"Sleep, Sleep Tonight...

...and may your dreams be realized"

That's the song I always think of on MLK day. And it always takes me back to a cold December night in 1987 in Sun Devil stadium, watching U2 perform, and how the rain started just as Bono was singing "so let it rain..." He said bad words to Governor Mecham because Arizona didn't recognize MLK Day as a state holiday back in 1987 (simply because it hadn't been properly legislated yet). Ahh, the good ol' days.


So it's a freezing cold holiday today (-15F). Addie is home for the holiday, so I made a painting station out of my laundry room for her--I flipped over some wrapping paper and covered half the floor with it, and she's watercoloring to her heart's delight. Heidi is here with me playing nickjr and starfall.com games, and James is speeding around in the walker since he can't crawl (well, actually he can crawl, just not efficiently. He crawls like a little tripod, with one arm down in front of his knees, kinda scooting--poor guy).

We had a strange weekend. For one thing, I worked 3-11pm at the hotel on Saturday (just filling in), so my regular Saturday stuff didn't really get done, although Rich did a great job with the kids and keeping the house decent. When I got home, Heidi was up with a really high fever (around 103), and we got her settled down and Tylenol-ed, then Addie was up. It was a crazy, on-going night, and I ended up staying home with the sickies and gimpy while Rich had church meetings from 8am-1pm. I still had a bad headache (but Excedrin migraine helped) so we laid around, we read our library books again (Addie was off school on Friday, too, so we spent the morning at the library and it was soooo fun), ate ramen, took naps, and hung out with Rich in the evening. It was wildly windy and cold outside, but we felt so cozy at home with our feverish/ stir crazy kids.

It was a quiet nightat the hotel on Saturday--there was a blizzard and only about 6 Halliburton engineers in the hotel with 5 other random guests. One of the guests asked me about restaurants and I said that we had a great Mexican place called Fiesta en Jalisco, and he said, "I'll try that... I really like Hispanic food." And then when he came back he said, "That hispanic place was great!"--I thought it was funny that he wouldn't say Mexican, as if it were politically incorrect, even though the food and its cooks/servers are clearly from MEXICO! (Did I miss a PC memo about that?) Also over the weekend I devoured my own library book, Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I started reading it at work on Saturday at about 4pm and I finished it up at 10pm last night. I LOVED IT, and not just because it was a riveting autobiography. I learned so much from it about life as a Muslim woman from the inside.

I had taken Middle East 101 at the U of A and read an ethnography by an American woman who lived in Iraq in the 70's, but it was all rosy and "multi-cultural" in that class. It was incredibly informative to read about Hirsi Ali's experience as a Somalian Muslim because (a) she is my age--2 years older and (b) she grew up as the Islamic Fundamentalist movement really took hold. One of the points that really struck me was her experience aftre 9/11. She said she was shocked when she watched western TV and they called the attackers extremists who were misinterpreting the Quran, because the verses were right there, clearly stating that an "infidel" was your enemy and that infidels should be killed. She realized that this was the future of Islam--murders, war, domestic abuse--and she didn't want to be a part of it. She became an atheist and I can hardly blame her after all she's been through.

I found myself wishing she could understand that part of the reason Western culture is so civilized, besides the enlightenment/reason/rule of law, is Christianity. Even people who are not religious have a base of Christian ethics, like forgiveness and the sanctity of life, which are nearly non-existant in her world. The Great Plan of Happiness is a stark contrast to the values she was taught.

I also thought about how much her story (and her "apostasy") echoed the stories of people who have left my church and other religions. I often wonder why people who have a terrible experience in a religion don't understand that NOT EVERYONE IS HAVING THAT EXPERIENCE. I had muslim friends at BYU who were having a very different experience, and we marvelled at how similar our religions were. I know people who have left my religion because they were having an oppressive, stunting experience, while my experience has been nothing but strengthening and empowering to me. It's not that I don't believe what Hirsi Ali was saying, it's just that I don't think all muslims are having that experience, and I understand why it's controversial. Of course, I haven't been around many muslims in the past 10 years, so who knows what it's like now. Maybe they are considered infidels, too, for being moderate, for being "westernized." I don't know.

I did notice while I was looking up stuff on the internet as I read (that's the pleasure of reading at work--I have to sit at a desk in front of the computer, which I always keep open to the reservation site AND Google so I can research) that somebody important considered the Islamic Center of Tucson (just down the street from the Institute) the first al-qaeda terror cell in the US. Oh, great. I went to a very Jewish high school in Tucson, and then met tons of muslims when I finished college there, and mentioned how weird I thought that was to my Grandpa. He said something like they must love the desert, and Tucson is just like another middle east. Now, 12 years later, that sounds pretty scary.

Here are a couple of Glenn Beck links--first, to an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and second, to his bit on the Flying Imams and a muslim plot , and third, THIS rant (PS: I think Hirsi Ali is beautiful, especially how soft-spoken she is). Anyway, I just thought that on this, our Civil Rights Day, it might be good to think about the next horizon of civil rights--those of mistreated muslim women, many of whom live right here in the U.S., and ours as Americans who worship Christ.