You can't learn in here! It's a holiday!
Sep. 6th, 2010 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogTell the kid that. She had her first day of classes today, just as I did, oh so many years ago. In protest, The Cornell Daily Sun refused to begin publishing until the day after Labor Day (which meant that the reporters and editors were working on the day itself, but oh well), and in our time there, the University finally relented and gave us the day off. (The Sun, best as I can remember, continued to not publish.) Perhaps RIT will do so as well, as they transition to a more traditional semester system during Em's time there.
I, meanwhile, learned a few things of my own away from campus today:
* What my daughter's e-mail address actually is. I'd been flummoxed by it; it begins with the name "Ista" (I presume something anime-ish?), which I dyslexisized into Itsa (as in the Python It's! Man) and then couldn't remove the misprint from my Gmail address book for the better part of a day. Finally, though, I created an "Emily" contact that seems to have it right, and we've actually communicated:)
* That her dorm fridge will be available tomorrow morning, and that I'll be able to bring it to her between her classes tomorrow:)
* That ladders really don't work well if you step off them before reaching the final rung. Eleanor had spent most of the day either up one at one end or the other of the greenhouse, or in the garage prepping the new cap for the top of its roof, and she somehow managed not to fall off near Bovey Tracey, or anywhere else in Britain; I pulled it off after one of just two trips up the stabler of the two ladders on the garage-door end of the greenhouse, merely placing the end of the cap in place, and while I didn't hurt anything more than my ego, it was still a bit of a humbling moment.
----
Even more humbling, in a far more profound way, was beginning to get into the meat of Stones into Schools, Greg Mortensen's sequel to Three Cups of Tea. These words of his are far more beautiful, and personal, than any I could ever offer about the whole ewwww-a-mosque! sentiment that's been infecting this country in the past decade, and even more so in recent weeks:
Islam is not simply a religious faith based upon the words of the Prophet Mohammad and founded upon the principles of absolute submission to the will of Allah. Islam is also the framework of a civilization created by the community of Muslim believers – a framework that includes not simple theology but also philosophy, science, the arts, and mysticism. Whenever Islamic civilization has achieved its fullest and most beautiful levels of expression, it has done so in part because its leaders permitted the societies over which they ruled to be enriched by tolerance, diversity, and an abiding respect for the divine and the human.
The Taliban are the enemy, but we are not fighting the enemy. We are on the equivalent of a crusade against all of Christianity when the real beef is against the whackjobs of Westboro Baptist. In just the first hundred pages of this important book, I saw more Muslim men of peace than I see on FOX News in a week who purport to be disciples of Christ. I will be honored to be among them if I make it to the gathering of the sheep when the time comes.
I, meanwhile, learned a few things of my own away from campus today:
* What my daughter's e-mail address actually is. I'd been flummoxed by it; it begins with the name "Ista" (I presume something anime-ish?), which I dyslexisized into Itsa (as in the Python It's! Man) and then couldn't remove the misprint from my Gmail address book for the better part of a day. Finally, though, I created an "Emily" contact that seems to have it right, and we've actually communicated:)
* That her dorm fridge will be available tomorrow morning, and that I'll be able to bring it to her between her classes tomorrow:)
* That ladders really don't work well if you step off them before reaching the final rung. Eleanor had spent most of the day either up one at one end or the other of the greenhouse, or in the garage prepping the new cap for the top of its roof, and she somehow managed not to fall off near Bovey Tracey, or anywhere else in Britain; I pulled it off after one of just two trips up the stabler of the two ladders on the garage-door end of the greenhouse, merely placing the end of the cap in place, and while I didn't hurt anything more than my ego, it was still a bit of a humbling moment.
----
Even more humbling, in a far more profound way, was beginning to get into the meat of Stones into Schools, Greg Mortensen's sequel to Three Cups of Tea. These words of his are far more beautiful, and personal, than any I could ever offer about the whole ewwww-a-mosque! sentiment that's been infecting this country in the past decade, and even more so in recent weeks:
Islam is not simply a religious faith based upon the words of the Prophet Mohammad and founded upon the principles of absolute submission to the will of Allah. Islam is also the framework of a civilization created by the community of Muslim believers – a framework that includes not simple theology but also philosophy, science, the arts, and mysticism. Whenever Islamic civilization has achieved its fullest and most beautiful levels of expression, it has done so in part because its leaders permitted the societies over which they ruled to be enriched by tolerance, diversity, and an abiding respect for the divine and the human.
The Taliban are the enemy, but we are not fighting the enemy. We are on the equivalent of a crusade against all of Christianity when the real beef is against the whackjobs of Westboro Baptist. In just the first hundred pages of this important book, I saw more Muslim men of peace than I see on FOX News in a week who purport to be disciples of Christ. I will be honored to be among them if I make it to the gathering of the sheep when the time comes.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-08 01:28 am (UTC)Just a thought.
By the bye, anyone who thinks Islam is just about the Saudi "Protection of virtue and prevention of vice" goon squads has never read Rumi. The Sufi are remarkable.