Peace Be Upon Us

The Holy Qur'an, like all scripture, contains life-giving and death-dealing words. Christians, even when quoting memorized scripture, sometimes know little about their own sacred texts and even less about those of others.
As President Obama invites the Muslim and Western worlds (as though they were separate and distinct) into renewed conversation and mutual understanding, I offer a few verses from the Qur'an for contemplation.

Quranic reflections on peace:
Do not make Allah, by your oaths, a hindrance to your being righteous and observing your duty to God, including making peace among humankind. (2.224)

You believers! When you go out (to fight) in the way of Allah, be careful to discern, and do not say to anyone who offers you peace: "You are not a believer." (4.94, in part)

Go to Pharaoh and say: Look! We are two messengers of your Lord. So let the children of Israel go with us, and do not torment them. We bring you a token from your Lord. And peace will be for the one who follows right guidance. (20.47)

Peace on me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I shall be raised alive! Such was Jesus, son of Mary: a statement of the truth concerning which some doubt. (19.33-34)

If two parties of believers fall to fighting, then make peace between them. And if one party of them does wrong to the other, fight that one which does wrong till it returns to the ordinance of Allah; then, if it returns, make a just peace between them, and act equitably. Look! Allah loves the equitable. (49.9)

A mention of the mercy of your Lord to God's servant Zachariah.
When Zachariah cried to his Lord a cry in secret,
Saying: My Lord! Look! My bones grow feeble and my head is shining with grey hair, and I have never lacked blessing in prayer to You, my Lord. Look! I fear my kinsfolk after me, since my wife is barren. Oh, give me from Your presence a successor who shall inherit from me and inherit (also) the house of Jacob. And make him, my Lord, acceptable (to You).
(It was said to him): Zachariah! Look! We bring you tidings of a son whose name is John; we have given the same name to none before. He said: My Lord! How can I have a son when my wife is barren and I have reached infirm old age? One said: So (it will be). Your Lord says: It is easy for Me, even as I created you before, when you were nothing.
Zachariah said: My Lord! Show me some sign. He said: Your token is that you, with no physical infirmity, shall not speak to humankind for three nights. Then Zachariah came out to his people from the sanctuary, and signified to them: Glorify your Lord at break of day and fall of night.
John! Hold fast the Scripture. And we gave him wisdom when a child, and compassion from Our presence, and purity; and he was devout, and dutiful toward his parents. And he was not arrogant, rebellious.
Peace on him the day he was born, and the day he dies and the day he shall be raised alive!
And make mention of Mary in the Scripture, when she had withdrawn from her people to a chamber looking East, and had chosen seclusion from them. Then We sent unto her Our Spirit and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect human. (19.3-17)

Food for thought.

Buying American

Is it that simple? We've - through our tax dollars - bought (stakes in one case and majority in the other) American car companies as a collective. Should we now buy American cars as individuals to get our tax dollars back (yeah right!) or at least divest our government of its automotive holdings? (Our national banking holdings are a separate matter.)

What if we don't like American cars? What if we don't want American cars? Should we hold our noses and take our medicine with a spoonful of sugar. Is it our patriotic duty, like buying War Bonds during WWII?

I know I'm biased. I like Toyotas and I love my Prius. I've had two other Toyotas, a used Mercedes and a used Chevy. Neither the Chevy Volt nor the Ford Fusion move me. But the new Prius moves me to covetousness.

Sometimes I don't see much more than Cadillacs and Corvettes surviving as the future of GM or Chrysler. I have a bit more hope for Ford, and a whole lot more respect for their leadership before the economic collapse, particularly their decision to borrow money as an independent company and redesign their product line before the metaphorical feces hit the fanbelt.

I feel some moral obligation to at least look at Fords before I buy my next car. But I think it ought not be obligatory. If the American car industry is to survive it must produce cars that people want. And many of us want small, safe, energy efficient, reliable, good looking, exciting reasonably priced cars. Some of us will even pay a bit more than we would pay for a Japanese econo-box, if we like and trust the car. I don't imagine we'll ever pay as much for small fuel efficient cars as some folk pay for SUVs and their ilk.

Te tell the truth, I'm going to hold on to my Prius, after all, it's paid-in-full.

Forked Tongues Don't Always Lie

Fire is perhaps the most recognizable symbol of Pentecost. In part because fire is an enduring symbol of God's presence with God's people - the bush that burned and was not destroyed and the pillar of fire guiding the Exodus way in the night. Evoking fire, the color red is also emblematic of Pentecost.

I'd like to suggest another symbol. The forked tongue. This may be a hard sell for those who are superstitious about snakes, and (or as a result of) the Genesis story in chapter 3, or stereo-typical portrayals of Native persons in Hollywierd's Western genre.

But it is the forked tongue which appears miraculously in Acts chapter 2. The tongues, organs of speech (human? angelic? other?) are divided or forked in the same way as are flames of fire.
What then does the multiplicity or dual nature of the tongues suggest?

Perhaps the multiplicity and diversity of the church, our ways of worship, liturgies, songs, prayers and styles of preaching.
If the forked tongues of Pentecost are to represent duality, then perhaps, they represent the two languages of earth and heaven. For when we have done our best, preached our best, prayed our best, sung our best, we have failed to reproduce one syllable or a single note from the realm of heaven.

Back to the fire. I like to imagine that those forked tongues are indeed animated by Holy Ghost fire. And fire burns in red, orange, yellow, white and even blue hues.

So let the colors of Pentecost be many as are the languages, peoples, cultures and worship styles of God's people.

And let the forked tongue be a symbol of language that transcends human understanding, and our attempts to replicate and pronounce it.