i am a little church, ee cummings

i am a little church (no great cathedral)

far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities

-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,

i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;

my prayers are the prayers of earth's own clumsily striving

(finding and losing and laughing and crying) children

whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing

birth and glory and death and resurrection:

over my sleeping self float flaming symbols

of hope, and i wake to a perfect patience of moutains

i am a little church (far from the frantic

world with its rapture and anguish) at peace with nature

-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;

i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring, i lift my diminutive spire to

merciful Him whose only now is forever:

standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence

(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His death)

~ee cummings

The Genizah at the House of Shepher

"I cannot help regarding the city [Jerusalem] as a strange accident. It is not positioned on any trade route. Nor is it really in the ideal position for a political capital. The region is hostile to both industry and agriculture. For centuries the nations have dreamed of returning it to some state of glory which supposedly it once possessed, but Jerusalem remains obstinately provincial, gripped by that spirit of desolation so often associated with the presence of God." ~Tamar Yellin

Shanghai

Cold, wrapped in furs of a faded past

Future built on empty skeletons.

小姐，小姐！这是单位！

I'm sorry,

Why isn't the garden open though?

Gated communities.

FOOLS! DON'T YOU KNOW?!

The future is built on your present, not your past.

What a past

Concessions of confused citizens

Who are we?

They don't ask.

They don't remember the masses of May 4th

The red that was shed

Instead, the city mourns, but the people are dry.

A city of exiles, accidental residents. You are

The loving, kind-hearted whore that always hopes for your prince, your saviour.

You welcomed and supported the dreams of many,

but none asked you who you are, what you are.

For you hide behind a mirror and each only sees himself when gazing into you.

And they all left

You,

They left memories, the most painful gift,

because you feel the joy but know it to be over.

But I am also guilty, because I have

to find myself.

And you faithfully shine back my solitude.

You understand me. When I look at you--

I see myself.

A brief anthology of sorts

Familiar friend,
with strangeness greet.
Little changes from times past
Your silence speaks to me.

---------------------------

I often imagine how it would be to live with you for a day.
Would it make the morning magical?
A suspended pause amidst bliss.

Coffee would be heightened with a sense of fullness.
A dance engaging in juggling the bathroom, closet, shower, shoes, and a door
to
head out to the world.

The solid assurance of confident smiling when eating lunch in solitude, meditating on the shape of your memory.

You are with me always--beckon, retreat, withdraw, pulsate, vibrate.

Dinner, filled with glamorous sizzle of mundane vegetables.
The day is finished

The dream is over as I slip into awakeness, the gleam from greyness has dissipated.
There is no morning juggling dance

Just your shape in my memory, an impression waxing grey
As I wonder how it would be to live with you for a day.

------------------------------------------------------------------

ZHDAT


Autumn leaves swept into loose piles
Discoursing on future dreams
Fluttering anticipation
Kisses beneath a stream.

Waiting is lonely merriment
Waiting is the dear friend of tomorrow's anticipation.

The architect of dreams, the silver lining of
mundane, everyday things.

Traveling across pale blue skies, streaked with orange, yes and pink,
in the middle of the day
retreating or advancing into the dreams of the now, it is hard to say.

I challenge myself in forbearance.
To not eat, not love, not kiss, not think, just be.

Such is waiting, being, not thinking, not breathing, not striving, not trying
But
not
ceasing.

Waiting is an ING, an investment in cultivating.
A gerund they like to say, which denotes the act of carrying out an action

I am always waiting.
Waiting to start, to stop, to go, to come back.

Waiting is the defining action, the ultimate in between step, the common thread.
It is Xenus, who always is, but is not.
Each action is waiting for the next.

Waiting is the pregnant nano dot that created the Universe.
Waiting is hope filled with expectancy, not given up.

She is my good, constant friend. On her shoulder I rely,
She is my solace that it is not over. The one that brushes my hair a hundred times to a beautiful sheen, the one that gives me to nights filled with looking at jewelry and old outfits, and we giggle over make believe wedding fantasies and dreams.

She cries with me at broken hearts, like broken beads, and she is also silent assurance.
The constant.

Waiting is all these which greet me daily, waiting is being.

---------------------------------------------

THE COFFEE CUP

Rainy holiday morning
The loan seagull soars to the
accompaniment of the solitary car crinkling down
the still asleep street

The coffee cup drips amidst the
incessant trickling of heaven's
baptism.

Even the ant seeks shelter in his tiny hill

Soaked, drenched, frozen, but alive
I sip the darkness, like a vampire.
The warmth spreads and infuese my
veins, down into my belly, igniting fire

I cradle the cup like a babe who
is nursing, and enjoy the lonely seagull
soaking in the peace-infused morning.

-----------------------------------------------

BREAKFAST

A fast of silence, a fast from life
Breakfast time is the rude awakening of reality.
Breakfast is when children are once again
told that pigs don't fly. When mortgages resurface. Jobs loom ahead and desires are covered beneath mounds of honey oats and milk, a way of trying to sweeten the bitter pill of reality.

Let me live in the time before. When everything is on the cusp, when the promise of a new day, hope, excitement, anticipation charge the air, when I am walking on water and take me to the hilltop feast with you. Where breakfast becomes a continuation of expectancy, an awakening of dreams.

The sizzle and drip of the kitchen become the violin and snares of a symphony tuning.

Let this breakfast be the overture of possibilities.

I want to see the Pegasus at my door taking me to the valley where people dream awake and the breakfast meal is a holy convoctaion.
Cereal is the bread
The coffee cup is the wine
and we drink in new life.

--------------------------------------

The Creep of Islamic Banking

JPCE – DECEMBER 2008
FEATURE

Sharia banking law lurking amid global financial crisis
-by Angelina Lin

The recent meltdown of global markets has forced the US Treasury to seek massive loans to bail out slumping financial institutions on Wall Street. But much of this money is expected to come from Arab countries flush with windfalls from high crude oil prices over recent years and who have become increasingly emboldened as lenders to demand Western compliance with Islamic sharia banking laws.

Over the past decade, sharia law has been slowly encroaching on European society. Benignly, it started with Sharia Compliant Finance (SCF), more euphemistically known as “Islamic banking,” whose practices are being adopted by some European banks. But recently, five sharia courts opened in the UK to try civil cases that range from inheritance disputes to divorce and domestic violence. They are considered officially sanctioned “arbitration courts” under British law.

It seemed, however, that this slow encroachment would not creep across the Atlantic, especially after the September 11 attacks rendered American society less prone to accepting sharia law. However, this may quickly change with the West looking towards Arab petrodollars to help correct the global financial slide.

Some economists have gone so far as to equate the recent US financial crisis with the Wall Street crash of 1929 that brought on the Great Depression. In an effort to bail out the US economy, Congress passed several measures in September, including the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which paved the way for the Department of Treasury to establish and run the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). In short, this law authorizes the Treasury to draw down an additional $770 billion in national debt by borrowing funds from international lenders.

Since then, deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmett has proposed that the Treasury borrow these monies from Arab sovereign wealth funds, essentially recycling petrodollars. This plan, however, could open the door of American society to “Islamic banking.”

Following a recent visit to Riyadh, Kimmit was quoted in The Washington Times as saying: “The US government is currently studying the salient features of Islamic banking to ascertain how far it could be useful in fighting the ongoing world economic crisis.”

In early November, the Treasury even put together an ‘Islamic Finance 101’ course to educate their officials in the basics of Islamic finance laws. Among those assisting in the seminar were scholars from Harvard University School of Law who were endowed with large Arab grants recently to set up a special educational program on Islamic law.

Frank Gaffney, Jr., founder and president of the Center for Public Security in Washington, D.C., who two years ago helped launch a campaign to urge state pension funds to divest from companies doing business with Iran, is now raising the alarm about Treasury’s recent moves. He notes, for instance, that Harvard Law School’s new Project on Islamic Finance received its initial funding from Sheik Bakr Mohammed bin Laden, the brother of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. His purpose in giving the university money was to do “research on the history of legal institutions in Islamic states past and present, particularly insofar as they uphold or apply the Islamic shari’a [sic].”

The Dinar Standard, which focuses on business strategies for the Islamic world, recently published a seven-page article entitled “Islamic Banking—a golden opportunity for European banks.” Majid Dawood, CEO of Yassar, a financial-consulting firm for sharia in Dubai, told the Standard, “We had expected to be at 12 percent of the global market by 2025, but now with this financial crisis, we expect to get there much faster.”

A case in point occurred early last month when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown paid a visit to Riyadh to ask the Saudis for a capital injection into the International Monetary Fund. Little was publicly disclosed about the terms and conditions to be attached to the funding.

The Islamic banking market currently holds upwards of $700 billion in assets, and European banks are eager to offer their services to manage these funds. Therefore, some in Europe are keen to reform their banking systems in an effort to attract Islamic investment.

“The beauty of Islamic banking and the reason it can be used as a replacement for the current market is that you only promise what you own,” Majde al-Refaie, head of Bahrain-based Unicorn Investment Bank, told The Washington Post in October.


BUT HOW exactly does Islamic banking work? And how would it impact the Western world?

Imagine approaching a bank that can charge fees but not interest on loans, and cannot invest in speculative or risky ventures, nor market ‘debt,’ and nor loan to immoral businesses. Sounds reasonable so far…

Yet also suppose five children – three daughters and two sons – are seeking arbitration in a dispute over an estate inheritance. The court decides to divide the estate up between the five, however both sons receive twice as much as their sisters. This was the result of a sharia court case in Britain recently.

On the surface, Islamic banking is merely an awareness of the ‘dos and don’ts’ allowed under the Islamic legal code. A sharia compliant financial institution is not allowed to charge interest, as that is considered exploitation. Speculative or high-risk investments are strictly prohibited, as well as investments in ‘unclean’ industries such as alcohol, gambling, pork, and so forth. Yet as innocuous as all this may seem, the ramifications are indeed serious.

“Sharia is a reactionary-to-the-core medieval Islamic doctrine that claims control over every aspect of every Muslim’s life,” Alex Alexiev, one the world’s leading experts on Islam, has cautioned. “Sharia… is a god-given Islamic law that is immutable, indivisible and mandatory for Muslims to follow in all aspects of life. It is definitely not a smorgasbord for which you can pick and choose what you like, when you like it. So to talk about sharia finance as something apart from sharia law is simply dishonest.”

Christopher Holton, in his on-line article Financial Jihad, spotlights two of the world’s most highly consulted scholars on Sharia Compliant Finance: Mufti Taqi Usmani, who was formerly on the Dow Jones Islamic Index board; and Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi, founder of the International Association of Muslim Scholars.

“The purpose of jihad aims at breaking the grandeur of unbelievers and establish that of the Muslims,” Usmani has publicly stated, according to Holton.

Meanwhile, al-Qaradawi, a professed member of the Muslim Brotherhood and apologist for radical Islamist militias who has been barred from entering the U.S, calls sharia compliant finance, “jihad with money — Allah has ordered us to fight enemies with our lives and with our money.”


IN AN AGE of oil-dependency, and increasing globalization and trade, it is becoming more difficult for Western democracies to hold off the encroachment of Islamic banking laws, and with it the creep of the wider sharia code. However, such changes would carry huge pitfalls for free societies and may also be unconstitutional in the US, since it undermines the separation of church and state enshrined in the “establishment” clause of the First Amendment.

Some concerned observers say world is watching a pincer movement unfold, whereby regimes wedded to the propagation of Islam combine hard and soft power to wage an all-out struggle against the West. While quietly supporting violent Islamist groups, they are also using the world’s dependence on oil to wage economic warfare; and infiltrating Western culture by pouring money into our most prestigious academic institutions such as Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge.

Peter Huessy, president of GeoStrategic Analysis, warns: “The fear… is we are going off a cliff toward hard-left European socialism and neutrality, which in its cowardice and incapability of protecting and defending its liberty and culture, is sliding toward an abyss of appeasement and cultural diversity where sharia law runs parallel with the laws handed down from the Magna Carta and where the defense of what freedom and liberty remain becomes a bother and a pain.”

The silence of brokenness

To care is to be disappointed,
To care is to be devastated.
The heart of it all,
was crushed by the fall.
Guaranteed soul destruction
Guaranteed total demolition
of the organ that keeps
everything a beat
How much simpler to then close it off
To lock it away in a box
Shut out from the sun's burning rays
And the beauty that fills the days
Closed to the brutal coldness of humanity
Closed too, to the beauty of simplicity
Instead, pour out into the deafening silent abyss
That has for times untold listened to all amiss
The wineskin that has counted every tear drop
The Hand that can make it all stop
But it won't, because to pour out
Is the only way to appease doubt
Until one is empty and drained
Then it will come the late summer rain
Onto the broken earth of the broken heart
that has been tilled and plowed, all exposed sinews apart
Can finally absorb the compassion need
and the multitudes with grace to feed
To fill up with joy
only to be destroyed
again lest the poor soul believes
it is he that relieves.
And so in this constant state
That mercifully does not abate,
The soul will delight in loneliness
and the perpetual silence of brokenness.

Something like a dream

It's funny, I was thinking today about Boston, and a little over than a month ago. My life there, like a dream. SO completely different from here. For one, little things like having to be concerned that my shoulders are decently covered when I leave my neighborhood, not being able to have a cheeseburger, or turkey cheese sandwich, etc, to huge things like not having a BLOODY clue what the signs say. It's worse than Greek. Although, I have learned 6 of the 22 letters of the "aleph bet,"and I can order a large latte to go (Cafe afoukh godol bavakasha....lahahat....) and count to ten, and that's about it. Furthermore, this is the first place I've been where I have NO concept of the language, no rudimentary knowledge, nada, nothing. At least my Russian is coming in handy.
Yesterday a few of us went to the beach in Tel Aviv. Fun city, although, I'm tired of fun.
I go to church in the Old City, which was built on top of the ruins of Roman Jerusalem. It's Christ Church Anglican, one of the first Protestant churches in the Middle East. Sometimes it's absolutely SURREAL. I mean, William Wilburforce, THE abolitionist, helped to establish this church. Furthermore, being a believer (Christian is a dirty word here), when the Bible says stuff about Judea, Samaria, Syria, Lebanon, wherever, I mean, I actually know what the Bible is talking about. It's not figurative, but VERY real. I don't quite know how to handle that yet.

Any suggestions... :p

Israel

I have been in Israel for a month now. Let's see, in the last month I have gone been all over Israel, met more diplomats, intellectuals, states people, your general blend of intelligentsia and spiritual leaders than I thought possible. My general impression of the Israel Experience Tour with Eagles' Wings. The most impressionable visit was to Mount Carmel close to Haifa. This is the same Mount Carmel where Elijah called upon G-d and He sent down fire from in I Kings 18. There is a congregation there, Kehilat HaCarmel, the pastor and his wife are from Times Square Church in NYC, and they operate under the principal of the "one new man," so Jews, Gentiles, Arabs, everyone together, as a One New Man in Christ. Kehilat HaCarmel is taking care of some Sudanese Refugees, they are the most precious little children.
Some of them are African Muslims who were being attacked because they are black, by their Arab Muslim brothers, some are Christian Sudanese, who were victims of religious persecution. I think that has become my recent soap box. Recently, four Sudanese refugees were bludgeoned to death by Egyptian soldiers, and no one reported on it, except the Jerusalem Post. Israel is doing a lot to help the refugees, but they just keep coming and coming. It's not a very large country, and no one else seems to be doing much about it.

I really like my new job. I'm working as a staff writer for the International Christian Embassy-Jerusalem. So basically I read Israeli newspapers (the English editions) ones in the morning, pick out the headlines, summarize and rewrite for our daily news service. Monday, I'm being sent out "into the field." It will be the second anniversary of Israeli disengagement from Gaza, and so I'll be listening to press conferences, interviews, etc about the experiences of former residents, the current barrage of Quassam rockets that Hamas still launches from the disengaged Gaza on Israel, daily.

Things don't make sense here, from a natural perspective. If it really was about peace, why do the Palestinians continuously bite the hand that feeds them? They are their own worst enemies. I guess the answer is that it is a spiritual dilemma. More so then ever, I am seeing that all of this is not about territories and boundaries, but it is about which god is greater. Allahu Ahkbar does not mean "God is great." It means "Our god is greater." NB, it's not about converting the Muslims, but it IS about putting a stop to the reign of radical Islamism. When people are forced to convert to Islam for fear of their lives, and no one does anything about it....

On some more uplifting notes...today is Shabbat. It's really amazing how all of Jerusalem just shuts down on Shabbat. I really think this is a great practice. Everyone rests. It's okay to be lazy and sleep in, everyone is doing it. And Shabbat dinners, so good. It's all about families and friends getting together, enjoying life.

The ICEJ is underway with preparations for the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot). I will be in the dance company. It says in Zecheriah 14:16 "Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles." True there has not been an Armageddon yet, etc...but it says that the nations will come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast. It just struck me one day that I GET TO DANCE for one of the major holy feasts. I mean, talk about....humbling (that doesn't even come close).

Anyway, if you have made it this far......congratulations. More updates on "Angelina goes into field reporting" soon.

Look what I found, I miss Hosanna...

Now, if only life were such.


I am thinking it's a sign that the freckles
in our eyes are mirror images and when
we kiss they're perfectly aligned
and I have to speculate that God himself
did make us into corresponding shapes like
puzzle pieces from the clay
and true, it may seem like a stretch, but
its thoughts like this that catch my troubled
head when you're away when I am missing you to death
when you are out there on the road for
several weeks of shows and when you scan
the radio, I hope this song will guide you home

they will see us waving from such great
heights, "come down now," they'll say
but everything looks perfect from far away,
"come down now," but we'll stay...

I tried my best to leave this song on your
machine but the persistent beat it sounded
thin upon listening and
that frankly will not fly. you will hear
the shrillest highs and lowest lows with
the windows down when this is guiding you home

they will see us waving from such great
heights, "come down now," they'll say
but everything looks perfect from far away,
"come down now," but we'll stay...

In the Battle of the Somme, over 20,000 people were killed before lunch, by the end of WWII, millions upon millions were dead. How does society recover from something like that? Can it? Does it? Maybe because I'm taking all these history classes right now, compounded with the whole ballet/classical arts discipline, I say that it has not, cannot. WWII, was the death of Western civilization as we knew it. How could the land of Beethoven, Goethe, Schiller, become the home of the Nazis? Dadaism, society had reverted back to baby talk. In terms of "dance" things have trended towards modern dance, people running on stage doing a few poses, running in a circle, and leaving. It all seems so empty. Perhaps that's because there is nothing left.

Watched Flags of Our Fathers this evening, it was....ok. In my opinion, it dwelt too much on the actual picture, and not as much on the stories behind the characters in the picture. I think the book is much better, at least it will be when I have a chance to read it. However, there were previews for The Nativity. It actually seems like a good depiction of birth of Christ, besides, since the passing of Cecil B DeMille, we're long overdue for a good Nativity story. Finally, there was a preview for Babel. Now this I am excited to see....what can I say, 5 some languages, 3 continents, Cate Blanchett (one of my favourites) Brad Pitt (not as big a fan of, but he's done decent stuff). What can I say, I love movies. Unfortunately, I never seem to have time to see everything.

New Year's Resolution....in the middle of October, cut back on TV/computer time.