academic purgatory

To the remnant four or five of you who check out this blog on a regular basis, this week is going to be brutal. I am in the last week of an intensive summer class, and the dual systems of final papers and work I have put off have come together to create a perfect storm. Pray for me as I steer into the waves to keep from capsizing.

So while I'll be away from the blog this week trying to pass my class, I'll leave you with this 50 year old picture of my father in the lab at the University of Baghdad (he's the one sitting at the microscope). He was an amazing student, and I could use some of his skills now, but I really giggle every time I look this image. So until I can come back to shore, let's have a caption contest. Leave your entries in the comments section, and you can enter more than once. The winner gets...a signed copy of the picture from my dad.

Come back and see us next week. Plenty more to come....

behind enemy lines

It has been another bad week in Iraq. With daily reports about soldiers or civilians being killed, we never hear many names or details, and so build up a sort of numbness to the horrors. But this week two stories paradoxally made the headlines: Two American soldiers were brutally tortured and killed by Arab insurgents, and an Arab war veteran was brutally murdered by seven American soldiers. I have been holding on to the following story for a while, but these two reports taken together this week have stirred me enough to finally put this on the blog.

I have been on the road a lot in the last three months, taking different road-trips from Wilmore to New Orleans, New York City, Nashville and Dallas. Constantly in the shadow of the endless line of 18-wheelers, I noticed that one particular trucking company had this sign posted on most of their trucks:

So who is the enemy?

Last summer my older cousin Ali was able to come in from Ohio to be at our wedding. I think it was really good for my dad to have someone from back home who was able to be there, and he filled in as my grandmother’s escort, sitting with her on the front row.

Ali was forced to serve in the Iraqi Army in the first Gulf War. Other cousins were also conscripted, stationed on the front lines and in Kuwait City. Some of them were rounded up in the mass-surrenders after the ground war began, and they all made it home. But Ali had a different story. He was a field surgeon on the front lines with the Republican Guard. Sadaam thought that if he placed the medical units close enough to the rest of the soldiers then the Americans wouldn’t bomb and shell them. He was wrong.

Somehow the Iraqis knew when the American ground troops would be coming over the dunes, and so they were given a five-day pass to go home to Baghdad and say their goodbyes. Ali knew it would be a meat-grinder, and he knew that under Sadaam desertion meant death and trouble for your family. So while he was in Baghdad he had another surgeon friend take out his perfectly good appendix. While he was in the hospital, his entire unit was annihilated.

Around that same time a Marine friend of mine named Nelson had been part of an artillery outfit that was shelling Iraqi positions inside Kuwait. Suddenly an Iraqi artillery shell slammed into the hood of the truck Nelson was standing next to, but it was a dud and didn’t go off. He lived to come home and tell me that story.

Also at our wedding, only four rows back from Ali, was my friend Joe, who is an Army Ranger veteran. On the other side of the isle from Ali was one of my two mother in laws, whose stepbrother was part of the Army forces that moved through the same area of Kuwait where Ali had been. On another pew was my friend Johanna, whose husband has served in Afghanistan and is now training for Special Forces duty in the Middle East.

I could go on, but you get the idea. The best phrase came from a taxi driver in Cairo, right after the invasion of Iraq three years ago, who upon finding out that my brother was half Iraqi and half American said, “Ahhh… is funny. Your country is attacking your country.”

I have often become frustrated when I have heard people in my church make statements like, “Remember who we’re fighting here,” before they lead prayers for our military victory. A professor here once said that the only two choices we have is to either “convert them or keep them from hurting us.”

Well… first of all you can’t fight and win a “war on terror.” Terrorism is a method, not a country or ideology. I once heard it said that fighting a war on terror is like having the flu and declaring a war on sneezing: you’re only attacking the symptoms. As long as there have been people, there has been terrorism.

But what frightens me is the mindset in this country, and in the church, that seems to think terrorism was born and raised in the Middle East, and if we can take out the Muslim Arabs then the world will be a safer place. Put this idea up against the ideas in large parts of the Arab world that America has, in a sense, been a terror herself with her policies toward the Middle East. So you get what we had last week. The cycle continues, and we have “become a monster to defeat a monster.”

So who is the enemy? I believe that on this side of the Cross, according to the Scriptures, that “we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12)

If you track through the entire story of Scripture, you see that while God may have fought battles on Israel’s behalf in the Old Testament, the trajectory was always towards to the Cross, which redeemed the Creation intent. Jesus set for us an example of living and witnessing that intent through loving, serving and forgiving our enemies. The way of Christ was not to kill and destory those who had abused and killed Him. But for some reason we still say, “in God we trust” while we drop the bombs (just in case God doesn't come through, I suppose).

Imagine what would have happened if the entire mass community of Christians who prayed so fervently for our troops to “defeat the enemy” would have instead prayed against the real Enemy and for peace between humanity.

So who is the enemy? We must first remember that the enemies of America are not the enemies of God. I have Iraqi Army veteran family and U.S. Army veteran friends. I have been raised by Southern Methodists and Shiite Muslims. I cannot abdicate the gospel message of Christ to a bomb, but can only bear the Cross… the ultimate battlefield victory over the Enemy.

general sadness

A few months ago my little brother (who is a reporter for the Times Herald-Record) was stuck with the meanial task of preparing the copy of the forcast for the weather page. It was the last thing he had to do at the end of each long day, and it was boring and tedious. So one evening, in a moment of cynicism and creativity, he added his own commentary to the weather.

Well, guess what ended up on Jay Leno's "Headlines" on the Tonight Show:




J.D. has been on my case about not blogging in a few days. We drove in from Dallas and then went right into a summer class, so it has taken everything I've got to keep my head above water. But stay tuned because there is more to come...

home in bed

When my father was a freshman at the university in Baghdad, there were several different groups trying to grab power after the fall of the monarchy. Like many others, my father stood with one particular group. One night, as he lay asleep, members of the opposition party broke into his dorm-room and took my father, along dozens of others, at gunpoint. They were imprisoned on false charges and kept locked 30 to a room for three months. My father still won’t talk about it, only to say, “Every day you were as lucky as your guard was willing to treat you.”

Decades later, my father told my mother that one of the things he loved about living in the United States was that soldiers didn’t come take you from your home in the middle of the night.

Maybe not here. Iraq is a different story.

It looks like another accusation of Marines murdering innocent Iraqis is proving to be true. This time the story seems to be that back in April a few Marines, looking for an insurgent in the town of Hamdaniya, could not find who they were looking for. So they randomly pulled an innocent man from his home, shot and killed him, and then planted on him a shovel (took make it look like he was digging a hole for a bomb) and an AK-47 (to make it look like he had died in a gun battle).

This of course follows on the heals of the completely horrible revelation of Marines going door to door, killing innocent men, women and children in their homes in Haditha back in November. And then of course there is still the sting of the Abu Gharib torture scandal.

At this point, you can call the battle for hearts and minds officially lost. Say all you want about the pressures of war and the fact that soldiers sometimes “crack” under the pressure. Point out that, as far as numbers go, this pales in comparison to the numbers of innocent Iraqis killed by insurgents. And don’t forget to remind us that the majority of soldiers are doing a fine and admirable job under the circumstances (which they are).

Despite any of these arguments, the fact remains that this war continues to be sold on the idea that we are great moral liberators of an oppressed and abused people. We are not supposed to be like the powers we just blew the country into the dark ages to overthrow. But the sad truth is, that in many corners and circles, we are too similar to the old ways.

And in the final analysis, the fault must be placed at the feet of the leaders who brought us here. The moment the President, the Vice-President, the Secretary of Defense, and others made the decisions to invade a sovereign country on false pretence, suspend the principles of the Geneva Convention, reject the advice of experts on the region, and send in too few troops with no plan beyond taking Baghdad… the architects and leaders of this “war on terror” created the environment that took a non-terrorist country and turned it into a breeding ground for terrors of all kinds, foreign and domestic.

My father’s fears are still very real in this sad, brutalized land. And though not many want to say it, the painful truth is that the United States (for many more years than most people are aware) has been, and still is, part of the terror that is being inflicted on the people of Iraq, despite the hopes and intentions of many. When will those who lead us here be held accountable for telling us “mission accomplished” while they stood by and lost the war for hearts, minds… and humanity.

vacation station

On vacation this week, so until I get back, here is the text from a presentaiton I gave in one of my classes two weeks ago (and appeared on Ben Witherington's blog). It goes with the picture I posted here. Stay tuned because there is much more to come...

________________________________________________

My entire life has been a quest for identity. A journey for an intimate father/son relationship.

Growing up I never really liked my name very much. Omar. For a little kid in Texas, a foreign sounding, deeply ethnic name was a nuisance. It stood out too much. It made a scene. In classrooms full of Mikes and Peters and Amys and Stephanies… Omar felt like the person who wore jeans to a wedding while everyone else was in suits. Very out of place. I always wanted to be a David.

But my name is Omar. Omar Hamid Al-Rikabi. Literally translated it means “First Born Son of Hamid of the Rikab Tribe.” My father is from Iraq. Once the customs officer in Cairo would not accept my declaration that I was an American citizen.
“Where is your father from?”
“Iraq.”
Then I was stamped into the country. Not much has changed since the days of Abraham. It does not matter what you declare, or even where you were born. You are whatever your father is. So I am considered an Iraqi. I’m even eligible to vote in Iraqi elections.

But I grew up in Texas, where my mom is from. And yes, she is a Christian. And yes, my father is a Muslim. I have been raised by Shiites and Southern Methodists. Over the years, as different Middle Eastern despots and terrorist groups made headlines, my name was the butt of many jokes, stupid questions and varied translations. Then of course there were the nicknames that went along with such an Arab background: Dune-coon. Camel jockey. Sand nigger.

Of course, I always played along. After all, it was my friends who called me these names. It wasn’t like they were burning crosses in my front yard. I figured if I played along and poked fun at myself, it would show that I was just like them, and that would give me identity.

My parents had an agreement. My dad could name us if my mom could raise us in the church. But my mom quit going after a while. She got tired of all the anti-Arab, end-times Sunday school lessons. You see, there has always been a low-grade racism towards Arabs and Muslims in the church, at least in the Bible Belt.

After September 11th, things really picked up. I never really noticed it until that following Sunday when I heard it in the hallway at church: “Well, what would you expect from the descendants of Ishmael.”

What was I to expect when Texas and Iraq literally collided on the world stage right as I entered seminary. How do I reckon with cousins in the Republican Guard and close friends in the Army Rangers? Who is the real enemy?

I got emails from church members, wanting to know why I didn’t support the war because, as a Christian, I should be supporting Israel and that is God’s side, and that is the winning side. On more than one occasion friends I had made at Asbury would later tell me they hated Arabs until the got to know me better.

I met my wife here. Her last name is Horowitz. Imagine the long pause on the other end of the phone when I told my father that one (and by the way, he loves her). But I had to endure her father telling me he was a Jew by birth, but was now a Christian… but that he wanted to make sure that since I was an Arab I would not take his daughter away from him to Iraq and abuse her.

So what does all of this have to do with my spiritual formation? Everything. Just as many Christians in America believe wrongly about Arabs, I have lived most of my life believing lies about myself: I am just Omar. Nothing special. Loved but not liked. Wasted potential. Worst of sinners.

But my name and my background have helped me to see something. Omar. First born son. That means a lot in the Bible. The first-born son is the heir to all the father has. And I am joined with Christ. I am an heir with Christ in all that the Father has. My name is a living, literal gospel reality. I am not just Omar. I am not an ass. I am an heir.

Once at the Abbey of Gethsemani the Lord spoke to me in the most intimate way I have ever known, and said, “You are important to me.” It was like the words of the Father over the Son at His baptism, and in baptism is where we all must find our identity as sons and daughters of God.

If we believe what we say we do about curses being generational, then imagine and entire race of people who’s patriarch was the first born son, loved by his father, but then one day with no explanation he is sent into the desert to die.

On the cross we are reconciled to the Father. If our identity is found in baptism, then our vocation is found the Eucharist: “This is my body, broken for you.” I have come to believe that bad theology, unchecked patriotism, and the idol of national security has led many in the church to abdicate the cruciform calling of Christ to guns and politicians.

For it is not the descendants of Ishmael who are the problem, it is the descendants of Adam and Eve. Remember, the word ADAM in the creation story is translated “humanity.” And that is the work of the Cross-to redeem all of humanity.

If indeed these three major religions are the sons of Abraham, then I think God is looking at us the way my parents did when I fought with my brother, saying, “Yeah, but you should know better.”

My father gave me a name. Whatever struggles I wrestle with in who I am through birth, I must always return to who I am through Baptism. Jesus set for me an example, and whenever I fret over the evils men do, I must return to my vocation in the Eucharist.

So you see, COEXIST is not a pluralistic idea for me, it is a way of life… it weaves through the entire fabric of my family. It is the calling of Christ for me. And in truth, it is a calling for all of us, for in the end God’s people are not called to wave flags as a sign of victory, but to bear the Cross as a sign of reconciliation.