Cultural Glimpse

February 11, 2014

Is Woman a Bar of Soap or a Piece of Dough?

I received a chain email that read in Arabic:
A woman is like a bar of soap. Her touch is soft. Her smell is pretty. But if you press on her, she bolts out of your hands. And if you step on her, you’ll slip and break your bones. My advice? Treat your bar of soap nicely. Long live my country’s bars of soap!

The brother of the sender responded, also in Arabic:
A woman is like dough. The more you knead her, the tastier she comes out. So my advice is to knead your wife, put the dough in a warm place, and trust in God!

I always found it interesting that men, the gender that for thousands of years has been the cause of most of society’s pitfalls are the ones who try to define women, the gender who gave birth to them and raised them. And don’t give me the story of Eve and the apple she ate. Let’s look at the atrocious wars, holocaust, massacres!

Many societies have thrived as a result of powerful women. Enheduanna of ancient Iraq was the daughter of Sargon of Akkad. She is the world’s first recorded writer. She was a high priestess in Ur of the Chaldees until after her father’s death, the new ruler of Ur removed her from power. Kubaba, a Sumerian Queen in ancient Iraq, is the world’s first recorded woman ruler in history. She was said to have reigned peacefully for one hundred years.

Matriarchal communities existed in the past, and there are a number of them surviving today. The biggest difference between them and patriarchal communities is that where women rule, there was and is no need for violence. When men are able to master how to run the show without killing each other, then they can begin to describe what a woman is really about.

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February 7, 2014

Saudi Arabia, our Ally – Oh, the Irony!

I wrote in my recent book that terrorism in Iraq did not exist until 2003, when the borders were left unprotected by the US military, allowing major terrorist groups from all around the world to come and set camp in Iraq, then to recruit through force and with bribes. During the start of the war, Arabic news channels who reported incidences of terrorism in Iraq identified the terrorists as Moroccan, Yemeni, Egyptian, etc.

I wrote that terrorism was bred in Iraq after 2003, which explains why none of the 9/11 hijackers were of Iraqi origin, nor had there been any major terrorists in history who carried the Iraqi nationality, except for the Dawa Party, which was led by Iranian extremists and which Saddam tried to annihilate in the 1980s and which the United States in 2003 welcomed into power with open arms.

So I’m not surprised that Dr. Kamal Al-Saedi, president of the International Organization for the Defense of Human Rights, is spreading this message: the United Nations should list Saudi Arabia as a terrorist country because all the bombings that have took place in the United States, London, Spain, Russia or any other countries have been caused by Saudi terrorists and people that have relationships with the Saudi Arabian King – for example, Osama Bin Laden.

I’m just surprised that this concept has not yet taken form, despite all the evidence supporting it, and that Iraq, the country that paid the price for another country’s terrorism is still paying that price, without anyone having corrected it. Oh, the irony!

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February 3, 2014

Coming to this Country 33 Years Ago

Today marks 33 years that I’ve been living in the United States. I remember on our drive home from Metro Airport February 2, 1981, I was in awe at the sight of all the snow that covered the streets. Having come from a land of sand and rivers, I was not accustomed to so much whiteness.

For years, I’ve wondered why I ended up in this country. It was not I who chose to flee Iraq and come to America. My parents made that decision, of course, since I was a child. I’ve oven thought, did they foresee the terrible condition that Iraq and the rest of the Middle East was going to be in in the upcoming decades?

“You are a creative person, and that’s why you came to this country,” one of my mentors once said to me. “You came here to be able to do your writing and to be able to help women of that region which you came from.”

Thank God, my parents were able to foresee the future and bring us to a place where creativity, and not oppression, is what’s encouraged.

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February 2, 2014

The Benefits of Being Snowed In

While getting some fresh air during a nice walk around the block is out of the question these days, being snowed in does have its benefits. Due to Michigan’s weather condition this winter, I have:

1. Finished a book I’ve been working on for years
2. Started a new project
3. Rested quite well
4. Found creative new ways to play with my kids
5. Organized the entire basement

Since this weather might resume for February, I might learn another half-dozen things. As I write this, I am reminded of my teacher Lynn Andrews, who wrote: “Once again we move into the season of winter, Mother Earth’s gift to us of hibernation, of dreaming and being within ourselves as we allow our dreams to germinate and gain clarity before we plant them in the coming spring.”

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January 19, 2014

A Kid’s Take on Martin Luther King

I was watching my five-year-old nephew when he soon whimpered, “I want to call my dad!” I avoided his request because the reason his dad dropped him off at my house to begin with was to get time alone.

My nephew insisted. “My teacher said that it’s Martin Luther King Day and we have to be nice to people.”

“Meaning?” I said.

“You should be nice to me,” he said, smiling.

He suckered me in. The name Martin Luther King brings the softest side in you. Most people are moved by Dr. King’s “I have a dream speech” but he had many many inspirational values that if we applied to our daily life, we would live in peace.

Later my nephew said, “I want Martin Luther King to come back to life, so he can tell us about his dream.”

His words really touched my heart. Unfortunately, we can’t bring Martin Luther King back to life, but we can keep his dream alive by living it.

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January 18, 2014

Conversations in Silence

I just finished reading the book Conversations in Silence, which is written by an old friend whom I have not seen in a long time. Narendra, the author, was born in India. In his book, he describes in diary form his journey with a spiritual master, Mother Meera. He meets her in the early 1990s when he is sent on a job project in Germany.

Mother Meera is an embodiment of the Divine Feminine, the Divine Mother on earth. She was born in India but today she lives in a tiny hamlet in the German countryside where she gives thousands of visitors her unique blessing of Darshan – in silence.

She teaches the unity of all religions. Everyone can go their own ways. It is only important to be connected with the light (the personal spiritual role model) every day by praying, reading or meditating.

Narendra’s accounts in this book, his determination to attain enlightenment, are inspiring. After work (he’s an engineer), he is anxious to drive for hours to sit – even if briefly – in front of Mother Meera. One wonders how this world would be if we gave as much attention to our spiritual growth as we did to the physical and mental aspects of our lives.

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January 14, 2014

How Are You Doing on Your Journey?

“Dreams are a big part of our everyday life,” said Pastor Aaron during Sunday’s sermon at Freedom Christian. “Looking at the history of the church, I see that wherever the biggest dreamers and most creative people were, who continue to have God’s dreams birthed in their hearts and live them out, that’s where God moved the most.”

The remainder of his sermon, which is part of a 12 week series titled The Mission, was just as powerful and inspiring as he noted, “I think one of the dangers of Christian faith is simply this in America: We stopped dreaming yet we serve the greatest Dreamer of all time.”

He said that we as Christians submit to God’s sovereignty and use it as an excuse for our apathy, adding, “In America, we might not be faithful to God but God is still faithful to us and then we take his faithfulness and say, see, God must be pleased with my unfaithfulness because He’s still faithful to me when I’m unfaithful to Him.”

He paused along the way and asked, “How are you doing on your journey? What might God be challenging you to change about your attitude, your heart, your nature, maybe those dark places?”

It is answering such questions that helps one grow spiritually and feel a special closeness to God, but only if we ask them of ourselves regularly, not forget them at the church altar.

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January 1, 2014

The Mystery School, My Little Secret

This February I’ll be starting the third year of the Mystery School (it’s a 4 year program). Very few people in my life know that for the last two years I’ve been enrolled in this school. Until now, I had kept it my little secret.

I stumbled upon this school in 2011 after reading Lynn Andrew’s Writing Spirit. Hugely influenced by this book, and because Lynn is an internationally bestselling author with 19 books under her belt, I called her up. I wanted advice on how to move ahead with my writing career. Little did I know then the journey I’d be embarking upon.

Like magic, the Mystery School began transforming my life as a writer, wife and mother. Its ancient Native American teachings were not strange to my ears. I come from a tribal nation that’s thousands of years old. My people are from Mesopotamia, where once upon a time long ago, similar types of teachings were the norm. Then people invented so many new things, that they forgot the value of anything older than 50 years.

Well, my little secret is no more. But what awaits me in the school are a lot of hidden rich secrets, which I cannot wait to unearth and discover.

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December 22, 2013

The White Guest

My husband in Amman, Jordan (with his niece and nephew)

Last weekend I was unable to get a hold of my husband. He was in Amman, Jordan, visiting his parents whom he had not seen for over 13 years. Finally when he answered his phone, he explained, “The electricity was out. The whole city was shut down because of the snow storm.” Or what his niece and nephew called “The White Guest!”

“What snowstorm?” I asked, clueless that the Middle East, accustomed to oppressive heat, experienced a snow storm that most locations had not seen in over 100 years.

The roads were blocked, residents were confined to their homes, and when King Abdullah II toured the capital to check on the progress of snow-removal efforts, he ended up pulling up his sleeves and helping other men push a car stuck in the snow.

After learning about the storm, my heart sank at the thought of the millions of displaced Syrians living in makeshift shelters, many of their children enduring the cold with as little as T-shirts and sandals for protection.

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December 21, 2013

Visiting the Holy Land

My husband recently had the chance to visit the Holy Land, arriving to the Church of Holy Sepulcher just in time to begin the procession, with a candle in his hand. The daily procession passes through the places of the passion-death-resurrection of Christ, in a way of recalling to pilgrims the need to constantly meditate on the humanity of Jesus.

I visited this church many years ago. It’s an indescribable experience that leaves you in tears, regardless of whether you are a man or woman. One thing I did not get to do which my husband did is visit the famous Al Aqsa mosque and the Jewish temple that neighbor the church. Israel is a place of great diversity; Christians, Jews, and Muslims all consider it to be one of the holiest places in the world. To the Christians, this is where Jesus and His followers walked and where the great Biblical events were enacted. To Muslims, the Prophet Mohammad entered heaven from where the Dome of the Rock now stands in Jerusalem. For Jews, Jerusalem has always been a sacred city, gateway to the land of their ancestors.

Here’s my question: If these religions live so close together, where for centuries a Muslim family has held the key to the Church of Sepulcher, shouldn’t they act like family rather than rivals?

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