Oct 29, 2010

Barbara Flaherty

The Opportunity of Interesting Times


The old curse, “May you live in interesting times,”  has been running through my head in  the wake of the Qur’an burning pastor and the chaotic dance we are all doing right now. Extremists seem present in all arenas forsaking all reason, all discretion, all true communication and the hard work of justice and peace making.  Demagogues are on all sides using rhetoric and media to inflame our emotions, gain power and turn us into a mob for their own benefit. Name calling is popular, and all in the name of God. God’s name is everywhere used to justify all sorts of violent and inflammatory behaviors that are contrary to the tenets of most faiths.

In the United States we have people playing our very real grief as if it were a toy instrument in the composition their own music. Most of us are still in shock and traumatized by the events of 9/11. Old feelings are brought forward and people are swallowed in them as if a great beast had come and taken us away from ourselves. Traumatized people don’t think clearly, they react. Demagogues know this.

We must have mercy on our own condition. We must recognize it,  see it , understand and care for it with consciousness. What is at stake in the United States is our own values, our own constitution, not somebody else’s but ours. What is at stake is our very real safety, and the safety of the world.

The Effects of Post Trauma on Community and Nations

I write this as an American who loves her country very much, and right now I am thinking with the mind of my former profession - counselor for both individuals and communities who have suffered trauma. Post trauma symptoms are interesting in that they are a set of full bodied responses which are most often triggered by stress and/or sensory stimuli. The person suffering from post trauma defaults into the actual emotion/physical/perceptual state of the trauma often accompanied by a sense of danger, anxiety, panic, and attendant reactions. As an example of a simple intense response - while facilitating a group, a helicopter flew low over the building. The patient next to me, a veteran, lunged at me, threw me on the floor and covered me with his body. There was no thought in this. He just responded in a knee jerk reaction to the perceived, though unreal, threat. The trauma had interfered with his ability to distinguish between reality and perceived reality. That’s a serious condition. We can be blind to  what is actually there because the full trauma response is interfering with our judgment. To judge wrongly now, to not be able to actually see the lay of land, so to speak, is dangerous for us as a nation and for the world.

Unthinking Knee Jerk Reactions

Back to our Qur’an burning pastor, the appeal to higher values by many different church leaders and by the President of the United States did not dissuade him. Even when Gen. Petraeus suggested he was putting troops in harm’s way, when Secretary of State Clinton suggested he was putting the men and women in embassies in various countries in harms way, when church leaders suggested that he was putting Christians in other countries in danger, our pastor seemed not to have even considered that. Some might say it was no-brainer to figure that one out. When the President suggested that perhaps this pastor was doing the extremist criminals a recruitment favor he never had considered that.

As a minister this man knew the power of the symbolic act. Church people know about the strength of the symbolic.  He knew he was provoking, but he was blinded to its actual consequences. He led grieving traumatized Americans filled with rage at the anniversary of 9/11 into that symbolic process; and those who followed apparently did not think their actions through either, even to the serious consequences to the men and women who protect them. This is a communal knee jerk reaction, a serious blindness, and its working can only bring grief to the world.

Hypervigilance 
 
Some expressions of post trauma in the individual are modified daily thought processes or behaviors. When I taught at university, on the first day of class there would always be one to four men in the back of the room with their backs against the wall where they could see the door. I used to always joke with them by specifically welcoming the veterans at the back of the room. The always laughed. They saw their own condition, and because they saw their own condition they could manage it, and move on to new things and ways of being. In a sense as Americans we are all like those defensive veterans, keeping our backs to the wall and an eye on the door, watching and waiting for the next criminal gang who acts in the name of Islam. Could be our neighbor, or the guy building the mosque. We are watching and waiting. This has its proper place in a dangerous world with threatening people, but it can also blind us to who our friends really are, and we need friends.

Reenactment
 
Another response is the reenactment of trauma. Examples are the incested child who becomes a promiscuous adult reenacting the original trauma attempting to find some kind of good resolution, to make it stop, to make it be better; or the veteran thrill seeker who engages in activities that put life and limb at risk in order to keep the feeling of anxiety at bay, to make it stop, to get it over with. 9/11 was a shock and a trauma to our nation. The news broadcasted
the pictures over and over again with the words of the extremist criminals replaying, “Islam will destroy you.” The word “Islam” became charged for Americans. How much of the reactivity we see in the United States that seems to have a provoking element to it such as the Qur’an burning pastor, how much of it is this need for release from the intensity of grief, trauma, fear and shock? To keep the feeling of anxiety at bay, make it stop,  come to a good resolution where we “win” this time.

Today in the United States we see patterns of volatility, name calling, emotional reactivity that could be dangerous to our wellbeing. These post trauma responses are clearly present: the knee jerk defensive postures and unthinking actions; back against the wall watching the door for the enemy in the conditioned regular daily responses to the news of ongoing threats; the need to provoke to re-enact and make it come out differently, and finally the need to make the anxiety go away by eliminating the reminders of anxiety (Islamophobia). In other words, we allow ourselves to be in danger because we choose to react without discernment, not act with discernment. 

There are always those who choose vengeance and fear as a path. But most adults understand the hard work involved in attaining peace. If we are ignorant of our own condition and do not manage it, do not pursue the road of discernment, become unable to distinguish friend from foe in the Islamic world, we put ourselves and our children, and the world itself in danger.

According to the dictionary a demagogue is “a leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace.” In other words they attempt to obtain power by cultivating the herd instinct and seeking to move people by emotions in the direction of their agenda. In our post trauma we are vulnerable to that type of thing. The voices of demagogues from all sides and the media itself play our very real grief, trauma, fear moving us to unthinking knee jerk reactions that may not be a benefit to us and our nation. It is imperative that we do not listen to them, that we acknowledge and care for our emotions and cultivate our independence of thought.

Demagoguery

How do we know the voice of a demagogue? There are basic criteria. Their civic conversation and speech
  • Targets your emotion, especially fear and cynicism;
  • Uses broad generalized sweeping statements to cultivate that emotion;
  • Lacks specific developed reasoned content, defaults to simplistic statements;
  • Appeals to specific values without reference to other values of equal importance;
  • Finger points, targets and blames the other (a specific group) with generalized name calling as if the individuals of that group are totally lacking in integrity; shared values, or insight.
  • Invites people to forsake their own reason, shared history or law to deal with this other group. (The end justifies the means.)

Don’t get me wrong here. I am not suggesting we naively ignore the very real and present danger of criminal extremists in our world today. We have to keep an eye on terrorists, a continuing eye. These are turbulent times. What I am saying is if we don’t address the rise in demagoguery we will not be able to do that effectively. Post trauma reactivity makes us vulnerable to this kind of thing. Our own self knowledge protects us from walking into that bear trap. We need our brains now. We need the American capacity of independent thinking and actual civic conversation. Perhaps we need to demand that of our leaders and refuse to put up with less.

America has a dual reputation in the world. We are loved because of our promise, our freedom, our values, our constitution and rule of law, our democracy. We are loved because we are willing to share. America is the largest giver of public and private charity in the world. A city of light set on a hill. But what casts a great light also casts a shadow. We are also the holder of much of the world wealth. We have backed tyrants and violent regimes. Put yourselves in the shoes of the citizens of those countries who suffered poverty, death, injustices of all kinds under those American backed dictators. The eye of suspicion is as understandable as the eyes of love we are given.

Terrorists are waiting for us to feed that suspicion by throwing out in our post traumatic response the first amendment rights of American Muslims. What a recruitment coup. Right now the eyes of the world are upon us, not to see if we bend to their will, but to see if we are ultimately trustworthy by holding us accountable to our own highest values and law.

In my experience with community healing from trauma it took a community effort to develop a conscious awareness of their condition in order to manage that condition to move forward with strength and wisdom. What it took was an immersion not only in the grief, can’t stay there forever, but in their strengths, to be bathed in the highest and most noble values that the community possessed. Any individual process that was lasting occurred within that container. And that is why at this point in history we Americans as a people must remember who we are. We need to bath each other in the nobility of our constitution, the resiliency of our character, the American capability to act fluidly and with creativity in any circumstance. 

The Muslim World

Many Muslim people of the world are living in war torn violent places. No one can deny that we are implicated in that violence. But the very criminals that blew up the Twin Towers are also blowing up mosques, shines, sacred sites of those Muslims. In many areas people can’t go to a wedding or a funeral, or weekly worship without fear. You can’t go to the market. Death, grief, loss, fear are everywhere. A quick non comprehensive web search of these attacks (in places outside of the obviously violent Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine) reveals over 400 people killed in terrorist attacks in the last few months in sacred and historically significant shrines, mosques, and places of public congregation.

Dr. Shams Hamid in his article of Oct 7, 2010 in the Pakistani English language journal, newkerala.com regarding the recent attack on the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine in Pakistan wrote, 

“Al-Qaida follows the rigid, literalist and violent teachings of Wahabism that is the state religion of the royal kingdom of Saudi Arabia….. There are 1.57 billion Muslims in the world with 10-13 percent Shia, and the rest are Sunni Muslims. The Sunni Muslims are further divided into around 40 percent Hanfi, around 30 percent Shafii, around 15 percent Maliki and around 5 percent Hanbali. Wahabis are less than 2 percent and they consider the 98 percent Muslims to be unbelievers. …Islam never condoned attacking innocent people. Even in wars against non- Muslims, Muslims are not supposed to kill women, children and old people…they (suicide bombers) should not expect heaven in return for their heinous violent acts.”

For these people what is at stake is the Muslim religion, its values, and the values of each country’s way of life. Criminals who wish to be known as Jihadists target everyone, especially Muslims, mosques and shrines. They want to be called Jihadists because it makes them appear noble and  “pure”.  They want Westerners to call them “Islamic” because it sets the stage they need, and is a fine recruiting tool among the young and disenfranchised. Discernment begins with this realization that the war on terrorism is with criminal elements of fundamentalist extremists, not with Islam. Islam itself is our first defense against these extremists.

Islamophobia

Muslims have been in the fabric of American society since the 1700’s. Muslims fought in the civil war, and have defended the United States in all the successive wars. Muslim Americans were instrumental in the successful prosecution of the first attack on the World Trade Center. Without the men and woman of Islam who seek justice and do not abide criminality our country is at risk. We have seen it before where the presence of good steadfast people eventually defeated the elements of criminality.

Newer immigrants today are undergoing the typical rites of passage of new immigrant populations to the United States with the added stress of stereotypical identification with terrorists. Perhaps Irish Catholic Americans who repudiate the IRA for the violence and deaths it has caused innocent people understand what its like to have a renegade element hijack your faith and patriotism for their own advantage. Islamophobia thrives on stereotypes of extremist criminality. Perhaps Italian Americans, who had to endure this kind of a stereotyping because of the Mafia understand what's happening here. Most of us have know the sting and bite of intolerance and prejudice from the good old white boys to the people of many faith, colors and cultures. We know it does not work; does not promote wellbeing of anyone in the final say.

In America Islamophobia plays right into the hands of criminal extremists. It isolates the young and most vulnerable and sets them up for the freelance internet criminal terrorist operatives to do their work.  American Muslims are working hard to protect the young from this kind of dual victimization, on one hand prejudice and lack of acceptance at home in America, and on the other, the internet recruitment tactics of unscrupulous anti-American terrorists that would have these children blow themselves to dust in the name of their own violent agendas. For an example of one form of American Muslim intervention in this particular situation check out this very short video made to counteract terrorist recruitment of youth in the US.


To view more videos,  read articles, or examine some American Muslim work plans to counteract terrorism check out for yourself the website of the Islamic Society of North America.
 
American Muslims are uniquely prepared through their knowledge of the religion and cultures of Islam to creatively bring their energies to the task of confronting terrorism at home and in the world community. Unfortunately their energies are having to refocus on defending themselves, their faith, families and communities from the prejudices of their fellow Americans as well. Islamophobia sabotages the very people we need to be supporting in their efforts.

If Americans allow the reactivity of post trauma to continue with broad based stereotypes, name calling, and hateful and threatening language we will isolate and disempower our friends, placing ourselves in greater jeopardy. Criminal terrorism is a real threat. Managing our fear and rage and acquiring knowledge is an important element in deciphering the chaotic events in the world today.

Discernment

Discernment is based on knowledge tempered with wisdom.  There are books, films, and online journals that allow Westerners to begin that process of acquiring real knowledge.

For a broader engaging perspective on world Islam and Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, go to the website of Sufi News and Sufism World Report. Sufis in America and all over the world are in the front lines of the work against terrorism. Perhaps that is why their shines are popular bombing sites for threatened terrorists. Interestingly Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Park 51 Center (formerly Cordoba Center) is one such Sufi whom President George Bush asked to represent the United States abroad in discussions of tolerance and diversity. Recently State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley said of him:

"His work on tolerance and religious diversity is well-known and he brings a moderate perspective to foreign audiences on what it's like to be a practicing Muslim in the United States," He added that the department's public-diplomacy offices "have a long-term relationship” with Rauf - including during the past Bush administration.”

Imam Feisal has been maligned, quoted out of context, misconstrued in the politics of the fear and intolerance so visible today. Check out Imam Rauf for yourself.  Read him in context. Make your own reasonable decision away from the name calling and fear mongering.


In The American Muslim Journal you will see many things addressed including the paradoxical struggle to defend American Muslims and American Islam from both terrorism and the pain and fear that is engendered by American Islamophobia.   The headline as I write today is, “Firing Juan Williams Was Wrong, Despite His Offensive Comments,” a report on The Muslim Public Affairs Council  to intercede on behalf of Juan Williams.  The journal also contains much about Islamic culture, arts and poetry, and works of compassion for the poor and suffering. Its links page is extensive. Check it out - be a covert operator and see what Muslims are actually saying to one another, not what the news says Muslims are saying, but the real deal. Get to know your neighbor. 

Part II

Fair warning: in this journal of spiritual conversation I am now writing as a person of faith. People of faith have the unique capacity to form these bonds of real knowledge, to forge deep friendship, to know the other through the grace of divine love, and the practice of that love. Hospitality toward the other is a gift older then written scripture itself. People of faith have the obligation through their scriptures to extend invitations of friendship and peace. One clear way is to invite interaction between communities, mutual works of service in the greater community. By working with one another to serve our neighbor and the poor– a divine mandate found in most religions and spiritual paths- we enter the territory of holy wisdom together. The territory of fear is a closed and self predicting prophesy. Faith allows us to put our trust not in humans but in the divine writ itself and be brought into God’s kingdom of mercy and compassion.

Once there was a time in western history when that kingdom flourished, when the three Abrahamic faiths flowered together. The great beauty, the golden age of Andalusia has been celebrated by those three faiths for centuries in poems, songs, books, and films. If you are a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim today you and your faith are still benefiting from what happened in that time. For a history of this period you might want to view PBS Cities of Lights. That Islamic Spain could hold this beauty for a century speaks well of Islam, just as its failure speaks of the seemingly endless history of human frailty. These flowerings in human history, those great moments, reveal our very real possibilities.

Andalusia is celebrated and remembered in the introduction to fourth order basic text, Doing It Another Way. “On the Iberian Peninsula of Spain Jewish, Muslim and Christian mysticism flowered together in Andalusia. The mystic text of Kabbalah, the Zohar, the Book of Splendor, was written.  In this cross fertilization the seeds that flowered in John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila were planted.” Ibn Arabi, the Islamic saint, mystic and philosopher, wrote from his Andalusian roots,

Wonder
A garden among the flames,
My heart has become capable of every form:
a pasture for gazelles
a convent for Christian monks,
a temple for idols,
the pilgrim's Ka'ba,
the tables of the Tora,
the book of the Koran.
I follow the religion of Love,
whichever way his camels take.
That is my belief,
My faith.
Tarjuman al-Ashwaq, Muhyyeddin Ibn Arabi (1165-1240 CE)


Fear and intolerance are with us always, boring companions of the soul unlit by faith.  But even for the best of us in turbulent times they can rise up to blind and overtake us. Turbulence also offers opportunity for the new, as yet unseen possibility of  beauty to emerge. In such times we need a vision that carries us into God’s kingdom of mercy and compassion.

The mystic flowering of God’s grace that happened for a brief century in Andalusia was not a dream, an unattainable utopia of the imagination. Andalusia was a reality of grace, a living book of love and unity opened for us to read and remember, a reality which bore fruit for centuries in all three Abrahamic faiths. It is this memory that Cordoba Center’s name was to evoke. The community center is designed to accommodate spaces of worship for all three Abrahamic faiths. It is a pity that post traumatic fear and rising intolerance blinded America to the beauty of that name and its calling, a calling so closely associated with the American dream itself where people of many faiths thrive together learning from one another. But with the help of God it is not too late to open our eyes.

The entire interconnected interrelated world is lit with the light of God’s presence and unity. In times of chaos when we dance with God in the turbulence, possibilities arise for a new and unexpected flowering. We can choose to remain in fear and intolerance – it’s a familiar path leading to familiar results; or we can choose the path of the holy fools of God, love dogs catching the scent of the divine Master in the most difficult times.

Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad, all guide us to the worship of God and the care of one another. No one of the faiths that emerged from the life of these men will deny the truth of the words of Jesus when asked to sum up the law. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” These are both the preconditions and contents of the kingdom of God. Sure we can pull out all sorts of scriptures to defend our fear like the equivocating man who asked Jesus just who those neighbors are and are not. Jesus’ reply with the parable of the good Samaritan demolished the concept in God’s world of the outsider, the other. We are brothers and sisters of the same Source. The Hebrew Testament, the Christian Testament, the Qur’an won’t let us off the hook.

It’s risky business to confront our fear and intolerance of the other in a violent world with its capacity to betray.  Criminal terrorists with their agendas of destruction exist. We have the right and the responsibility to defend ourselves. How we do that matters. Everyone has their share of violence today, both in the giving and receiving. No matter who you are its hard work to catch yourself in post traumatic reactivity, fear, anxiety, or rage. It’s uncomfortable to be the one to reach out in a world afire with Islamophobia, stereotyping fears, and voices of  scoffing hatred. 

We know little of  Francis of Assisi’s eighteen months in Andalusia, a pilgrimage made on hard roads with bare feet. We know more about his journey crossing the lines to seek peace during the fifth crusade. No one thought he would survive. He endured their scoffing and dire predictions to follow the God given vision in his heart. The Muslim Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil surprisingly held back the predicted sword. Both men knew the virtue of dancing in the arms of Guidance.

When we have the courage to listen to the deepest guidance of our faiths a criteria for discernment and action actually emerges - a shocking radical simplicity at the core of divine unity. We are not asked to approach each other armed with creeds and agendas. We are instead led to a fierce embrace. God turns the worlds of our personal and collective egos with their fearful defenses upside down and inside out. He brings us into His kingdom.

People and communities of all faiths have a choice. It’s easy to turn aside from the other actively through reactive prejudice or passively by simply disappearing from the conversation.  It’s risky business to step through the door into God’s Kingdom. You never know what is going to happen. It’s His crap shoot, not yours. Whatever you see in difficult times or good is His audacious love garden. What kind of love garden is this? It is the garden of the heart. There is an old saying attributed to God, "Neither my heavens nor my earth contain me, but the heart of my faithful believer contains me."

The kingdom of God is at hand – always here – always now – in this moment – in this time – in this age – in this epoch – in this vision – in this risky wild love that knows no bounds.  Yes, we live in interesting times, and in this crazy sometimes scary world, God is always messing with us with that divine impulse to mercy, compassion and justice. Who knows what beautiful divine flowering can occur if we dare to listen to that Guidance.


Biography
Barbara Flaherty MA CDCII has a habit of falling in love with men from the 13th century who lead her into beautiful adventures in the here and now. Her passion for Francis of Assisi produced the book, Holy Madness. Her enduring love for Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh, the Irish/Scot medieval bard has got her into all sorts of trouble lately, and inspired the soon to be published Spelling The World.  She is a former counselor for traumatized individuals and communities. Barbara is the founding companion of the Fourth Order of Francis and Clare, and the author of Doing It Another Way: The Basic Text of the Fourth Order.



[i] Fourth Order Basic Text Introduction

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