So much is spinning inside
me, as I sit
so placid,
knowing
that if I find happiness
in even the least happy
day,
I will be happy; in fact,
I will die happy
if I can find happiness
in even the most unhappy day.
That's why
it is wise to laugh at funerals,
much wiser than to sob,
because if you're laughing at a funeral,
you're sending that soul off
on wings of joy.
~ ~ ~
For how much longer
will we send souls off
on wings of tears,
or worse yet,
empty wings---
this is the pain produced by the terrorist.
The terrorist is he
who has made it his role
to act out the anger
produced by the collective pain of an abused people.
The terrorist who is murdered
is a martyr,
whether we like it or not,
because he was bold enough to act out
the agonized pain of his oppressed people.
No matter how evil his deeds,
some of his people will still applaud him
and laud him.
We can stop the cycle, and I'll tell you how --
stop oppressing Muslim people.
( universitywaterloo )
For how long has the world oppressed Muslims?
Their religion is as valid as any other; it is
the sister religion to Judaism & Christianity.
Surely,
they have killed;
they have hurt us
deeply.
But did you ever stop
to think about
how long we have abused and oppressed them, our brothers and sisters?
Though we say it rarely
our Books tell us that we
should think of our religions
as siblings, born of Abraham,
stemming from the two races
produced by he:
the children of Isaac
and
the children of Ismael.
And herein, my friends,
lies the core of the contention between
the three Abramic religions:
Who was there? On that mountain top at the foot
of raging flames set by the father,
was it Isaac?
was it Ishmael?
Did it ever cross our minds to think
that it was both?
that they both stood there, and their weary sad father's command
was to burn them both:
that's what his Master,
the God of Abraham told him:
offer them both up to me
so I can see
how much you love me.
?
Anyway,
so many of us are the distant offspring of
that nasty threesome:
Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar.
Some of us trace our dominant
roots to Sarah's womb,
and some
to Hagar's but
in general, we all have the same distant
paternal line:
Abe.
blogs.pitch
We're basically all
brothers and sisters,
distantly,
who fight, bitterly, because
once upon a time,
someone told the story wrong,
either purposefully or not,
and when they told it wrong,
there was only one son there.
Of course, if you're one of
Isaac's brood, you'd say
your dad was there,
thereby
pissing off your Uncle Ishmael's family
so much that they
start spreading the story that it was their father who was there.
But since no one else was there,
except Abe, Isaac, Ishmael,
a goat, and God,
well, no one could witness and amend.
So
I tell you now: both the boys were there,
their knees trembling,
Isaac crying uncontrollably because
he was the younger,
oh such a sweet-faced boy
(he looked like his beautiful mother),
who knew that what his father was about
to do was horrible.
And his elder brother, too,
trembled but did not want to show
his little brother the fear
that gripped him.
They gripped each other,
knowing
that they both would die together in
the growing, devouring fire.
And their father, so singular
and certain. It was his God
that commanded him. Though
their mothers both had begged
him not to listen to that Voice.
But Abraham listened to his God,
who drove him
up that mountain.
That was how it happened, and those two boys knew
that they were dead,
hopelost,
embers. They stared
into the fire and they knew it
was their grave, and they took
some comfort from that, that is
until their father fell
to his knees and heard
his God gain heart.
The goat bleated with the same
relief as the boys, when it
saw the burning flames --
the goat became the sacrifice, meat
for the raging God,
and the boys skipped down the moutain,
closer now than they had ever been before.
They were both saved,
by a God who loved them both,
loved them all.
Oh, Isaac surely
did some special things with his father
that Ishmael did not do;
Oh, Ishmael too
did some very special things with his father,
that Isaac did not do.
They both gave birth to nations.
It was in the writing
of the story
that the problem began.
That story held one of the earliest
blatant, premeditated
lies,
fictionalized to valorize
the teller,
and not the tale.
The tale
we've all participated in.
But the one brother,
the younger,
more frightened brother
wrote his side of
the story down first. He
repeated it again and again
to his wide-eyed, naieve
gang of children. Oh,
it was a great story,
and most of it was true,
except one minor detail.
Who was there.
Of course, if you and your brother or sister shared
the most horrifying and life confirming experience
of your lives together,
and your sibling told it and failed
to mention you were there, too,
wouldn't you be mad?
Deeply hurt you'd be,
in the depths of your soul, because
you loved him so; so much
you loved him, you even
offered to die
if your father would only
let him live.
But it never came to that because
God is merciful and saved you both.
But he turned on you,
and told a lie,
and told it so well,
they believed him; I mean he was,
after all, the legitimate son,
and you were just the bastard.
But you were both there; I tell it right
right now.
Both of the "I"s spawned
by ol' Abe.
And you've been fighting ever since,
and it's time to stop, because you,
the heirs of Isaac
have been tormenting the heirs of Ishmael
for too long.
This is why
we suffer terror. His family is finally
striking back violently,
after centuries of being called
the evil, the profane,
the wrong, the insane,
the heirs of Ishmael
finally had enough.
It happens at every level of society:
in the family home,
in the clannish group,
in the extended clan,
in the racial nation,
in the human race:
we all mimic the rivalry of kin, both
witihin our ranks,
and between each other;
we all bear
and will continue to bear
the sins of our fathers
until
we can honestly acknowledge them
and forgive.
Forgive all. Kill
no more; never
send another soul weeping to the heavens again.
From now on
only send every human souls with joy, the greatest
joy we can muster at the death of one
who shares with us the same
living, loving heritage
of humanity.
me, as I sit
so placid,
knowing
that if I find happiness
in even the least happy
day,
I will be happy; in fact,
I will die happy
if I can find happiness
in even the most unhappy day.
That's why
it is wise to laugh at funerals,
much wiser than to sob,
because if you're laughing at a funeral,
you're sending that soul off
on wings of joy.
~ ~ ~
For how much longer
will we send souls off
on wings of tears,
or worse yet,
empty wings---
this is the pain produced by the terrorist.
The terrorist is he
who has made it his role
to act out the anger
produced by the collective pain of an abused people.
The terrorist who is murdered
is a martyr,
whether we like it or not,
because he was bold enough to act out
the agonized pain of his oppressed people.
No matter how evil his deeds,
some of his people will still applaud him
and laud him.
We can stop the cycle, and I'll tell you how --
stop oppressing Muslim people.
For how long has the world oppressed Muslims?
Their religion is as valid as any other; it is
the sister religion to Judaism & Christianity.
Surely,
they have killed;
they have hurt us
deeply.
But did you ever stop
to think about
how long we have abused and oppressed them, our brothers and sisters?
Though we say it rarely
our Books tell us that we
should think of our religions
as siblings, born of Abraham,
stemming from the two races
produced by he:
the children of Isaac
and
the children of Ismael.
And herein, my friends,
lies the core of the contention between
the three Abramic religions:
Who was there? On that mountain top at the foot
of raging flames set by the father,
was it Isaac?
was it Ishmael?
Did it ever cross our minds to think
that it was both?
that they both stood there, and their weary sad father's command
was to burn them both:
that's what his Master,
the God of Abraham told him:
offer them both up to me
so I can see
how much you love me.
?
Anyway,
so many of us are the distant offspring of
that nasty threesome:
Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar.
Some of us trace our dominant
roots to Sarah's womb,
and some
to Hagar's but
in general, we all have the same distant
paternal line:
Abe.
We're basically all
brothers and sisters,
distantly,
who fight, bitterly, because
once upon a time,
someone told the story wrong,
either purposefully or not,
and when they told it wrong,
there was only one son there.
Of course, if you're one of
Isaac's brood, you'd say
your dad was there,
thereby
pissing off your Uncle Ishmael's family
so much that they
start spreading the story that it was their father who was there.
But since no one else was there,
except Abe, Isaac, Ishmael,
a goat, and God,
well, no one could witness and amend.
So
I tell you now: both the boys were there,
their knees trembling,
Isaac crying uncontrollably because
he was the younger,
oh such a sweet-faced boy
(he looked like his beautiful mother),
who knew that what his father was about
to do was horrible.
And his elder brother, too,
trembled but did not want to show
his little brother the fear
that gripped him.
They gripped each other,
knowing
that they both would die together in
the growing, devouring fire.
And their father, so singular
and certain. It was his God
that commanded him. Though
their mothers both had begged
him not to listen to that Voice.
But Abraham listened to his God,
who drove him
up that mountain.
That was how it happened, and those two boys knew
that they were dead,
hopelost,
embers. They stared
into the fire and they knew it
was their grave, and they took
some comfort from that, that is
until their father fell
to his knees and heard
his God gain heart.
The goat bleated with the same
relief as the boys, when it
saw the burning flames --
the goat became the sacrifice, meat
for the raging God,
and the boys skipped down the moutain,
closer now than they had ever been before.
They were both saved,
by a God who loved them both,
loved them all.
Oh, Isaac surely
did some special things with his father
that Ishmael did not do;
Oh, Ishmael too
did some very special things with his father,
that Isaac did not do.
They both gave birth to nations.
It was in the writing
of the story
that the problem began.
That story held one of the earliest
blatant, premeditated
lies,
fictionalized to valorize
the teller,
and not the tale.
The tale
we've all participated in.
But the one brother,
the younger,
more frightened brother
wrote his side of
the story down first. He
repeated it again and again
to his wide-eyed, naieve
gang of children. Oh,
it was a great story,
and most of it was true,
except one minor detail.
Who was there.
Of course, if you and your brother or sister shared
the most horrifying and life confirming experience
of your lives together,
and your sibling told it and failed
to mention you were there, too,
wouldn't you be mad?
Deeply hurt you'd be,
in the depths of your soul, because
you loved him so; so much
you loved him, you even
offered to die
if your father would only
let him live.
But it never came to that because
God is merciful and saved you both.
But he turned on you,
and told a lie,
and told it so well,
they believed him; I mean he was,
after all, the legitimate son,
and you were just the bastard.
But you were both there; I tell it right
right now.
Both of the "I"s spawned
by ol' Abe.
And you've been fighting ever since,
and it's time to stop, because you,
the heirs of Isaac
have been tormenting the heirs of Ishmael
for too long.
This is why
we suffer terror. His family is finally
striking back violently,
after centuries of being called
the evil, the profane,
the wrong, the insane,
the heirs of Ishmael
finally had enough.
It happens at every level of society:
in the family home,
in the clannish group,
in the extended clan,
in the racial nation,
in the human race:
we all mimic the rivalry of kin, both
witihin our ranks,
and between each other;
we all bear
and will continue to bear
the sins of our fathers
until
we can honestly acknowledge them
and forgive.
Forgive all. Kill
no more; never
send another soul weeping to the heavens again.
From now on
only send every human souls with joy, the greatest
joy we can muster at the death of one
who shares with us the same
living, loving heritage
of humanity.
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