pop culture wars

i just stopped by yahoo! and saw the following big headlines:

Jennifer Love Hewitt splits with fiance'
Odd scene as appointee tries to take Senate seat
FBI plans large hiring blitz of agents, experts
Cities made from JELL-O and other unusual objects

and today's top searches were...from 1 to 10:

1. Rebecca Romijn (solid performances in X-Men...3 years ago)
   
2. Kelly Rutherford (whom?)
   
3. Jett Travolta (famously tragically dead child of John Travolta)
   
4. The Dark Knight (good movie...last summer)
   
5. Healthy Recipes (hummus and falafel anyone?)
   

6. Pat Hingle (whom?)
   
7. The Bachelor (seriously? people still care about this?)
   
8. Tax Forms (solid capitalism in january search)
   
9. Used Textbooks (in january?)
   
10. Hormone Imbalance (or...shall we say...slowly going crazy?)
    

conspicuously absent from the top headlines and the top searches? the fact that since i wrote my last blog (3 days ago), 200 more people have been killed in palestine. or the fact that today a 3rd UN school building was hit by an israeli attack today, killing 40 refugees. or anything pro- or anti- this current war in gaza. nothing.

i understand that bad news is hard...but this war is really happening. we turned a blind eye in the 1930s during the holocaust, in the 1980s during the aparthied regime in south africa, in the 1990s during the genocide in rwanda, and during this decade currently regarding genocide in sudan, and at great cost to us on a national and human level. let us not do the same today. be informed. seek truth. seek an historical understanding of this current, yet 4-century-long conflict.

i can't say i'm proud to be an american right now. can't say i'm proud to be a human being right now.

the struggle

some might think it was inevitable that something would pop off in the middle east while we were living here. i didn't give it a second thought. but now, in the midst of growing political and emotional tension, i realize how wrong things are and how much things need to change. i want to describe the palestine/israel conflict with a parable (thanks to my brother's college experience):
the guys, being macho as they are, decide to play a prank on the girls in the dorm. 4 of them break into the girls' upstairs dormitory, shut off the power, disabling all alarm clock and light functions, barricaded the front and rear exits, and wrote a tauntingly playful message on the floor in shaving cream (such as "got you"). a good joke, which royally ticked off the girls, who didn't wake up on time for class and couldn't get out of the dorm after their late wake-up.
the girls, being irrational as they are, decide retaliation is necessary. they decided, however, to retaliate over thanksgiving break while all the guys were gone. they got into the guys' dormitory equipped with WMD's (syrup, rotten fish, and birdseed). they poured the syrup all over the couches and the kitchen floor and then threw birdseed on the syrup. they threw birdseed all over each room, including into cd players and anything else they could destroy. they put the fish in the small refrigerators in each room in order to royally stink up the dorm. they ruined the dorms.

the boys annoyed. the girls destroyed.

this is the essence of the current conflict in palestine. hamas has been annoying israel over the last 5-10 years with consistent long-distance missle attacks which have resulted in a few dozen israeli deaths. annoying. terrible. and uncalled for. yet, in some ways, as you read the history between these two groups of people, its somewhat understandable when you consider how small the gaza ghetto is (360 square km for 1.5 million palestinian citizens). hamas is represented by the guys in this parable.
israel, represented by the girls, have unleashed an over-the-top retaliation on the people of gaza, without regard for who is harmed in their attack. to date, more than 430 palestinians have been killed in airstrikes...compared to 4 israelis in the last 2 weeks. its senseless. its emotional. and its uncalled for.
let us not blindly support the girls because the boys are bad. the boys are bad. their leadership has no regard for their own people. but the girls are destroying everything because of a few boys annoying (and terrible) actions. this is serious, and it affects many jordanians that are children of palestinian refugees from the israeli occupations of the past. i sit here 90 miles away from gaza and i wish this world would somehow realize that war results in death, destruction, and problems. may we find a peaceable solution.

(i'm no expert, so if this annoys you for its simplicity, please forgive me...something needs to be said)

mathematics as a spirtual discipline

the best thing about living away from everything "normal" is that you are forced to constantly be learning and growing and thinking and expanding and being conscious about every decision that you make and every conversation that you have. let me explain.

one of the easiest things for me to do is to complain about my job. its easier to complain than it is to accept reality and to learn to work in spite of disagreements with bosses, policies, and the job itself. i never gave myself that opportunity in the states...that is, the opportunity to grow up and be a good employee.

this smells like i've lost my passion and my desire for changing "the system".

but, i've actually learned to enjoy my work, despite my disagreements with various things. i love teaching. i love teaching mathematics. i love the challenge of inspiring students to want to learn something that they can't see any purpose for learning. i love the constant struggle for control. i love my co-workers, and even my superiors (except one...i'm trying and failing at that relationship every day). and, at the end of a long break from school, jessey and i are looking forward to the next month of challenges at school. its pushed us deeper into thinking about how to make an impact in a dark place. its pushed us to grow up and face difficult challenges instead of quitting and complaining and trying to find the next best thing.

the reality is, this is the best thing. this is what was planned out for us before the beginning of time, to be elementary school teachers in the country of jordan at an islamic school run by a princess and filled with rich spoiled kids. if we tried, we couldn't have re-written the story better, and we wouldn't be fully living if we had written the story. thankfully, we aren't in control, and we are learning mathematics as a spirtual discipline. we are learning these fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and self-control...and we are learning the value of each every day.

yesua

we celebrated christmas two days ago...just like you. we were privileged to share time with our arab friends on christmas eve, who cooked a meal for us (kufta (sp?) which consists of rolled meat and potatoes and tomatoes and onions). they are suffering, because their daughter is terminally ill with a brain tumor that has gotten worse in the last six months since her last surgery. it was difficult to sit with them as we considered her 2 year old life-light and what it means for them to possibly be losing a child. it was good just to be there with them knowing all we can really do is pray for them.

we then went to our friend doug and paula's house where we partook in their traditional mexican meal on christmas eve night. already full from our arab dinner, we still pounded down some guacamole, cheese, sour cream, lettuce, and bean burritos, followed by some cookies. we stayed the night at their place and woke up on christmas morning with "family". we had a christmas dinner with friends (10 of us) around a table, eating turkey, duck, mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, apple pie, spinach-artichoke dip, and cookies. through much awkward conversation in their everything-goes household, we remembered jesus' birth and what it meant for us that allah was willing to to veil himself in flesh and become humble like us in order to give us the greatest gift of salvation from sins.

it is interesting being in a land where people don't celebrate christmas with people who aren't your family who are also missing their families. it was good. and as we considered our lives and where we were on christmas night, we knew without a doubt that we are right where we need to be. thanking jesus for giving us all that we need and for reminding us how precious and how fragile life really is.

you remind me of home

this our new place...for the next four months. our friends matt wickman and annamarie monkmeier (married, with different last names...freakin hippies) just had a new baby (blaze...freakin hippies) and migrated back to the states for four months to be with family and take a break from the middle east. they needed some people to rent out their place from them while they were gone, and we needed to move closer to work, so it was a win win. plus, their place is super nice, and we get to benefit from all of the nice stuff for a while. its a true gift. thanks matt and annamarie (and blaze)!

sacrifice (or happy holidays)

we walked out of our apartment and beheld a pool/stream of blood running down our outdoor staircase. the stench of blood and death were in the air as we heard our neighbors talking while slaughtering a ram/goat/sheep (not sure).

its the eid al adha, or the holiday based around remembering abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son (purported to be ishmael by the locals), and allah's provision of a sacrificial ram in his place. every year, muslims sacrifice a sheep/goat/ram as a rememberance and a duty to allah. they keep 1/3 of the meat for themselves, give 1/3 to extended family, and give 1/3 to the poor.

the parallels are hard to avoid. prophetic voices rang in my ears as i watched the blood sacrifice streaming down the stairs into the street, saying things of the blood of the lamb. but, i think the lesson to be learned here is completely different. its about sacrifice. true sacrifice.

when was the last time you saw a dead thing? or watched something die? or when was the last time you considered what God asked of abraham when he told him to sacrifice the son through whom he had promised to bless and multiply the whole world? and what the significance of blood is?

our brothers in the middle east know what it means to cut the throat of an animal and bleed it out, skin it, carve it, and give it away...not for sport, but for God. they are much closer to understanding what it really does mean to need a blood sacrifice for sin. in the west, we are insulated from this "barbarism". we are comfortable.

this is ishmael (i named him that as a sideways joke). he was sacrificed today. he knew it was going to happen. and he had to be dragged across the street and down the hill to his death. he wasn't willing. he was fighting the whole way.

this made me consider the willing sacrifice that was made for me. it made me consider all of the things in my life that i am unwilling to kill for his sake. it made me want to change, to make this christmas one of sacrifice and life-change instead of consumption and self-service.

counterfeit

i entered into the realm of counterfeit money the other day without knowing it. as you can see from the picture, the bill on the right is much smaller than the bill on the left. it was given to me as change at a store less than 50 yards from my house. its on normal printer paper that is crumpled up, but it was convincing enough for me not to think of it...until i tried to pay for something with it. i handed it to a sarfees driver as payment for our 40 cent ride up the hill, and he looked at it in confusion. he said, in arabic, "what is this? where did you get this?" i was confused and started feeling the blood run into my head in a sort of bewildered embarrassment. he told me it was not good, and showed me what was wrong with it (while driving - like lloyd christmas in dumb and dumber). i was confused and upset, since i had been duped. and now i have one less JD. i apologized to the driver and then laughed about how terrible this counterfeit JD really was. what a way to start a day of work.