I’m working on a post re. President Bush’s recent trip to Palestine. I’ve been doing some research on presidential visits to the Middle East that has slowed me down, but will ultimately give some interesting historical perspective for the piece.
In the meantime, I would like to offer you a link to a This American Life episode (#322). This American Life is hosted by Ira Glass on NPR and is one of the podcasts I regularly listen to. The link (below) will open in another window where you can listen to this recent podcast. I think you may need a Quick Time player add-in for your browser and may be asked to download it for free if you don’t already have it.
This episode is entitled “Shouting Across the Divide” and gives three stories about Muslims and non-Muslims communicating with each other and not always doing it very well. It begins with a vignette about a statue of the prophet Muhammad in a very unexpected place - the US Supreme Court. It then continues with a moving story about a Muslim family in middle America and how the aftermath of September 11 effected their family, esp. their daughter in 4th grade. Very insightful. The podcast ends with a story of a guy working for an ad firm hired to improve the United States’ image in the Muslim world. A little amusing, a little sad, very interesting.
The podcast is around an hour long, but well worth the investment. For me, the story re. the Muslim family was a unique opportunity to put myself more in their shoes and try to see things from their perspective. This is an important step for those of us who are not just wishing for peace but actively working for it. Remember Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers, which implies taking some sort of action in order to make peace.
Like clicking the link and listening to the podcast. Yeah, it’s about an hour long. Don’t worry - I know you can multi-task and listen to it while you are doing something else.
http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/322.mp3
If you use some sort of feed subscriber (like Google Reader) you can pick up a regular subscription to This American Life here.
Posted in Muslims in the US, NPR, building bridges, links, peace, podcast, praxis, understanding others
The point is that Jesus would have been the first to befriend these people, even the militant ones, I believe (due to how many towns he and people he motivated like Paul, got nearly (or in Paul’s case, entirely) beaten out of… 
You got it going on! 
