Forum: Thoughts on the election from the Middle East

All of us see the world through multi-focal lenses. Recently, I became even more aware of this truth while my wife and I spent the two weeks before the election and the week of the day of voting in the Middle East, namely Egypt and Jordan.

I marveled at the remnants of the ancient past, the glories of past empires of pharaohs and kings. But I came to realize that I was also experiencing the sites of antiquity through the overlay of several lenses, one, the eyes of one who loves the Hebrew Bible, and the other, those of an American who was intensely concerned with the election for president about to be held.

In Esna, a small Arab farming village on the western bank of the Nile, I walked with our small touring group through a marketplace with tiny shops that were dimly illuminated by a few bare bulbs. We walked past a tailor, a fabric merchant, a cobbler and then, out of the dark corner of a tiny hole in the wall, someone yelled to me, “Obama!”

I turned and flashed a thumbs-up pose for hopeful victory and yelled back, “Obama, na’am, taib, taib” (“Obama, yes, good, good”). The man, dressed in a heavy, brown shoe-length robe, immediately ran toward me and hugged me. We both jumped and hugged and cheered, “Obama! Obama!”

I walked on a few yards and turned to look back at my fellow cheerleader. He smiled and waved. I soon realized that the sudden outpouring of enthusiasm from a poor Egyptian symbolized the hope for and identification with the candidate who was so prominent everywhere we traveled. I saw a common Egyptian merchant, but what I really perceived as a universal man who wanted to believe in America once again.

The true sense of overlying multiple meanings to what I was observing became even more obvious to me a week later. I stood on the banks of the River Jabbok in northern Jordan. Here, the fast-running waters and enormous smooth boulders were surrounded by a strip of green amidst the brown scrabble of desert.

In my mind’s eye, I saw the image of the Biblical Jacob, fearful, threatened, and hopeful, as he waited to meet his brother Esau after 20 years of estranged separation. I peered at the flowing water and listened to the silent voices of the wind. It was as Jabbok that Jacob wrestled with the mysterious creature all through the night only to merge physically crippled. It was here at Peniel that Jacob became Israel (one who has striven … prevailed); it was here that Jacob contended with his own soul, his own deep fears and misgivings. It was here, right at my feet, that Jacob emerged as a new person with a new identity.

Jacob faded in my vision, and I now saw an America struggling for its own soul as the election approached.

And then, finally, a few days later, we tuned into BBC World on Wednesday at 5:30 in the morning, Jordan time, to hear the results of Tuesday’s election. We were to hike into the famed Nabatian city of Petra that morning. How elated we were to awaken from the dark night of the soul, from Jacob’s struggle, our struggle, to begin to comprehend that something immensely historic had just happened.

Later that morning, as we walked through the narrow passage road that wove through the crevasses in the sandstone cliffs, we turned a corner and through an opening in the immense stone walls, we were almost blinded by the searing sun that reflected off the front wall of the famed Petra Treasury, the façade that was carved into a solid wall of stone. We gasped with excitement. Here was one of the wonders of the world, but all I could utter to my wife was, “This is an Obama day.”

BOB GILLETTE
Lynchburg

Adding things up with new math
While denying any religion, David McLoughlin continues to evangelize for his chosen religion. He admitted that he is a secular humanist which, by definition, is a religion which he seems to believe in as avidly as I do in God’s plan of salvation for sinful man through the shed blood of His only begotten son Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah.

Briefly, God created the universe, the earth, the animals and mankind. He put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to care for it. (Contrary to some people’s opinion, the world’s oldest profession is that of gardener.) He was given one simple commandment: Do not partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam disobeyed making a blood sacrifice necessary to bring mankind back into fellowship with his creator. Through His prophets, God foretold the coming of His chosen sacrifice who would conquer death. John 3:16 relates how much God loves His creation and the extent He went to in order to redeem it.

Since the fall of mankind satan rules the earth, and only by accepting Jesus Christ as savior may each individual’s eternal soul be called a child of God and have a home with Him in His kingdom. (Heaven).

The one thing that Mr. McLoughlin has right is that his references to god or gods are all lower case. Little, inconsequential and non-existent. I would like to paraphrase his closing quote: “Since it is inconceivable that all numbers can be the result of 2 + 2, the most reasonable conclusion is that none are the result.” Makes about as much sense to me.

DONALD R. HANCOCK
Madison Heights