The light-years within identity

The distance between stars is measured in time, but can the distances within identity?  This has been my third birthday in a foreign land: once in Britain, once in Israel, and now, once in Belgium. I am now 28, of which 25 birthdays have been spent in the United States.  Perhaps if I spend the next 22 far from home, I can then be considered a foreigner.

Happy beingday

Today, 226 years ago, history’s first ever hot air balloon launched.  Two French brothers reached for the unreachable, riding upon air with nothing but air, their outstretched fingers inches from the sublime.

Today, 111 years ago, a Belgian surrealist was born.  He, too,  reached for the unreachable, his paintbrush piercing through language and object, yet always inches from the mystery it sought to capture.

Today, 28 years ago, an American philosopher was born.  Like his predecessors, he reaches for the unreachable, his pen diving through ideas and history itself in pursuit of meaning — and always inches still to traverse.

Four searchers, one search.

To celebrate his birth, the philosopher’s mother made a model of the balloon, while nearly 30 years before her, the painter, in similar sentiment, inserted it into a portrait.

And 30 years later: the philosopher, now in Brussels, stumbles upon the portrait in a museum.  Everyone else in the museum thinks he is crazy as he laughs and laughs…

Muslim punks are just punks: Muslims in Europe and America

An Arab district in Brussels. Photograph by Flickr user Aldask (CC-usage).

In this editorial, originally published on neweurasia, I explore the differences, as I perceive them, between the American and European Islamic communities.  It’s clear to me that the United States has been far more effective at integrating Muslims into society than Europe, which risks descending into a dangerous ethnic clash.

It comes up in conversation all the time with colleagues at neweurasia: what do I think about the situation of Islam in the West?  I think Central Asians are really curious to know about it because they’re probably looking for insight not only into the West’s relationship to them and the larger Islamic world, but also for insight into themselves.  After all, Muslims living in the West are exposed to lifestyles and a quality of life little experienced in the umma.

Manifold colors, underlying unities

Even if all the trees were pens and the ocean ink, backed up by seven more oceans, the words of God would not be exhausted. — Qur’an 31:27

Another late Sunday evening, but a good one.  Indeed, a weekend of good late evenings, ripe with meaningful conversation and encounter.  And the days, too, have been lush, but with work — for job, for school, for life.  And while others lament the coming winter, I am finally, quietly, defiant, like the blazing colors of the autumnal trees.  November has always been my favorite month, and not simply because it is my birthmonth.  The manifold colors reveal underyling unities, and with them, new focus.

The hidden river

“It is in the watches of the night that impressions are strongest and words most eloquent; in the day-time you are hard pressed with the affairs of this world.” – Quran, sura 73

It’s a full moon over Leuven tonight.  The small city is quiet, gently illuminated.  Between the Question and the Debate, between the why do i exist? and the contest of faith and reason, there is another space.  And underneath the quivering ego’s thirst for justification flows a river, subterranean and brisk — the one true drink.