The Band's Visit

I remember, as a kid, trekking barefoot through muddy trails. Sometimes it was hard work, and my feet got a bit stuck every now and again. But when I got to the other side, my toes felt cleaner and my spirit was happier. The movie The Band’s Visit reminded me of this slow progress with a reward at the end.
The Band’s Visit is an Israeli film about an Egyptian orchestra that gets lost in the middle of nowhere, Israel. I absolutely loved it – it’s now one of my favourite movies. The characters speak, by turns, Arabic, Hebrew, and English (though the whole film is subtitled). I found it to be a fascinating look at cultural undertones, chance encounters, and the nature of love.
The movie follows several main characters through their several stories: one orchestra member spends the night with an Israeli man whose marriage is going downhill, one goes on a date with an Israeli restaurant owner, one spends the evening at a roller rink. None of the stories are developed beyond the events of that night – but none need to be. The orchestra meet the Israelis for less than twenty-four hours, touch each other’s lives, and leave.
The movie is filled with fleeting moments of depth, when one character speaks unmistakable truth into another’s life. While these moments may be few and far between, as they are in life, they are well worth catching hold of. I plan on buying the movie when it comes out, not for its plot, not for its action, not even for its beautifully melancholy and lonely characters, but for the instants of insight that I want to watch again and again, and that I want to share with my friends.

Remembrance

Today is Holy Wednesday. Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday. Tomorrow, Christians remember Christ’s sacrifice with the Last Supper. Pastors, priests, bishops everywhere will recite the Words of Institution over Communion. “Christ took the bread and, having given thanks for it, he blessed it, saying, ‘this is my body, broken for you. Whenever you eat of it, remember me.’”
Today is also the 5th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. I don’t think many of us expected to still be in Iraq now. We have created a nightmare, and we are not helping it dissolve. We have seen men and women on both sides sacrifice for their God, for their country, for their family.
This week marks the end of Lent. In the Christian calendar, the 40-day season of Lent is a time of reflection and repentence leading up to the joy of Easter. It’s appropriate that the 5-year anniversary falls in Lent. We have much to repent for. We are all implicated in this war. We are all guilty. We all have the power to change it. Let us remember our dying brothers and sisters – Christian, Muslim, Jew, athiest – with mourning. Let us rise from their ashes with a fire for peace. Let us echo their screams of suffering with cries for justice.

Poetry

For my friend's birthday, her roommate gave her a set of teacups from Palestine. She started calling them her "little Palestinians." Several weeks later, one of the cups met its demise at the hands of a misplaced orange. I wrote this poem to commemorate the event. (It's also posted on a blog about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: http://salemshalom.blogspot.com.)

settlement

the little palestinian
cup
settled in
on the kitchen counter.
tiny blue & white tile
reflecting life
in all its glory
of fragmented togetherness.

out of place, an orange
rests
atop the cup,
also settling in.
orange from california
trumping
arab blue.
complementary colours?

suddenly the orange is
plucked up
for breakfast.
still attached.
the cup, too, flies
fighting
union with fruit
and wins at last.

the orange lets go,
drops
the cup
squarely on the harsh ground.
it shatters loudly –
blue &
white scattered
to all corners of the room.

beauty is fragmented &
the orange,
too, falls.
orange blood with blue pieces.
mingled in brokenness.

My Jesus Wears A Hejab

I am not a Muslim. I am a Christian, though I do sometimes distance myself from mainline and evangelical Christianity. Occasionally, I wear a hejab. This symbol of Muslim femininity sets me apart from the women who run about in immodest clothing, who worry incessantly about what others think about their appearance, who spend twenty minutes in front of the mirror in the mornings. It is a symbol of modesty, in part – but more so, it is a reminder to both myself and others that my appearance is not what defines me.
Hair is crucial to our society. A person’s haircut says much about them. Buzz cuts for the military men, dreadlocks for the anarchist hippie rebels, long flowing hair for the women (unless you’re a butch lesbian, in which case you must cut your hair very short). This is how we are supposed to look. Hairstyles can make or break a “look.” I cover my hair; my hair does not matter to who I am.
When I first wrapped the hejab around my head, I felt an unexpected change. I felt like a real person. Cares, worries, the awkwardness of life slid off my shoulders, ousted by the folds of fabric. I felt peaceful, as I rarely ever do. I saw the beauty of the world when the hejab slipped into my peripheral vision. Somehow, without realizing it, my body acknowledged that covering my hair meant one less un-necessary stressor in my life. It no longer mattered what others thought of me. I could be myself – and when I allowed myself to be myself, I allowed myself to be a person again.

A large painting of Jesus sits in the prayer chapel on my university campus. He is a pale white, his long black hair matted into his face, his beard covering his chin and some of his neck. Red and blue streaks mark his face – Blood? Tears? He is suffering yet noble. His eyes may bleed, but his face holds loving dignity. He looks off to the side, his face in profile to the viewer, as though looking elsewhere. He wants to show off the blood and tears, the scars of the trials on his face, but he does not want to see. He does not want to accept, to acknowledge, to understand.
This is not my Jesus. My Jesus is loving. My Jesus is kind. My Jesus wears a hejab.

What Does It Take?

My roommates are watching the movie Across the Universe. The song “Let It Be” made me stop in my tracks. In the movie, the song underscores a scene with a race riot and two funerals (those of a black boy and a white soldier). I think it’s a combination of visual impact and amazing gospel singing that always gives me the chills during that scene.
The race riot scene makes me wonder what it was about the 1960s and ‘70s. Why did things come to a head then? Was it the war, the senseless killing, the nonsense that we couldn’t “win”? Was it that people finally got tired of being oppressed and ignored? Was it that enough charismatic people came to the fore to lead the way?
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any particularly charismatic leader in the anti-war movement. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a part of it – but most people criticized him for concentrating on beating both the war and segregation.
You could argue that Vietnam was the first conflict which didn’t involve us directly. The average person in the United States saw no difference in their personal life whether Vietnam was united or not, Communist or not. Citizens felt as though they were being driven to fight, to sacrifice, to die, for something other than home and family.
Yet the current war in Iraq is much the same way. Baghdad is halfway around the world. Most people in the U.S. don’t speak Arabic – we can’t communicate with them. So why are we not speaking out? This Wednesday marks the five-year anniversary of the war. It’s been going on long enough. What is it about our era that makes us so apathetic? Do we need a wake-up call? What would ring the alarm?
“Music’s the only thing that makes any sense anymore. Play it loud enough, it keeps the demons at bay.” – Across the Universe

Suicide Bombers

I don’t think we in the West understand the motivations of a suicide bomber.
There was another explosion in Kabul today, one in the latest string of violence. Afghanistan the centre of attention again, if only for a few moments. We’ve gotten distracted by the conflict in Iraq, the threat of Iran, the attacks in Palestine. Tensions are rising in the East: Afghanistan, Pakistan. We hardly notice it.
But I stray from my point. We as a society do not comprehend the oppression, the hopelessness, that would make someone strap on explosives and blow him- or herself up. We are perfectly willing to go to war. We are perfectly willing to risk our lives for others, or for a cause. But we would not willingly die for the cause, nor for other people.
One of the great moral dilemmas which gets tossed around psychology circles is the lifeboat dilemma. You are on a ship in the middle of the ocean. It sinks in a storm. You end up in a four-person lifeboat with four other people: an elderly man, a young child and his or her mother, Bill Gates, and yourself. It becomes apparent that the lifeboat cannot hold all five of you – one of you must be tossed out of the boat, or you will all die. Sharks swim all around, hungry for their next meal. Who should be thrown overboard?
It’s interesting that people rarely (if ever) nominate themselves. We are generally unwilling to deliberately die, even to preserve another’s life. And so we do not understand why anyone else would.
I’m not condoning suicide bombers. Far from it – whatever good they might try to do with their resistance is negated by the scores of other lives they take down with them. I’m simply saying, we do not understand. We have not tried, and we do not understand. We cannot pass judgement. We cannot scoff at their stupidity. We must first understand.