Dove's Eye View

My Father's Life

Update: Some added passages about how he helped students make it in this country, and about his love of cooking for a crowd.

Elias Abu-Saba lived the values I hope to promote in this blog: mutual tolerance, social justice, and concern for the earth. He wanted to see those values embodied in Lebanon, his beloved homeland, as well as in America, his adopted country. Because many people in Lebanon and around the world read Dove's Eye View, I am going to tell you some important things you must know about him.

Dad was born into a poor farming family in a small village named Mieh-Mieh, outside of Sidon, south of Beirut. We all say they were poor, but his father owned many dunums of fertile arable land: olive orchards, orange groves, fields in the flats good for wheat and lentils.

Elias' humble origins shaped his consciousness for the rest of his life. He insisted on breaking down barriers between classes; he clung to his connection to the soil and to farming.
He urged working-class and immigrant students to better themselves, and he refused to see the many rich and powerful people he met as his superiors.

Elias Abu-Saba, 1930-2006

My father died today, Thursday, September 28, 2006, at 2:35 p.m. California time. His release was merciful and he died surrounded by his wife and children.
May he rest in peace.

Presence Without Matter

Reader Donna has requested a favorite poem of my father's:

Presence Without Matter

Voices are heard
Without a ripple
Of a sound
Floating around.

Thoughts are read
Without a word
Or a sign
Of any design.

Love is shared
Without the fear
That the lover
One day will disappear.

A lovely rose
Never asked,
Filled the air
With fragrance.

You spoke and I heard
Not in words or in signs,
For you and I were born as one
Not in space or in time,
Sailing across the universe
Where the wings have failed.
Your voice alone
Drew the compass and steered my ship
Rocking fearlessly in the unknown.

--Elias Abu-Saba, from the book Songs in Time, 1973

My father is failing rapidly. Those of you who are praying, please ask for his release. He is suffering and he needs respite. Thank you.

Ramadan meal gets modern twist

One woman's multicultural Ramadan food experiences in America: Ramadan meal gets modern twist.

Last year my friend John Oda, a pastor at a Japanese-American Protestant church in San Francisco, hosted a joint Muslim-Christian iftar dinner with his parishioners. They invited members of a local mosque to come to the church for their break-fast. The food was home-made sushi.

Japanese-Americans like John have been very concerned about the climate of suspicion and prejudice against American Muslims in the last five years. Many Japanese-Americans of my generation are the children of people who went to American concentration camps during World War II. The families lived in the West and lost their homes, businesses and life savings when they were shipped to the desert to "protect America." Activists like John are concerned that history might repeat itself.

I love California.

Lebanon solidarity

The Lebanese can be proud of themselves: The Daily Star - Opinion Articles - Lebanon, a unique example of humanitarian solidarity, by the UN huminatarian coordinator.

What other country could experience such a mass movement of its citizens in the heat of war and have virtually no incidence of hunger, malnutrition or deadly disease? In my experience, it's simply unprecedented.

... But the true safety net in this emergency proved to be the Lebanese people, themselves. Regardless of religion or ethnic background, families, even whole communities, embraced those fleeing the fighting, taking them into their homes and feeding and caring for them. To my mind, this is what humanitarian assistance is all about, and the Lebanese people proved in their compassion to be a model for the world.

It's now been just five weeks since the cessation of hostilities, and the humanitarian relief phase is pretty much over. For the most part all who needed food have been fed. Medicine chests in hospitals and clinics throughout the country are now full. And while water distribution in the South will continue for some weeks, government agencies, with the support of the UN and NGOs, are hard at work repairing critical storage tanks and water supply lines.

My relatives report that our village harbored some 700 refugees during the crisis. They fed them from their own supplies. Considering the residual ethnic tensions still lingering after the civil war, this is a very good thing, and I am proud of them all.

California Notes

Randy Bayne, of California Notes, and me at lunch with the relatives. Saturday, Sept. 22, Alameda, Ca. We are second cousins, and share two great-grandparents.

My parents hosted a family reunion this past week for my mother's siblings. The Bayne cousins of California also showed up, as well as some Bentleys from Los Angeles. My father insisted that he wanted to do this party, despite his illness, so we did.

On Friday night, Karen Bentley and Ian Dogole performed in honor of Dad and Aunt Susan. Dad read poetry to improvised music. Dad has performed with Karen and Ian several times over the years, and we are so grateful he got to do this for an audience of about fifty friends and relations. It was an exhilarating night.

Khalil reads Dad a "jazz poem" he wrote in his honor.

At a restaurant the next day, Dad writes a poem on a paper menu - the classic Elias gesture, a poem composed on a napkin, styrofoam cup, or menu, in the middle of a party (or anywhere).

If you are a friend or family member and care to see more pictures, email me for the flickr link. (Or be crafty and google it). I am sorry to tell you that Dad is not doing all that well. Thank you everyone for all your kind messages.

Arab-Jewish Peace Meeting with Diane Feinstein

This letter from a group of six East Bay (California) activists arrived in my mailbox just now, describing their meeting with an aide to Senator Diane Feinstein. The activists collectively worked on a letter which twenty-eight people from the East Bay Arab-Jewish peace community signed, and the six met with the aide to present the letter and their own personal statements. The letter below:

On Tuesday, September 13, 2006, six members of the dialogue group (Judith Gussman, Gene Herman, Annette Herskovits, Joy Totah-Hilden, Jonathan Silverman, and Nabil Wahbeh) went to the office of Senator Dianne Feinstein in San Francisco. We met with Feinstein's aide, Michael Walker, for a little over half an hour. We were fortunate that Tzion Hazan and Ibtisam Ammouri, the young Palestinian and Jew from Israel who joined our meeting at the Peace Garden, were able to accompany us, together with Christy Reiners from the American Friends Service Committee, which is responsible for their stay here.

We all felt that the meeting went very well. Michael Walker was poker-faced but friendly. He took notes on what we said, and accepted articles/documents to pass on to the Senator, including our letter. He said he would write a report for her and she will respond in about two weeks.

Light Posting: My father's Illness

My father's condition is worsening. He is comfortable but heavily medicated. His hope is to travel to Lebanon to die and we are exploring this possibility; his condition may not warrant travel under any circumstances.

People are still commenting on the Islam posts below. Some of these comments are just mean-spirited and ugly. Those of you who have already made such comments are not being banned, but please note that I won't read what you have to say. If you cannot speak in the spirit of Jesus, in the spirit of Mohammed, in the spirit of the Jewish prophets who exhort us to love one another and be kind, then I won't shut you up but I won't bother to listen.

I may post here and there in the coming days. I may comment. But I may not. I have other things to do.

Your prayers and good wishes will be much appreciated. If I know you, I will read your messages.

Love to all.

The Church on Islam

Thanks to Juan Cole, we can read the Catholic Church's encyclical on other religions, with specific reference to Islam. Read what the Church really thinks about Islam: .

The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself, merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth (5), who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes great pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. In addition, they await the day of judgement when God will render their deserts to all those who have been raised up from the dead. Finally, they value the moral life and worship God especially through prayer, almsgiving and fasting.

Since in the course of centuries not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this Sacred Synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.

To summarize church commands with respect to Christians and Muslims:

Forget the past
Work sincerely for mutual understanding
Promote social justice and moral welfare
Promote peace and freedom.

Cole adds this:

Some commentators have complained about Muslim sensibilities in this regard. But in my view, this sensitivity is a feature of postcolonialism. Muslims were colonized by Western powers, often for centuries, and all that period they were told that their religion was inferior and barbaric. They are independent now, though often they have gained independence only a couple of generations (less if you consider neocolonialism). As independent, they are finally liberated to protest when Westerners put them down.

There is an analogy to African-Americans, who suffered hundreds of years of slavery and then a century of Jim Crow. They are understandably sensitive about white people putting them down, and every time one uses the "n" word, you can expect a strong reaction. In the remarks the pope quoted about Muhammad, he essentially did the equivalent of using the "n" word for Muslims. It is no mystery that people are protesting.

This issue is not going to go away until the Pope comes out and clarifies and apologizes. All he has to do is quote Vatican II on Islam, which is still Catholic doctrine last I knew, and the whole issue would blow over.

For people who believe in tolerance and open-minded inquiry, these statements are unremarkable. But they are CHURCH DOCTRINE if that matters to any of our anti-Muslim readers. Probably not.

Juan Cole: Pope Gets It Wrong On Islam

See Informed Comment.

The pope was trying to make the point that coercion of conscience is incompatible with genuine, reasoned faith. He used Islam as a symbol of the coercive demand for unreasoned faith.

But he has been misled by the medieval polemic on which he depended.

In fact, the Quran also urges reasoned faith and also forbids coercion in religion. The only violence urged in the Quran is in self-defense of the Muslim community against the attempts of the pagan Meccans to wipe it out.

Read the whole thing for a non-Muslim scholar's analysis.

Cole also suggests you read his collected postings on Quran and peace.

That is, if you care to change your mind. Something tells me that people who want to believe that Islam is evil, misguided and wrong, will never be convinced by reading the text of the Quran or the arguments of historians and scholars.