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[ by Charles Cameron — picking up from Some recent words from the Forgiveness Chronicles ]
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Once again, I am amazed at the sheer Christianity to be found in Coptic responses to utterly horrific persecution.

Fr Boules George (left) and Bishop Angaelos (right)

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It was Bishop Angaelos, general bishop of the Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, who delivered the remarkable sermon on forgiveness that I posted in my earlier report from the Forgiveness Chronicles..

It was also Angaelos who rebuked the Hungarian PM for saying refugee immigration should be limited to Christians:

Those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims

Angaelos’ response:

As a Christian I could never justify a policy which only supported ‘our own’. The distinction should be based on people’s need, not their religion.

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And here is Angaelos again:

Bishop Angaelos to the Terrorists: ‘You Are Loved’
By His Grace Bishop Angaelos on recent terrorist attacks in Egypt and elsewhere

Once again, we find ourselves experiencing pain before which words seem insufficient.

I have previously addressed victims of terrorist acts; I have addressed their families; I have even addressed those who may have had an opportunity, even in some small way, to advocate for or support those most vulnerable.

This time, however, I feel a need to address those who perpetrate these crimes.

You are loved. The violent and deadly crimes you perpetrate are abhorrent and detestable, but you are loved.

You are loved by God, your creator, for he created you in his image and according to his likeness, and placed you on this earth for much greater things, according to his plan for all humankind. You are loved by me and millions like me, not because of what you do, but what you are capable of as that wonderful creation of God, who has created us with a shared humanity. You are loved by me and millions like me because I, and we, believe in transformation.

Transformation is core to the Christian message, for throughout history we have seen many transformed from being those who persecuted Christ himself and Christians to those who went on to live with grace. We believe in transformation because, on a daily basis, we are personally transformed from a life of human weakness and sinfulness to a life of power and righteousness. We believe in transformation because the whole message of the cross and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is to take humanity from the bonds of sin and death to a liberation in goodness and everlasting life. Our world is certainly suffering from the brokenness of our humanity, but it is our responsibility, personally and collectively, to encourage and inspire ourselves and all those whom we meet along our path to a life of virtue and holiness and the love and forgiveness of all.

This, of course, is far from the reaction that many may have expected, but the Christian message is just that: to look at our world as through the eyes of God, who loves all and who desires that all be liberated through him.

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What is increasingly obvious is that many of these attacks come about due to a loss of the meaning and comprehension of the sanctity of life, our own or that of others; so join me in praying for the brokenness of our world that causes parents to lose their children, children to lose their parents and humankind to lose the humanity for which it was created.

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I have long been prepping a book about religious violence, and in particular the way in which it can be triggered and viewed as sanctioned by the words of scriptures which elsewhere encourage peace, to be titled Landmines in the Garden — the garden being Pardes, Paradise..

Now that the specifically eschatological element of ISIS has been laid out in detail by WIll McCants in his brilliant The ISIS Apocalypse, however, I have felt a shift in emphasis, and the book as I now perceive it will view religious violence — and indeed other violence such as that which drove Dylann Roof to his Charleston killings — through th specific lense of forgiveness and love, as exemplified by Bishop Angaelos, and for the matter, the members of the Charleston congregation who testified to their forgiveness of Roof at his trial.

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To accompany Bishop Angaelos’ words, here’s a Coptic priest from Cairo, Fr. Boules George delivering a recent and no less remarkable sermon:

A Message to Those Who Kill Us

What will we say to them?

THANK YOU

The first thing we will say is “Thank you very, very much,” and you won’t believe us when we say it.

You know why we thank you? I’ll tell you. You won’t get it, but please believe us.

You gave us to die the same death as Christ–and this is the biggest honor we could have. Christ was crucified–and this is our faith. He died and was slaughtered–and this is our faith. You gave us, and you gave them to die.

We thank you because you shortened for us the journey. When someone is headed home to a particular city, he keeps looking at the time. “When will I get home? Are we there yet?” Can you imagine if in an instant he finds himself on a rocket ship straight to his destination? You shortened the journey! Thank you for shortening the journey.

We thank you because you gave to us to fulfill what Christ said to us: “Behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves” (Luke 10:3). We were lambs; our only weapons: our faith and the church we pray in. I carry no weapon in my hand. We are so grateful that you helped us fulfill this saying of Christ.

[ by Charles Cameron — postlapsarian Aleppo, in other words ]
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I don’t suppose the editors at the New York Times Magazine were intentionally making a Christian theological point with the title they bestowed on this cover story: Aleppo After the Fall. but I’ll take my apposite religious resonances where I find them.

Here’s a slightly bigger version:

How beautiful destruction can be in the early light — yet no less destructive for its beauty.

You can view the whole thing even better here — Al-Hatab Square in Aleppo’s Old City. Credit Sebastián Liste/Noor Images, for The New York Times.

Pieter Van Ostaeyen termed the accompanying article “an absolute must-read“.

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Beauty: in which, the divine may be recognized.

The Fall. Oh ah, yes, the Fall.

[ by Charles Cameron — the FU President is back ]
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Here’s a Moebius ouroboros from the fifth season of House of Cards. Francis Underwood speaks:

I’m staggered: a brilliant combination of two classic patterns. Zing!

[ by Charles Cameron — the unrealities and realities of dream and vision, sensitive compartmented information, zahir and batin, bin Laden and the Mahdi, more ]
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I did not lead a busload of others down a path to a hotel.
I did not arrive near my childhood home by bus.
I was not a member of a CIA team meeting for a conference.
I did not attend breakfast in the hotel.
I did not have a pen clipped inside my trousers.
My attention was not called to my pen having leaked by a female friend.
I did not have a female friend.
I did not manage to remove both pen and leaked ink from my trousers.
I did not wonder how I would climb hills or trees if ncecessary during the conference exercises.
I am in no condition to climb hills or trees, nor to lead others down a path.
There is, however, a conference center very close to the house I used to live in during my childhood.
I dreamed these things.

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The De Vere Horsley Estate, just a couple of fields away from my childhood home, now a conference center:

Google images thinks of it more as a marriage location. This particular photo is from the Hetty Hikes album.

Ada, Countess of Lovelace, who intuited the operational utility of punched cards of the type used in Jacquard looms for retaining information generated by her friend Charles Babbage‘s Difference Engine, prototype of today’s computers, lived at Horsley Towers, built by the same architect, Sir Charles Barry, who designed the Houses of Parliament..

My own more modest childhood dwelling was within the grounds, just a few hundred feet inside the Horsley Towers Gates.

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Dreams are, in a sense, occulted from waking life: there is a secrecy to them.

When the time comes that we can reliably scan and record the visual and verbal imagery of dreams, perhaps even at a distance from and without the consent of their dreamers, questions will arise as to whether their contents should be classified, indeed perhaps deemed Sensitive Compartmented Information, and dreaming permitted only in SCIFs?

Various occult, psychological and imaginal theories suppose that dreams can touch upon a subjective yet absolute realm, Jung‘s collective unconscious with its archetypes, Shia Islam’s ‘alam al-mithal, termed by Henry Corbin the mundus imaginalis…

there exists an inner world, which lies ‘outside’ our personal minds, and in which they are contained in exactly the same way as our bodies are contained in the outer world revealed by the senses

writes D Streatfeild in Persephone.

And Corbin, writing of the Suhrawardian mundus imaginalis:

Essentially the relationship involved is that of the outer, the visible, the exoteric (in Greek ta exo, in Arabic zahir) to the inner, the invisible, the esoteric (in Greek ta eso, in Arabic batin), or the relationship of the natural to the spiritual world. Leaving the where, the ubi category, is equivalent to leaving the outer or natural appearances that cloak the hidden inner realities, just as the almond is concealed in its shell.

Zahir and Batin are, respectively, the literal or apparent meanings of Quranic verses, and their hidden or spiritual meanings, known only to those who have eyes to see, ears to hear…

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For a dream in which the young bin Laden is instructed to carry a black flag (“similar to the flag of Saudi Arabia” and with “something written on it in white color”) to the Mahdi at the gates of Al-Quds, Jerusalem, see A “Big Dream” attributed to Osama bin Laden.

I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours — Bob Dylan said that.

[ by Charles Cameron — Kuwaiti Ramadan ad message: Let’s Bomb Hatred With Love ]
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At the time I’m writing this, the following video has received 2,298,068 views:

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One site posting the video commented:

As we know from the consumerization of Christmas, nothing seems to scream profits to large corporations like a religious occasion.

In this case, Zain is the large corporation, and Ramadan is the occasion for the video, which features Emirati pop star Hussain Al Jassmi.

Ramadan, the fasting month in which the Quran was revealed to Muhammad, is one of the five pillars of Islam. Zain is a Kuwaiti mobile telecom provider reaching across the Middle East and Africa.

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The text of the ad, icluding Al Jassmi’s lyrics, is as follows:

I will tell God everything …
That you’ve filled the cemeteries with our children and emptied our school desks …
That you’ve sparked unrest and turned our streets to darkness …
And that you’ve lied …
God has full knowledge of the secrets of all hearts.

I bear witness that there is no God but Allah.
You who comes in the name of death, He is the creator of life.
I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God.
The forgiving and forbearing who hurts not those who hurt Him.

God is Greater
Than those who hide what doesn’t show.
God is Greater
Than those who obey without contemplation.
God is Greater
Than those lurking to betray us.

God is Greater
God is Greater
God is Greater

Worship your God with love .. With love, not terror ..
Be tender in your faith, tender not harsh ..
Confront your enemy, with peace not war ..
Persuade others, with leniency not by force ..

Let’s bomb violence with mercy ..
Let’s bomb delusion with the truth ..
Let’s bomb hatred with love ..
Let’s bomb extremism for a better life ..

We will counter their attacks of hatred, with songs of love .. From now until happiness.

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There os an interesting comparison implicit here between the words of Christ:

You have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shall love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

and those of the Quran:

The Koran says in the subject of surrendering one’s right to exact vengeance from another, “Nor can goodness and evil be equal. Repel (evil) with what is better: then will he between whom and you was hatred become as it were your friend and intimate.” (41: 34) So the Koran holds forgiveness, forbearance, restraint, and turning a blind eye to abuses to be the higher ideal of a belief.

The text from which I’m quoting here, with the Quranic verse embedded in it, is by Abdullah bin Hamid Ali entited Islam and Thurning the Other Cheek, and includes a thoughtful comparison of Martin Luther King and Malcoom X.

I’m hoping to write up a fuller comparison between the Christian and Islamic doctrines, possibly for LapidoMedia, and will report back here.

A popular quote attributed to Ali ibn Abi Talib, fourth caliph of the SUnni, first Imam of the Shia:

Hate no one, no matter how much they have wronged you, live humbly, no matter how wealthy you have become, think positively, no matter how hard the life is, give much, even if you have been given little, keep in touch with the ones who have forgotten you, and forgive who has wronged you, and do not stop praying for the best of those you love.

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Blessed are the meek. Ramadan Mubarak.