compassion for them. It is difficult to spend time with anyone, friend or foe, and not feel compassion. Living for two years in Jordan taught me that Arabs, in general, are friends, not enemies. Living in the Soviet Union during the Cold War showed me that Russians are friends, not enemies. It was difficult in both eras of our country for many people to see that. Governments are not people, and people are generally peaceful. (Yes, admittedly, there are some misled groups of people, who choose a violent approach to living their lives and need to be managed -- with love, not hate, otherwise it just becomes one form of hatred over another.)

So many times I have been assisted in all sorts of things, including learning language and culture, finding a place to live, assistance with my kids, and much more by people considered to be my enemy. One of my favorite meals was dinner with the vice president of a Belarus university who at one time had been a captain in the Red Army, specializing in American order of battle. At the same time, I had been a captain in the US Army, specializing in Soviet order of battle. Oh, my! That was a highly emotional meeting, and here he was, giving food and drink to me, his enemy, the same way that Elisha had urged the King of Israel to feed the troops of the King of Aram.

The height of bad thinking about enemies was exhibited by my own mother years ago, who at the time had just met my best friend, an immigrant from Russia. "I thought you told me Sonya is Russian," Ma said, implying that she did not view her that way and was confused.

"She is," I replied.

"She cannot be," Ma objected. "She is normal."

Yes, our enemies are often every bit as "normal" as our friends. When we learn that, perhaps there will be a chance for a little more peace in the world.

(And if you want to read a heart-warming war story in which the heart of one German soldier, invading Belarus, was touched by an enemy baby, related to me years later by a survivor from that family, click here: Three Vignettes and One Thought about an Enemy).

And that is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to lead me to treat my "enemies" as friends, to thank Him for his daily guidance even though I sometimes pay scant attention to it or am aware of it later than I should be, to praise Him for the wonderful ways in which He can and does set us free from our hatreds and petty annoyances with neighbors simply by our turning to Him for help. After that, I will spend as much time as I can in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:
Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

The Wonder of Nothing

Justine Buisson in a chapter called “The Gifts of Andrew” (in Richard Rohr's book, Grace in Action) describes how the devastation wreaked on Miami by Hurricane Andrew brought the unlikeliest of comrades together as they shared the few supplies of water, food, and batteries that were available. Her tale reminded me of the every-month-or-so yard party in Amman, Jordan that took place in the wake of each brownout that routinely afflicted our Um Uthaineh neighborhood. There being nothing else to do, people who lived in each of the stone buildings on our street would gather in their yards with the residents of the various floors of their building, drink tea, munch on figs or dates, and catch up on a month’s worth of happenings (well, maybe not a month’s worth—people visit each other frequently in Jordan, and we were no exception).

In Jordanian apartment buildings, often one family owns the whole building and one sibling’s family lives on each floor, but that was not so in our case. Donnie and I, Americans, lived on the top floor. The Arafats, Palestinians with relatives in Israel, lived on the second floor, and Abu Yelez (lit., Father of Yelez, Yelez being his oldest son, who lived in Chicago) and his family occupied the first floor. Obviously, to get to the third floor, there being no elevator in the building, I had to walk past the first floor, and so often I would pop in.

Om Yelez (lit., the mother of Yelez) was not quite old enough to be my mother, but she was not young. In her late 70s, she spoke no English, but no English was needed because I could easily figure out the Arabic for mother talk. Don’t all mothers talk about the same things? Our kids, our homes, our spouses, our kids, our plans, our worries, our kids.

As for her kids, I knew most of them. The youngest, Lana, would take evening walks with me. A first-grade teacher, she was certain that the reason I could not speak good Arabic was because I was illiterate, so she would bring the first-grade book upstairs after our walks a couple of times of week and give me a reading lesson. It was indeed helpful and did much to confirm the assumptions I made about Arabic letters and words throughout the day as I read signs and talked to people. The second oldest, Sami, had opened a computer graphics firm with a partner, and he and Donnie, who at the time was teaching computer graphics at the university, became good friends. (It helped that Sami speaks English since Donnie never did learn much Arabic.) Maha, the next to youngest, worked quite successfully as a financial counselor at a bank. Given that she had completed only a bachelor degree, her career had likely already topped out although she was only in her early thirties. I talked her into enrolling in the MBA program at the university where I was chief academic officer, and she was just completing that program when we left. I met Olga upon a few occasions; she had married, mothered three children, and lived on the street behind us. Yelez had moved to Chicago to go to school and had ended up marrying another Middle Eastern student and remaining there, but I did meet him when he came back to show off his first-born.

Beyond the brownout parties, we also had water shortages. A number of times Sami carried a heavy bucket of water from their first-floor apartment to our third floor apartment, sharing the limited resources. Occasionally, Lana would stop by with loz akhdar (green almonds – unlike in the US where almonds are usually roasted, in Jordan they are eaten raw in their soft green covering), or Maha would bring up apricots from their tree. Our apartment was owned by Abu Yelez (it was his building), and, with his approval, we added some modifications, such as air conditioning in the bedroom and office/den, that he would not otherwise have been able to afford. So, there was truly a sharing of resources.

I realized that this family had crossed the line from neighbors whom you meet on the lawn at brownouts and with whom you occasionally share the breaking of the fast during Ramadan, when Om Yelez died. Her death came unexpectedly. Abu Yelez had been sick and had broken his hip. His children had expected him to be the first to die but instead the heart of Om Yelez, the quiet, gentle, uncomplaining woman I had come to love as an older friend with shared interests in each other’s children (Doah lived with us in Jordan for nearly a year), simply stopped one day with no warning. I was filling in for the academic dean at our sister campus in Bahrain at the time of Om Yelez’s death, shuttling back and forth between the two countries on a weekly basis, and so I missed the sitting, the Muslim wake in which everyone gathers in the home of the deceased, sits together, and reads the Q’uran, each reader taking a different chapter until all the chapters have been read. Words are few although people do talk quietly to the relatives while sipping on cardamom tea and reading. Usually any one person stays for 1-3 hours, but some stay longer. When I returned from Bahrain, I apologized to the children for having missing the sitting. “Please do not worry about it,” Sami told me. “We know you loved omna (our mother), and, more important, she knew you loved her.”

As misfortune would have it, two months later, Abu Yelez, who deteriorated rapidly after the loss of his wife, abruptly, but not unexpectedly, died. That time both Donnie and I were home. Donnie went to the men’s sitting, and I went to the women’s sitting. I stayed most of the day, making sure that any Q’uran chapters that I read were also read by someone else since my Arabic is not good enough to read with understanding, and reading with understanding is important in this situation. In the early evening, food was brought in for the family. As the women who had come in the afternoon began to leave, I stood up to go, as well.

“Where are you going?” asked Maha.

“I am leaving so that you, Lana, Sami, and Olga can have dinner alone as a family,” I replied, indicating that I understood the Jordanian traditions.

Maha looked genuinely confused, and Lana appeared distressed. “But you are family,” Maha said, as Lana nodded in agreement. Of course, I stayed. What had started as nothing – just people making the best of limited resources -- had turned into kinship.

7 Quick Takes Friday #15

As I look around me and see that it is Friday again and time to contribute to 7 Quick Takes Friday, a meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary, I am happy to report that I am still in sunny California.

1. (Picture: my friend's dog before additional snow fell!) We had visitors at work this week from Washington DC (amazing that they even got out), who have told us horror stories of being housebound there. One even put a shovel in his trunk so that he can dig his way back into his house when he returns! Did I say that I am glad to be in sunny California at the moment? Did I say that I am thankful to be here? Did I also say that I am being sent to Alaska next week? Wrong direction! Wrong direction! (Well, for this time of year; otherwise, I would be very happy to go to Alaska. My cousin is married to the chief of one of the Native American tribes there and is an artist laureate of Alaska, so going to Alaska is really a pleasure. I suspect, though, that returning from an Alaskan winter experience will be an even greater pleasure.)

2. We have had good news this week from several quarters. Yes, it is about time! The first piece of good news is that my brother's long-vintage girlfriend, who has been struggling with cancer, has just been declared to be in remission!!!!!! Yes!!!!! Now my brother can leave his New England home peacefully for a two-month assignment in San Diego. Two months! Yes! San Diego! Yes! In San Diego he is less than a day's trip from us in San Ignatio. Last year he came to visit, and we are hoping that, given the timing, he will be able to drive up this year, too, just in time for my February birthday. (We may change the celebration day because, in order to work with my brother's timing, it will conflict with Lent -- too many people giving up too many different things to do a good celebration, so I guess this year we will do a "moveable feast" -- or is that moveable birthday?)

3. The second piece of good news is mixed, but good. Noelle, as you may have noticed from my sidebar, is still fighting her bone disease and still staving off amputation of both feet. Several weeks before Ray died, she had been told that there was no choice but amputation. However, a doctor soon appeared on the scene -- a new guy in town -- who had some other ideas. He scheduled surgery for two weeks ago, but for some reason none of us know, when she showed up at the hospital, there was no record of the doctor having scheduled anything at all. She made an appointment and just got in to see him yesterday. The result? The bone disease in her right foot is gone, and she no longer has to do any care for it! Yes!!!!! (She is still scheduled for surgery, date unknown, for the left foot; we will deal with that when the time comes.)

4. I, too, had some good health news although I have not shared earlier that I have had any health issues to manage. Well, I have had them. They are probably of long-term vintage, but they are definitely of short-term knowledge. When I went into the clinic to get my very mild blood pressure pills re-prescribed, there was a new doctor. He did a quick and partial physical exam and heard a heart murmur. That was no surprise to me. I have had a systolic ejection murmur IV all my life. All my kids have the same thing. It is a functional, not a structural, murmur and is quite innocuous. I explained this to the new doc and thought he understood. However, two days later the clinic called me to tell me that he had made an appointment with a cardiologist for me! Sighing, I tripped over to the cardio guy to put the rumor to rest once and for all. I explained the whole situation to that doc, telling him that my heart is just fine. Yes, it goes squish-squish, instead of thump-thump, when someone listens to it, but that is an innocuous anomaly not of any great concern. Th doc listened patiently but insisted on an an electrocardiogram, the first I have ever had. He did not like the results. There is an electrical discrepancy caused by a left branch bunch node (what a name!). Essentially, it means that my heart does not keep up with me. (Donnie says that this is nothing to be concerned about since no one can keep up with me -- why should my heart be any different!) The doc then insisted on checking my cholesterol. I patiently explained to him that my cholesterol was fine (it had been checked a year earlier). He responded, "You told me your heart was fine." Oh! He insisted on the cholesterol test and an echocardiogram. To make a long story short, to the doc's surprise, the echocardiogram showed a functionally strong heart (that goes squish-squish instead of thuump-thump), about which the doc kept shaking his head, not understanding how this could be the case. So, instead of saying that I have a structurally fine heart with a functional anomaly, now I have to say I have a functionally fine heart with a structural anomaly. The cholesterol? At the very top of the normal scale. However, Dr. Doc still fretted, this time about my weight. He told me that if I were to lose 25 pounds, he thinks there will be no more structural damage (which was probably caused by untreated high blood pressure -- did not know for a long time that I had it), naturally lower blood pressure, and naturally lower cholesterol (because of changed eating habits). Ah, diet time! Sigh! I don't particularly like food or eat a lot. I certainly don't crave and sometimes forget to eat a particular meal. However, I get pressed into a lot of social eating because of my job -- guests, especially dinner guests, occur many times a month. Everyone has been understanding, though. I have had to go in for weekly checks, except for when I was in Lithuania (that would have been complicated). So, I lost one pound, then two pounds, then left for Lithuania. Yesterday at the weight check, I had lost another 8 pounds. Gotta go back next week, but I am not getting any more lectures from the doc. Nonetheless, he is still functioning on a doverai, no proverai (trust, but verify) basis! Oh, my! Look how long I have gone on about one simple thing! Sorry!

5. Yesterday was an enforced eating situation, but I was careful. Two of our Chinese specialists married Chinese mates, and we had a pre-wedding ceremony Chinese style, replete with very tasty but fattening Chinese food. It was interesting to see the differences between Chinese and American weddings. Some things, such as cake cutting and rice throwing, were the same. Other things, like the men telling the women in front of everyone why and how they loved them were not only different but touching. Then everyone took turns making a short formal well-wishing speech, including yours truly. (That caught me by surprise and because I was the senior person from our office in attendance, I had to go first, having no idea what I was supposed to say. Well, some good words I did say, but I missed the traditional ones that everyone else there, all of whom knew the culture, said, such as wishing the couples a marriage sweet as honey, a life as strong as diamonds, and a career like gold. Or something along those lines -- my presence made it a requirement to translate everything into English, so I know I miss some things entirely and some details in other cases. Unfortunately, Chinese is not one of the languages I speak.)

6. My "son" from Jordan is back in town. Briefly, "ibni" (the Arabic expression for "my son" - ibn is son; you may have seen that word, another variation of which is bin or ben; -i means my), which is what I call him in person and in writing, became ibni when my office sent a delegation to Jordan in 2006. Ibni is one of my lower level program managers, and he was in the delegation. We visited his family who had made a marvelous Jordanian meal for us. Like all Jordanian meals, however, it was so much and so slow-paced that we were there from noon until evening. The others in the delegation wanted to see the Dead Sea, 45 minutes away, and the sun was dropping. However, we had not begun dessert, and leaving early would have been rude by Arab standards. Donnie and I, who had lived in Jordan for two years (Donnie was still living there at the time although I had already returned to the USA), offered to stay with ibni's parents since we could handle the Arabic on our own (ibni had been interpreting for everyone) while ibni took the others to the Dead Sea. Ibni's mother, a traditional Arab woman, who conservatively dressed in black abaya and black hijab, broke down and told me how much she missed ibni and how she worried about his safety in the USA. (There is a general sense in Jordan that life in the USA is unsafe; when I had a residency permit there and would travel back to the USA for visits, Jordanian border guards would tell me to be careful because it was dangerous in the US). I promised her that I would be in loco parentis (or is that in loco matris?) for her son, and her relief was so deep-felt that I have taken the mothering role seriously. He is the age of my own children, and he has come to know them through family outings. He also comes to Mass with me, and on this past Wednesday he came to Bible Study class. He had been coming to Bible Study with me two years earlier until he was assigned to Cairo, Egypt, so everyone there was happy to see him on Wednesday. (He will be working here on a temporary assignment for a month.)

7. Shane and Lemony decided to take the kids to Disneyland. It was a trip planned before he lost his job, and the first that they have been able to get away in two years because of all the medical issues with Nikolina. It will be Nikolina's first trip out of reach of Stanford University Hospital, but she is doing very, very well -- unbelievably well, considering her very difficult start and very tentative initial hold on life. She is now a bouncing, inquisitive, happy, clearly smart 9-month-old baby, so off they head south for some fun, finally. On the employment front, California Highway Patrol, where Shane worked for 12 years, has offered him a job at his former level of seniority. He had left because of the low pay, and the pay is still low, but the benefits that he needs for Nikolina are good. He will manage. Money isn't everything, as the Mahlou clan well knows!

I hope that your week has been as good as ours, and, if not, that your next week will be!

Thankful Thursday #2: A Grateful, Still Recovering, Heart at Home

Although I am still recovering from that German germ that came home with me from Garmisch and not the best things have happened this week, there is still much for which to be grateful. For example:

• Not only have I blogged this week about robberies, but two people I care about have experienced car break-ins -- in two hemispheres at almost exactly the same time. Go figure! Padre Julio Skyped me from Colombia with the information that his car had just been broken into for the second time in three months; his laptop and a computer that belongs to his school was taken as well. Then, just a little while later, I heard that the car window of my son Shane here in California had been smashed and his i-pod stolen, but $40 in cash that had been stashed away was ignored. (I think both should stop keeping electronics in their car, and I am now going to start taking our tom-tom into the house when we get home even though I live in a small and, I think, trustworthy community. I am thankful, though, that neither person was hurt, and, the robbery was to their car and not to their house. Electronics can be replaced. Of course, I am grateful for all the folks who said that they would pray for Padre Julio. Shane is having a bit of a bad year, too, but since it is darkest before the dawn, I think he will have a very rosy 2010. (Oh, yes, I have an incurable case of optimism.)

• Speaking of incurable cases, I was very, very grateful that the German medicine that I bought as I was leaving Germany worked like magic at the end of last week (before I ran out and crashed into 38 hours of nearly non-stop sleeping over the weekend), allowing me to attend the semi-formal dinner that the head of my organization threw for a very high ranking (national name recognition, but I won't name-drop here) government official held with our six senior managers. I happened to be the manager who ended up sitting across from him and had a very enjoyable dinner conversation, which I would not have been able to manage without that medicine. At the end of the evening, as everyone was shaking hands good-bye, he startled me a bit by hugging me instead of shaking my hand. (No, I was not the only woman there, but I was the only person -- male or female -- that he hugged. Dunno why.) I just said a quick prayer, "Lord, the nation needs him; please don't let me infect him." It has been almost a week, and I have not heard of any dire consequences from his brief meeting with me. Whew! Thank you, Lord!

• Earlier this week, my daughter Lizzie found Princesse, one of her two cats, flattened on the floor where a bed had fallen on her. (she and her husband are moving into a new place.) She was devastated. When she was a freshman in college, Lizzie had acquired Princesse from the US Embassy in Tunis (hence, the French name, as well as a sheaf of vet papers in French that the San Diego vet, who just happened to know French, got a kick out of reading). Princesse was slated to be turned out into the street by the new ambassador at that time, and the former deputy chief of mission, who had returned to the USA where I met her, took upon herself the task of finding homes for all the cats she had befriended while assigned to Tunis. I offered to take Princesse, but when our landlord said, "no cats," Princesse ended up in San Diego with Lizzie, Noelle, and Blaine. Lizzie had Princesse all through college and graduate school to her PhD completion, a real blessing as a source of calm during a long period of stress. Then Princesse accompanied Lizzie to New York, where Lizzie spent two years as a visiting professor at a university in New York. Now, Lizzie, Blaine, Princesse, and second cat Woody, were settling into a new home as Lizzie began a new job as a tenure-track professor at a university in South Carolina. That's when the bed fell. Lizzie and Blaine rushed Princesse to an emergency care facility in nearby Georgia, where the cat had surgery for a fractured jaw. She seems to have some brain damage -- or so Lizzie, whose specialty is brain pathology, thinks, but she is making progress. Three days ago, she began drinking water (still needs a food tube). Two days ago, she started using the litter pan by herself. Yesterday, she started wandering around the room and finding the litter pan by herself through sniffing. Today, Lizzie wrote, "She looked at me! She looked at me! And she knew me!" Yes, one must be grateful for small things, and when trauma happens, we are reminded of how important the small things are. We are praying for brave little Princesse, and we are grateful for every little bit of progress. It is exciting watching her recover, and we are grateful that she is not in pain and not on pain medication.

• I am grateful, oh, very much so, more than words can convey, that this week -- Yippee!! Praise the Lord! -- I found (i.e. re-established contact with) a work-study college student in Jordan who calls me "Mom." An Iraqi with no local family, she needed someone to talk to every time the bombs fell on the university where her father worked or EIDs exploded along Airport Road where her family lived. Typically, she would not be able to reach them when these things happened, and she would come to my office and say, "Mom, may I come in and cry for a while?" I would shut the door, and she would have some peace. Some times she wanted to talk; other times she just wanted company while she sat in silence; yet other times she really did want to cry and to be held. I kept a prayer rug for her in my office so that during prayer hours (she is Sunni) she would have a private place to pray. I met her real mother once when she came to Jordan for some medical care. She seemed to approve of me and told me how happy and relieved she was that her daughter had someone in loco parentis in Amman. I lost contact with my "daughter" about a year after I left Jordan, and when I returned last July, my efforts at tracking her down were futile. I was concerned, but I knww that God has always watched out for her. I am a very poor second to Him when it comes to ensuring her safety, health, and happiness. Nonetheless, I was delighted this week when I found her, through a mutual friend, on Facebook! We are now back in touch! Life is sweet!

For what are you thankful this wonderful Thursday?

More information about the Thankful Thursday meme can be found at the website of Grace Alone.

Muggable Me

Some people are huggable, but me, well, I am muggable. I've been mugged in some of the supposedly safest places in the world: Moscow (Russia), Urbana (Illinois), and Amman (Jordan).



In Moscow, it happened at Kropotkinskaya Metro Station. I was on my way to see a friend and stopped to don my coat as I exited the frosty metro station that had been warmed by a massive blanket of bodies that moved in flowing ripples out of the train, up the long, rapid escalator, and out into the cold Russian fall. I just put my purse down for a moment, a bad habit born in the days of the crime-free Soviet Union, and there went my exposed wallet. I did not even see who took it. So, there I was, with all the money I had in the world at the moment gone.

I met my friend outside, and we walked together to the nearby militia station. There I presented my passport, and one of the two militia on duty at the time tried to copy the information onto the document needed to record the crime. However, he could not read the English. "Would you like me to help?" I asked.

He agreed to the help and gave me a table to work at. After filling out the document, I was instructed that I had to write out the details in an open-form "zhaloba podpolkovniku militsii" (letter of complaint to the lieutenant colonel of the police force). So, I wrote. As I wrote, the militiaman who had been reading over my shoulder looked over at his partner across the room. "Akh," he said, "kak gramotno ona pishet" (Oh, how educated her writing is!)

I had to try very hard not to laugh. There is a Russian joke about why the militia always works in groups of three (one certainly does see this grouping frequently): one can write, one can read, and the third likes to be among educated folks. Here we were, a living example of that joke: I could write, the militaman looking over my shoulder could read, and the third apparently liked to be among educated people!

After we left the militia station, my friend loaned me ten rubles to make it through a day or two. Soon, others heard what happened, and they, too, stepped forward with a few rubles here and there -- plenty enough for me for the duration of my stay. None of them had much money, but they liberally shared what they had. Americans stepped forward, too. I was in town with several colleagues, all senior professionals in our field, where at the time I was junior, to attend an international conference. One of them opened his wallet and said, "Take whatever you need; your credit is good with me." I took nothing; I had enough rubles. I did thank him -- more for his trust than the offer of money. However, when we were at the airport on our way back, one of the Americans slipped a $20 bill into my pocket and said, "No arguments; you will need American money as soon as you reach New York. Pay it back when you get home." It was almost worth being ripped off to learn a part of the culture (how the militia works) that I would never otherwise have seen and, more important, to learn what compassionate friends I had!

Meanwhile, the lieutenant colonel from the police force came to my hotel room and berated me, telling me that I had been in Russia often enough to be considered a "resident" and should have known better than to look away from my wallet. Well, yes, in Russia perhaps, but it was only 1990 and I was still used to the Soviet Union. His words, though, confirmed another widely held belief by my Russian friends: the Soviet government knows everything about everyone. Amazingly, I got my wallet back with credit cards minus, of course, the money, further supporting the notion of the efficiency of the police and of reputation of Moscow as a safe city. This was in the days before cell phones, so I had sent a telegram to Donnie, my husband, to report my credit cards stolen. As with my previous experiences with telegrams sent to/from the Soviet Union, I arrived home in time to intercept the message when it appeared two days later.


The second mugging happened 13 years later in quiet Urbana, Illinois. It was the evening before the Lake Homan wedding of Lizzie, my daughter, and Blaine, the young man who had come to live with us 12 years earlier. As I walked alone across a parking lot to join the others who were already in the restaurant for dinner, I felt everything around me go pale blue and pleasantly warm. It took me a minute to realize what had happened. I had been tazered by a thief who had grabbed my purse, and by the time I realized this, was half-way across the parking lot and moving at a full run. No way to catch him.

The Urbana police were less interested and less thorough than their counterparts in Moscow and never caught the thief. A bank south of Urbana helped me out. A branch of my own bank, they were able to get my signature faxed to them and let me write a counter check for travel funds. So, I had money, but I still had a problem: I had to fly to NY for a short meeting with a UN committee and then back to California, and I had no ID. A quick survey of my memories brought to mind an organization I worked for in Washington DC that kept a photocopy of my passport on file in order to get me visas when they needed to send me abroad. I called them, and they faxed a copy to the hotel. That photocopy and the police report allowed me to travel and allowed a bank and an organization the chance to show compassion. The mugging had no bad effect on the next-day wedding, and I was even able to add a line about the mugging to a comical poem I had written as as a toast at the reception.


The last mugging took place four years ago in Amman, Jordan. It was an early evening during the month of Ramadan, right after nightfall, and I was walking with Donnie on back roads to the campus of the university where I worked as academic dean at the time. During Ramadan, we held evening classes after iftar, the meal that occurred after the sun set, the breaking of the day-long fast that Islam requires of all healthy Muslims and other people living and working in a Muslim country. A car drove by slowly, and the driver put his head out of the window, as if to ask for directions. When I approached to see what he needed, he grabbed my purse from my shoulder and sped off.

So, once again I found myself at a police station in a foreign country to report a crime. Unfortunately, my Arabic is not as good as my Russian, and I ended up calling the university for help. "Don't worry," I was told, "Adel is on the way there to translate for you." How interesting! Adel did not speak English. However, he turned out to be the perfect "translator" since he was able to interpret from shrty-Arabic (police-Arabic) to Beth-Arabic. Our having worked together for two years, he as head of security and I as head of academics, had created the ability to communicate in more than just rudimentary ways. Another advantage? He had been the chief of police in Cairo, Egypt and knew exactly what the police should be doing -- and made sure that they did everything possible for "Doktora Beth."

While being mugged is a far cry from a pleasant experience -- one feels violated in some sense -- the memories are not entirely negative because of the compassion that flowed from it in each location. I suppose some might ask why God did not prevent the muggings to begin with. My view of that (I admit my limited understanding of how God works) is that if free will has been put in place, then God cannot and should not always intervene. If we are protected from every possible negative, i.e. if our life is always under control, then when do we get to have free will? When do we get to experience the rich chaos and drama of life? When do we get to see any of the miracles of daily life when God does intervene. (Again, I don't presume to understand why those instances happen, either.) There is an awe that comes from being a part of situations where God turns individual bad into widespread good; where God shows us the good in the bad; where God lets us be us and learn about each other, about the best and the worst of life, and about the Divine, from our experiences; in short, when God trusts us to understand, at least a little.

All God's Children

My last post got me to thinking about God's children. I am referring not to mankind as God's children, but to the little ones in our lives and our second generation regardless of age, the ones who call us Mom and Dad (or Ma and Pa, or Omy and Baba, etc.).

In this, I cannot imagine anyone with a greater sense of humor than God. I see that humor unfold in my life time and again. For example, I never particularly wanted children; I had a career lined up for myself (in my mind). Well, had that career happened as planned, it would not have been one iota as interesting as the career that unrolled, in zigs and zags, before me. And had that career not had to zig and zag around child after child, I would have missed the richest moments of my life.

In a display of great irony, the children that came into my life were not your everyday variety. Well, actually, those, too, ended up in my life, but as adults. My birth children, as well as those who came to live with Donnie and me as children and teenagers, were different: highly gifted, mentally and physically challenged, medically needy, discarded, bereft, foreign. First came my own birth children, one after the other, in spite of my best efforts not to get pregnant. (I hated being pregnant -- if I had a half hour of not being sick throughout all four pregnancies, I do not recall it. As best as I can figure, between all the kids, I have spent 26,298 hours vomiting or trying not to vomit.) On the other hand, once the children were born, all those maternal instincts took over and ran way ahead of me.

After my birth children along came Shura (a Siberian teenager with spina bifida),

All of these children I have talked about in various posts and books. The ones I have not mentioned are the ones that came later. They are the ones who need my help (and your prayers) today. Please meet Lana, Ibrahim, and Maha.

Leyla and Shem (not related to each other) are from Iraq. I met them in Jordan, where they worked for me as work-study students at the university where I was the chief academic officer.

Leyla would periodically come into my office and say, "Mum, may I cry in here?" It was usually because she had heard of a new bombing along Airport Road in Baghdad, where her family lived, or an attack on Baghdad University, where her father taught. Her family could not leave Iraq. She could not return, and communications, especially in 2003-2006 were very poor and, at times, totally lacking. Given a tendency to assume the worst, when she did not hear that her family was okay, she assumed that something bad had happened. And so, she started calling me "Mum" and looking to me for advice and moral support. I took to keeping an Islamic prayer rug in my office for her use, as needed, as well as provided guidance and hugs, as needed. Leyla recently ran into legal problems with an expired passport and the inability to return to Iraq to take care of that issue. I was in Jordan earlier this month for business purposes and called Leyla, worried because she has not responded to email for several weeks. Someone else answered her phone, and if my understanding of the Arabic conversation we had was accurate, that phone number no longer belongs to Leyla. I worry about her. She is as much my child now as my own children. I know that God will watch over her and take care of her until I find her again, but nonetheless I would welcome prayers from readers on her behalf.

Shem was my student as well as work-study assistant. An Iraqi Christian (a small and persecuted group), he thrived in school in spite of being separated from his family, graduating with a 4.0. He has done well also in graduate studies and in subsequent jobs. He, too, called me "Mom," although it did not seem like he needed another mother. Still, he was alone in Jordan and lonely. He emails and Skypes me regularly, and his first words are always, "I miss you sooooo much!" Seeing him in Jordan two weeks ago reminded me how families are families, whether blood or not and whether separated by physical distance or not. We spent hours together. It did not matter what we talked about. I do not even remember half of what we said and did. Rather, I savored the blessing of being able to be together, if only for one day and one night, in spite of living half a world apart in cultures that are rather alien to each other.

Maha's situation is much different. She lives in Bahrain, and she became my "daughter" when I was consulting extensively (over a period of 5 years) for the Ministry of Education there. Shia Muslims, her biological family became embroiled in political machinations over a year ago when her brother was arrested in the dead of the night on a trumped-up charge that has yet to have its day in court. The situation is personally emotionally difficult for me--and truly not understandable--for Donnie taught and I was academic dean for many university students from the ruling Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa family. The Shia-Sunni hatred dates back to the struggle after the death of the Prophet Mohammed and the murder of Ali, a tragedy and travesty remembered to this day on the 10-day annual Ashara (the word ashara means ten) when Shias take leave from work and commemorate this piece of history, in part by flailing themselves with branches to the point of drawing blood. One would think that this hatred would have died out after 16 centuries, but emotions still run high. Emotions are part and parcel of the Arab world. And so, Maha's brother has been imprisoned for 14 months, during which time he has been beaten to the point of being almost blind. I tried my best to help, and a friend of a friend convinced a specialist in international human rights to go to Bahrain, but to no avail. The US Embassy did not want to get involved, nor did any other international body, and the Bahraini government repelled any appeal. So, we wait--and pray.

I am sure that I am not alone in having adult children who are experiencing difficulties that require assistance beyond what a normal parent like me can provide. If you are one of those "mothers" or "fathers", what have you done? How has God helped you out with these children?