begging questions

11.29.14

Most of the tenants must still be on holiday because I’ve had a strong internet connection all afternoon and listening to the Beatles on youtube this evening is a surprise and delight and it is strange because I almost went to Omantel to get a private line into the grotto before I dropped the creaky car off this morning but the almost empty of petrol light came on and I had no intentions of putting a plug nickel into this thing so there it is.

So from the living room I see the Lions won two days ago, I posted on the blog and uploaded photos into earlier blogs because the pc at the office doesn’t let me, posted photos of the beach on that social media site and watched Daily Show clips all afternoon.  I started feeling guilty while the unfinished McEwan novel and Times newspaper looked kind of lonely, I gave up reading for a day tangled in a world web.  Well, I’m waiting for the minute my neighbors return and I’ll be off the grid again.

This coming Thursday students take their mid-term exams.  The first seven weeks haven’t gone as fast as most would like, just wait until March comes we say, 15 weeks of no breaks and temps rise in all matters is a killer. 

Oh, I lost the Beatles, let’s try Brahms, can you name any of his compositions, I cannot.  Can you identify one of his, let’s listen. 

India has now introduced the tourist visa on line, but the restrictions are kind of lame:  I cannot visit for longer than a month at a time and only a month after that each year.  Sure I’ve never stayed for longer than a month but five years ago a multiple entry visa good for six months let me fly as much as I wanted to Delhi and Mumbai which was as far as I could go on five day holidays. 

Ah, at 6:11 I know this ‘tune’ but there is no title noted, very nice.  Imagine today’s youth listening to this instead of the Biebers boobs and Iggy Azeala whatever the Australian’s name is.  You can’t even compare the two and yet youth must have listened to him, right, because no one had a choice?  Was it called classical music then?  I mean there was nothing else, perhaps folk music with tin flutes and tiny drums.  And we didn’t call rock n roll 'classic' in the seventies, it was just rock and roll, I suppose Brahms was called whatever it was performed as, as chamber music, symphony sonatas I don’t know.

After thirty minutes of Brahms now it's Chopin.  Surely I’ll recognize something here.  Seventeen million hits, I’ll wager mostly from Western middle aged white people.  On Dateline London, Gaven Hester hosted today’s panel of journalists on the subject of racism in America and class in England.  I feel fortunate I didn’t grow up in a racist environment.  My home and education until I graduated from high school were free of the anger and resentment seen just about everywhere today.  The Arab journalist said President Obama must be, according to the US media, the most disrespected president ever and never again would Americans vote for a man of color to the highest office.  Everywhere else in the world the President is held with the highest esteem, how strange Americans are.  The previous president did far worse and is partially, not wholly, responsible for what is happening in the Middle East today.  Obama has done nothing to betray his country and has managed to pull our troops out of two countries at war by the end of this year.

Perhaps I’m reaching here but can you think of another man who tried to make peace for all people and was crucified because he didn’t deliver to the people what the people wanted.  I know I was out of my mind with this reincarnation slash messiah thing and I don’t look for the day he finishes his term because I know I’m gonna be around for a while unless Nyima’s spirit got it wrong and who am I to challenge a medium.  Then again….

I still believe a spirit knows the future only as far as the end of my nose, that being a half second.  Nyima’s spirit said I’d need another puja when I was 80.  It does beg the questions.

indecision making in the will of Om-God and I

11.25.14

I told a colleague if I rent a car this evening I’d give her a lift to Muscat so she could go to the Indian embassy tomorrow morning.  I walked to the AL-Balushi Rent a Car and Mr. Mohammed Balushi and I had a cup of tea.  This is the same well fed man I rented a car from earlier in the year and then lit up the traffic speeding lights from here to Sohar.  After paying for the car for four days he made sure the insurance and registration were in the unclean interior he said see ya and quickly walked away before I turned on the ignition to see ‘service engine soon’ and this exclamation mark inside a glass shaped symbol blinking yellow.  I drove it back to the grotto and called my colleague. I know in America you would have never taken the car in the first place, but we’re not in America and I still wanted the car even if I’d decide later not to use it.  I told the woman earlier in the day I wasn’t sure when I’d be returning to Buraimi so she decided to make arrangements with someone else.  Fair enough.  And then I realized her spirit was telling her, though not indirectly, that this car I rented may not make it to Muscat and I know if a rental breaks down I am liable for any repairs so I called another colleague who offered a lift two days earlier to ask him if I could get a ride and he answered but put the phone down and walked away.  I could hear his television and after saying hello a half dozen times he said ‘wrong number’, what a mendacious little bleeping chapati so now I pack and am planning to catch the 7am bus which means a 5 thirty wake up call which means I’ll look at the time three or four times.  Crap.  I don’t want to take a car that may not make it, this is not a country to fool around with lame cars, but I’ll take the loss, let the car sit for two days, and I’ll use it when I return. 

So how was your day?  Come across any neurotics?

There can’t be anything worse than getting caught in an embarrassing situation.  This impish man, who two days ago gave me a bottle of Scotch whiskey concocted in Mumbai, couldn’t simply say his plans had changed and he couldn’t take me to Muscat.  He said wrong number.  You work with someone for two years you know their voice and I am not angry, I know the individual well enough I kind of expected something like this. 

When I face a hard uncomfortable choice I try to avoid the moment of decision as long as possible hoping time will solve it but when time runs out and the decision affects someone I make the call for better or for worse.  Dr. Mendacious couldn’t.  I feel bad for him.

11.26.14

Rashmi came to the bus station.  She decided to take the bus instead of accepting my offer to drive her.  We were both surprised to see each other.  “Our spirits were telling us to consider other forms of transportation.  We are, oddly, in sync.”

The full bus stops at Rusayl and most disembark.  Two thirds of the passengers were women.  We have another 40 minutes before we arrive in Ruwi.  I finished my New Yorker magazine and P. Barker’s The Ghost Road and will pay a visit at the mini Borders bookstore for something, William Dalyrimple’s latest, the 60 dollar bio of G. Washington perhaps, and then a quick check to see if Feeneys can call itself an Irish Pub again before checking in at the Beach Hotel.    

11.27.14

Thanksgiving 7,000 miles away, I head towards Sohar on the bus and can’t decide where I’ll stay.  The Crowne Plaza might have a Thanksgiving meal but I’ll pay through the nose for it and overeating doesn’t appeal.  Three Carslberg pints at the Al Ghazal Pub and a Guinness at the once again Irish Pub Feeneys has left me feeling icky 15 hours later.  A colleague suggested the Al-Wadi Hotel and its disco bar and I don’t know.  A half dozen Filipino girls in pairs at the Al Ghazal didn’t interest me, though one wearing a tight red dress reminded me of the ill effects of sensory deprivation.  I hope I can decide where to go when we arrive.

And I bought two books at Borders, a NYT Int’l with the headline story of the Pope calling Europe ‘haggard’, and a map, Ian McEwan’s latest offering, The Children Act is, surprisingly, good reading on a bus. 

A tiny and very old taxi driver took me to the Ruwi bus station and asked for 6 OMR, I usually pay 2 OMR, but I didn’t argue.  Dorothy Day would have been proud of me.  If the man were 40 years younger I would have negotiated the ten minute ride.  He also offered to drive me to Sohar for 60 OMR!  And I had to scoff, the bus ticket is only 2.6 OMR.  “Ok, 40.”  I can fly to Dubai for 40 and I considered that for a moment, preposterous indecision making in the will of Om-God and I are making my face breakout around the nose, or it’s coming from my first taste of beer since 31 October, or it’s the humidity.  Another strip of Zantac.

11.28.14

Pope Francis in Turkey, the birthplace of an Anatolian zealot, the founding seven churches, and on a hill outside Ephesus, the home of Mary.  And don’t forget the man who brought her there.

The pope offers a dialogue on Islam, standing up to the usual fundamentalist crimes, he’s not going to call for a reformation is he.  Ya’ll need a crystallization of your holy book simply to weed out the evil that thrives in dissolute interpretations and darn it you moderates need to blow your conch and get this started.  

In 2015 will be the 500^th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 appeals to engage on the Wittenberg Door.  If only God respected our time instead of God’s time we could accomplish something with this.  A new book of an old book?  That would be nice timing.

Salim the taxi driver returned me to Buraimi in under an hour.  He asked for 20 Rials from the Al Wadi Hotel and I agreed.  I took the beat up rental to Lulus and stocked up on food not available on foot, washed the darks, ate two deli chicken pizzas, popped a zantac, tried to read, fell asleep, and have kept CNN on hoping to hear the score of the Lions and whoever they played yesterday.  I might not know until I return to the office on Sunday.  Such is life off the grid.

There was nothing remotely illicit at the Al Wadi’s disco and you can’t call a non-descript room where burly security and the Indian waiter played pool and a half dozen middle aged Omani men drank beer watching a big screen of Arabic music videos of men lamenting women out of their league a disco.  I had two Amstel Lite tall boys and was glad to turn in.  I woke up before sunrise and wandered in front of the hotel, it was chilly, looking for something to take a picture of.  Was it thanksgiving yesterday?

a utopian footstool

11.18.14

All night the absurd gunning of engines, pealing tires, backfiring exhaust, horns blazing robbed my sleep and earlier this afternoon three young boys on white horses whipped their flags and marched east on Sohar Road, a train of honking cars followed.  The university celebrated number 44 and one hooligan got a little excited and burned rubber inside the parking area, billows of blue smoke drifted into the main hall where we gathered for speeches and cake and dancing.  Classes were cancelled, said the Vice Chancellor’s email, because of everyone's powerful patriotic enthusiasm.  I wore an Omani flag pin.  A colleague told me to get a scarf or a hat.  Lady, the day they offer citizenship I’ll wear a hat. 

I wish it was 9:30 when it’s only 7:30.  

                                                       shalimar gardens, Kashmir

11.20.14

I sat in the barber’s chair for 45 minutes staring at the arc ‘UTOPIA’ insignia on the footstool.  What is utopian about a footstool?  When the Bangladeshi man with the gelatin handshake finishes he gives me a hair and scalp massage and there we are, utopia for 25 seconds. 

It’s impossible to watch the news and imagine utopia exists anywhere on earth.  Wealth, family, nature, it’s all impermanent and subjective.  I try to separate the good and bad and the effort never ends, one minute there is a contemplative moment of silence free of anxiety the next hour we suffer.  Any utopia on earth is temporal.  “Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Why is it God’s will to keep us waiting now that we know 24/7 people suffer and we can't do anything about it?   I’m sounding like the man with one talent again.  It’s a cruel world, and your inaction isn’t endearing.

Where were you ten years ago?  In Seattle.  Twenty years ago?  Ten minutes away from where I sit now.  In 1984 I lived in Sparks, Nevada.  I don’t know where I’ll be in ten years, I guess I’ll still be alive and heaven will still be somewhere else.

So I light candles to remember a crazy ancient spirit, I remember my father, he would have been 94 today and probably in a nursing home.  I don’t ever wanna find myself in a nursing home.  I light candles when I arrive at St. Mary’s for my mother.  I don’t doubt my parent’s place in heaven.  Life is a bitch, an unfair game we have to muddy through trying to do what is right, trying not to do what is wrong and then we’re dead!  That’s it, the body is buried or burned and the soul flits somewhere else, landing in heaven, in the middle, on the peripheral, in billions of live carcasses plodding along on our flaming planet, and some land among the fires. 

Of course heaven has its antonym, another relative whereabouts on the map.  Do you think on any given day the bulk of humanity experiences more hell than heaven on earth?

Before he died John Stott threw his theological dice into the pit of annihilation.  I don’t know if the worst of the worst of God’s creatures ought to get off that easily.  Execute the Hitlers and their spirits should remain in perpetual separation from anything remotely good.  Not even the shadow of a wilting yellow daisy should ever come near them but that darn idea of forgiveness nags like unattended hemorrhoids.  Wait a second, do you think God is ever going to forgive Satan? Is God even capable of forgiving Satan?  I think Buddhism makes a little more sense here. 

Tomorrow I’ll go to Dubai, the big mall basically, buy some books, eat something different, see what flicks are on, and return.  Next week we have a four day holiday so I hope to rent a car and go to Muscat for the day, perhaps to visit a place or two to photo.  I didn’t get too many likes on the last batch of FB photos.  I wonder if posting images manipulated by a mode are beneath my ability to produce a fine story.  I gave the pics to Salim, the young fella who was in three or four I posted.  He loved them and wanted to know how I did it.  I wanted to do something different with the same imaginings I’ve looked at for 14 years.  You gotta constantly see things differently to be relevant. 

11.21.14

On Friday Dubai’s Metro raises its gates for business at 1:00pm.  A gathering crowd waited forty minutes for the first train to slide in  and it was packed. A few came out, certainly not enough, like popped zits, the impatient crowd became a mob pushing and screaming and this was horrible so I left the building and caught a taxi to the bus station and returned to Al-Ain enjoying last week’s New Yorker and David Remnick explain why there will be no peace between Israel and the Palestinians.  I suppose I shouldn’t say enjoy there. There’s no chance there’ll ever be a two state solution because of the settlements.  A one state proposal is feasible but there are no guarantees Palestinians would be given equal status with the Jewish tribe nor will the Arabs ever give their allegiance to a tantric Hindu star. 

And social media has turned the Israelis into a pretty vicious bunch.  Everyone has an opinion now and consensus has become impossible.  Sound familiar?  Were Americans better off sixty years ago with less information?  Was faith meaningful before we heard everyone’s take on how to believe?  Could the church have reformed itself without the printing press?  We became empowered and we don’t when or how to stop thinking.  I think therefore I am, what?  In a relentless state of mental motion.

I spent two hours in the bookstore and I could have left with a dozen titles but chose three, one, a biography about Margaret Fuller who I never heard of, chosen instead of the large Woodrow Wilson bio I’ve wanted to read since it came out two years ago.  Well, I hope this woman’s story is good and there’s a reason I bought it.

9:08pm--The end of the day comes mercifully, a candle burns gently, I yearn for sleep.  At Al-Ain’s bus station I paid 150 dirhams ($40) for an unlicensed taxi to Dubai.  Saib the Afghan really wanted to be my driver for future journeys and I took his number.  Insha’allah, I don’t know when I’ll return, probably not this year.  Taliban no good, glad to hear that, and glad to hear you’ve had some kind of work since you came to this country 25 years ago.  Say, can I ask you something?  Saib speaks about 20 words of English.  I know your holy book says Jesus will return before the world ends, does anyone really believe that is going to happen in their lifetime?  Do you ever get the impression we’ve all been hoodwinked into believing in something that wasn’t supposed to go on this long?  What do you think, shabob?  Chia? Want chia?  Five minutes.  Let’s stop and share a drink.  Smoke?  Do you have any eschatological leanings?  Does Islam have a pre, mid, post and an a way of thinking about the yawning end?  Ok, let’s drink.

behind the bookcase

11.12.14

Who looks for conflict when it isn’t welcome. What good comes from despair and fear, can’t we all just get along.  No, human nature is too complex and sparring with the unknown is not where you want to be.  Pull yourself out of the web and time will repair but it won’t change clanging swords and barrages of nature’s darker twin.  Be ye separate if you got nothing good to say.

A severe storm flooded roads along the Batinah coast and classes were cancelled on Sunday.  Festival lights and flags come up throughout the border town, next week is Oman’s 44^th anniversary in the modern age, two days later I will evoke my father’s passing ten years ago.  While they celebrate I lament. 

I lost the desire to exercise and now after every lunch this week terrible pangs of indigestion remind me all is not good.  There are a lot of ‘I should’ plans to consider and I won’t waste my time noting them here.  Plans to obtain a car from a colleague held up in Cochin have run aground. That’s alright, I guess, look at the money I save from being cooped up.  And that’s good if it is the creator’s magnanimous blueprint to return me to the halls of higher learning with enough money for a year.  By golly, look, three letters of recommendation, ha, the hurdle was low, be praised o God.  What’s next, sigh, I have to lay down.

11.13.14

By afternoon I am whooped, if there was a lounge with a sofa around here a 20 minute nap would energize. This office is far too busy with teachers and students humming and buzzing. Last night I hit the sack before ten and was up by six, and what a beautiful sky there was in the east; tangerine orange and soft blues giving way to wispy red clouds.  I’d take photos but the composition blows and the angle from the tv room is not inspiring.

So tomorrow it’s mass at 9am and a possible foray into Dubai for a movie, Interstellar, and then a meal and a pop into a bookstore.  There’s always a right time to buy a book.  I am halfway through Vasco Da Gama’s epic voyages and it is riveting.  Upon landing in Calicut the Portuguese believed the natives were some crazy Christian off-shoot.  They had never heard of Hinduism and the author doesn’t say when they figured this out. 

Inspired, I’d like to return to Goa and pay my respects to St. Francis.  There are always a few questions to ask the venerable saint and that old world still resonates with mystery and intrigue.  I wait and hope soon the Indian government will permit an American to obtain a visa upon arrival.  And rumors flit about we may have a week off for national day and ten days would be enough.  Until then, what to do.

I sent the application off to the school in Leuven.  If all is aligned with the universe the next step is sending a fee and then its sending the diplomas and transcripts and somewhere in there I have to write a ‘motivation’ letter. Why do I want to do this.  Every time I read Paul I find issues.  Surely the God who inspired Paul wouldn’t inspire me to refute the most inspirational writings in human history, no?  No, of course not.  I just think the time is ripe for an ecclesiastical shuffling and with God’s blessing I’ll do just that. 

11.14.14

The spirit world talks to us all the time but we don’t hear because we’re too busy.  I didn’t go to Dubai after mass today but I did see ‘Interstellar’ at the mall and yikes!  The mind buzzes.  Departed souls in other dimensions separated by nothing more than thin strands of hair which tickle our noses.  The Bible gave exacting instructions to not mettle with the spirit world and rightly so, how can you trust one you’ve never known, but if there is love, and you’re talking to those you DO know and did love and you’re praying your cotton picking heart out and you’re lighting candles to remember them and talking to them, believe me, they’re behind the bookcase, and if you listen with all your heart, you’ll know.

Those who are dead are not dead they’re living inside my head. 

The first reading was from Proverbs and I was discouraged.  Good wives and so on, oh no, a homily about marriage.  How do I get out of here, but I was wrong.  The second reading was another of Paul’s end time gems and the visiting priest, Father Hugh, pronounced Hoog by the Deccan deacon, preached the parable of the talents and wham bam I’m glad I didn’t leave.  How many talents were you born with, John?  Well, I didn’t learn I had a talent for taking a photo until I was 38 years old.  I have an off and on talent for writing, more off it feels these days.  Have you been a good steward of the talents you’ve been given?  I don’t know.  Sometimes I sound like the dude with the one talent.  Where does that insecurity which robs me of being great for God come from? 

Fear not, take risks that are for good and believe. 

40,000 denominations.  Did their doctrines emanate from Paul?  This is what I have to prove.  Did the church fathers divide themselves because of Paul’s views of end times?  Augustine had a different take and called it Amillenialism and a church in Goa was razed to ground because of it.  Calvinism, Arminianism, five views of sanctification, baptism, the interpretations came from the times in which they lived. 

And rather than reinterpret Paul’s difficult yet inspiring commentary, let’s move his letters and let people read what remains.  They might see the Gospels a little differently.  Church leaders might see the Gospels a little differently. 

Interstellar is the kind of movie where the story is far greater than the actors who were in it.  What other movies are like this?  I can’t think of one off the top of my head.

What would Dorothy Day do?

11.6.14

A watery beige moon rises calmly full without event in the eastern sky.  Yesterday roads were filled with celebrating locals blaring horns and waving flags for their ailing King’s televised message.  He is alive, he is not well, he looks gaunt, cancer does its awful damage showing no respect to kings and paupers.  There is natural concern when the country’s only modern era leader passes away.  Ten years ago Sheikh Zayed died and the Emirates mourned for a month, closing schools and government offices.  If it happens here there is fear there could be a run on the banks.  I’m not worried about that, but I’d like to leave if the university shuts its doors. Where would you go?  Well, there’s only one place close enough.

There is also concern about who will be the next Sultan.  The government doesn’t talk about it in public but one wants to believe they are prepared for the transition.  Then again, maybe they’re not.  The Muslim isn’t akin to looking at a future unknown and no one ever expects or wishes for the day their father dies.

 Does Muscat expect a struggle from the Dofarians or even the locals here who wish for closer ties to their neighbors on the other side of the ugly fence?  We shall see, my dad liked to say.  Meanwhile, all I want to do now is sleep.

11.7.14

Upon returning to Buraimi the customs official says go to the office.  Why?  Go.  The woman says the man didn’t record my exit.  “Come Sunday, pay fine.”  I remember the first time I crossed and the shmuck, and that’s the only word I can use here though criminally incompetent fits, simply waived me on.  So, a pleasant morning at church followed by a spiced pumpkin latte and a slice of blueberry cheesecake in the park then a walk to Choitrams to look for a lint roller, clothes pins, anything unavailable on the other side is derelict. 

These are moments where it is better to be a woman.  Cry, make a scene and the wonkers will waive you on.  Damn.  This isn’t what I wanted to ponder on a Friday afternoon.

A Catholic worker would be overjoyed with this scenario.  Take me for a fool, rob me, stab me, wait, the doorbell rings.  I can’t say no to the woman with a baby.  But I do object to lazy and clearly intentionally deceitful customs officials who steal.  Paying a $75 fine for someone else’s intentional ineptitude makes me…aarrgh.  Lord.

Babu from Kerala was my taxi driver to St. Mary’s and he said he was a Protestant.  “You see so many go to church now, so many.”  They’re afraid, they watch too much news.  “Yes, they afraid, they want God. Many bad things, many signs.”  Signs like the end of the world, they want to be right with God before it’s too late, right?  Don’t take any chances.  

 I am not surprised anymore with coincidences but they do irritate and this one won’t help me deal with an unfair fine.  The readings and the homily today reminded us to be ready for no man knows the hour or day when Jesus will return.  Sigh.  Matthew 25 and the ten bridesmaids and Paul’s first letter to the Thessies proclaiming with the kind of rapturous hope believers then would be caught up in the clouds, not us two thousand years later and counting. 

Five years ago I wrote no one but God knows the day and hour Jesus would return and like a Haight Asbury hippy proclaimed that day and hour had indeed occurred.  Eager spirits hope more than we do.  The poor and the suffering hope more than the gainfully employed or the young.  The young have it right, they don’t want an ancient promise on their minds with so much life ahead of them.  What schizophrenia there is to sing Maranatha every day and then forget nothing is going to happen before they die.

I am rehearsing my argument with the Emiratis.  I wish I weren’t rehearsing my argument with the Emiratis.  It’s pretty clear who is wrong.  Will they fess up and admit they hired the son of a son of an uncle with no knowledge, no experience, and a who cares attitude, I am master of your fate shnozzola. No you aren’t, shnozz, a master of my fate.  The question if they don’t rescind the fine is, will I pay.  What choice will I have.  Refuse, they refuse my entry and there is no guarantee it won’t happen again. 

Well, I might get a car on loan next week.  I’ll do the jizi shuffle and destroy the card.  If I have a car.

I talk about the consequences of life and there are always the ‘what ifs’.  What if I stayed in Tianjin for a second year, my whole life would have wound up somewhere else, perhaps in a profession I don’t call a default.  What if I insisted the incompetent customs turd record my exit?  The last twenty four years is what it is because of the consequences of my actions in China.  There are no decisions, no events, prior to 1990 that I can say what if, it’s all what it was and there are no regrets.

11.8.14

A restless night of thinking too much so I get up a little after five, overnight rain cleans the air.  I role-play a conversation with the Emiratis tomorrow.  I’ll pay the fine but not without a dressing down, to let them know they are wrong.  There, that’s the Catholic worker way to deal with it, right?  Let them wipe their feet on you but not without a warning.  Oh brother.

A couple of isolated thunder showers rolled through dropping enough water on the balcony to squeegee the horrendous accumulated pigeon shit in front of the screen.  I have finished the bulk of two versions of the midterm exam and my back is stiff.  All laundry is done, my black/blue trousers hang to dry.  Lunch was the usual weekend fare of fried egg in a pita with cheese, tomato and cucumber.  And it is time to lay down.

Last week I was asked where I’d been before landing here.  It’s a hard question, one I can’t answer quickly.  So, I explain since July of 2009 I have lived in eight places.  To qualify as a place of life I decided three months in one spot was a life spent.  Everything in between the eight places has been on the road.  I record this if for nothing else, a reminder to myself in case I have an accident and can’t remember what I ate for breakfast one morning.  Places in red indicate life spent less than three months in any given location.

July 1-October 2009                Nepal, India, Thailand, China, West Coast, North America

October 1 2009-April 2010     Pittsburgh

April 2010                                  San Diego

May 2010-April 2011              Gazientep, Turkey

April 2011-August 2011          Sarangkot

September 2011                      Al-Ain UAE

October 2011-July 2012          Salalah, Oman

August 2012-May 2013           Sarangkot

May 2013-July 2013                Troy, MI

July 2013-Sept 2013                Rochester, NY

October 2013-present             Buraimi, Oman

(“you go to Sharjah?”  The border official asked this and after a few minutes said, ok, no problem.  All that worrying, my rehearsed argument and admission were all for naught.  A sigh.  And look, accumulated hail that looks like snow fell along the Batinah coast this weekend.  Is hell freezing over? Last week I said I’d believe in climate change when it snows in Dubai.  This was pretty close)

A Flander plan

11.1.14

It is good to return to the 21^st century once in a while.  An immaculately clean hotel room, pumpkin spiced latte, aged Irish cheddar, German and Dutch beer, live rock and roll.  It’s not asking for much, it’s only a few kilometers away on foot and yet a millennia separates a divided people and for what, the uncounted and undocumented impoverished pursuit of a better life on a greener side of an ugly fence. 

The Flander plan is an audacious one.  I don’t know if I am capable of the kind of research needed to persuade anyone to move 13 letters plus one to the back of a holy book read by a billion people.  I would need to confront daunting challenges that could take more than a year to prove:

--The 40,000 denominations noted in Gordon Comwell’s list came about as a result of Paul.

--There is nothing sacrilegious about moving the letters, though calling it something than what it is would stir the hornets.

Secondary fronts that could buttress the hypothesis:

--The spirit of the age vs literal interpretations.  Case in point, the demise and disappearance of a pro slavery interpretation in the Bible.

--Paul’s exclusion of Arabs in his letters because the Abrahamic covenant led to the revelation of Islam, which if taken to its stupendous and ballsy conclusion,God changed his opinion and chose one man to reveal a final path for humanity, or this was all supposed to happen in the first place and all peoples of the world would finally have at their choosing a monotheistic faith to reconcile themselves with the creator.

I think I’m leaving out something else but right now I am barely awake and sunset is an hour away.  I did not sleep well in the too comfortable bed last night.  Why oh why does this happen.  Nigel Cliff’s ‘The Last Crusade’ looks like a good read, and perhaps will help me understand the challenge I have ahead of me, if I so accept.  But I couldn’t read more than a few pages without the eyelids flickering shut.  And my stomach flutters, a Starbucks lunch isn’t doing me well and the breakfast buffet spread may have been way too much though I swam well afterwards.  Who the hell knows I wish it were time to call it a day.

The ultimate goal of rearranging the New Testament is reading the Gospels and the other letters without the undoing influence of Paul.  His letters would still be there for everyone, but the focus would return to Jesus, the focus would take us away from the legalese and polemic and return us to the simple message. 

I know this would drive people to impassioned poles, but this could be a good thing.  I think, if I am well defended.  In this spirit change can reconcile.

The first challenge, a formidable one, will be to collect three letters of recommendation.  #@$%.  I may never get this on the road.

11.4.14

By the time I return to the grotto at 8pm I have enough energy to eat a couple of cheese, tomato and cucumber pitas before I turn in.  And in the morning, before the sun rises, I watch the headline news, eat breakfast and read until it is time to return to my place of employment.  There is safety in the routine but omg it can be tedious.  The weather is turning comfortably cool again at night and hopefully by week’s end I won’t need the a/c in the bedroom.  I still use the one in the tv/living room, the morning sun heats things up quickly.

Paul’s letters were intended to support the new congregations in Asia minor, defeat the Roman empire’s pagan deities and the Greek’s mythological monopoly. For God so loved the world wasn’t a world that included at the time the empires in the East.  The war for hearts and minds came when the new faith, Islam, rolled into Europe seven centuries later.  Politics and trade fueled passions and divine revelation in human hands came ashore on the banks of India while to this day Islam and Christianity battle.  Hinduism and its cousin Buddhism, no strangers to conflict, have never attempted to persuade by forceful coercion their faith is the only true religion.  Nyima and the Dalai Lama say Tibetan Buddhism is the best, though acknowledge it is not the only true faith.  If you believe in something else be compassionate, love one another and always consider your neighbor first.  I think the Buddhist intention here is life is impermanent and change is the inevitable continuum of the human spirit.  Dogmatism becomes a crutch, a hindrance, when it is inflexible.  My  aim, if it is written in the spirit of the inevitable, would be to show the gospel without the influence of Pauline doctrine, as a new breath of fresh air.