Mike's - This says it all

It’s odd that since humans have been on this planet they have more often than not acknowledged that there is a power outside their understanding. Throughout history it seems that a god or gods are appreciated and in the main glorified and even thought to be demanding human sacrifices. Many religions accept that there is one God and even religions where there are many gods it is usual for there to be a chief god, even in Christianity the one God is divided into three. Often atheists when faced with a life or death situation will pray to a God they don’t believe in. It seems to me that the spiritual is so ingrained in the human consciousness that it is a powerful indication that there is one.

If we accept that there is a power beyond our understanding and that from time to time a messenger (Moses, Buda, Christ, Mohammed to name but a few) has tried to guide us into the ways of a better life and yet we as humans constantly change their teachings into a contorted and twisted religion to suit our own agenda. A Rabi who I greatly admire Lionel Blue in his book tells us of a voice which he feels maybe divine from whom he seeks advice. At one time he thought of turning Catholic and asks the voice for its advice to which it replied “I’m not interested in labels.” To me that says it all. 

Sybil's Turn - Why it ended like that.

My turn this week, a number of readers of Inshallah have commented on the ending of the story, I have always felt that to not understand the end is to miss the point of the book. It was written while I was living in Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s and early 80s specifically to address the miss understanding by the expatriate of the local culture at that time in contrasting the beliefs of the West and Islam. To show through the medium of a romantic story how the Arab felt about us and how we understood (sometimes misunderstood) the Arabs and their religion. The story leads at the end to a situation where to be true to Islam or Christianity has to be decided, but I was in no way about say which was correct and so left the story in a conclusion where the reader had to decide the outcome.

King Faisal who was King then had to bring his nation up to speed in the modern world and judging from the internet his leadership has been followed. Now the Khamis (the setting for Inshallah) I knew as a village appears to have become a large modern town. My story was a tale of the time and I dare say expatriates and Saudis have moved on, in that way it becomes more of a historical theme but will, hopefully, still be useful to those travelling to Saudi with a western background.

Mike's - I got to thinking....

The other day I got to thinking about the big bang, the start of everything they say, the formation of the universe. My thoughts took me to consider what was there before the big bang? There are those who believe that there have been many big bangs and that after a given expansion the universe implodes and starts again, but what before the first one, what was there? Nothing? To my mind nothing is the most stable state, if there is nothing then nothing can occur. But it did happen and the universe was formed or should I say it is still being formed so there must have been something way back then which means that it must have been there forever, which is odd as there is no time in nothing and then and now are the same, so forever doesn’t exist. But whatever it was that started it all must have been there. Could it been God? They say He passes all understanding and I believe he does.

Mike's memories - What are we doing here?

A storm from space - frightening.

England in 1950, Germany in 1960 and Saudi in 1970 were places that no longer exist, I feel very fortunate to have experienced life in those places and times. To go to any of them now and you would have no idea how they were, very simple, uncomplicated, less greedy and self indulgence, somehow safer. No my memory is not playing games with me it was great time to live. The times before and after include the crusades where Christians slaughtered thousands of Moslems whole cities of them on the instructions of the Pope, Hitler and the Jews, the Jews and Arabs and now when IS slaughter anyone that does not hold with their beliefs; there are many more instances and all because religion is bent to satisfy man’s lust. It’s a great shame that we can’t live together on this planet and work for its welfare not its destruction by division and self interest. How can people be so short sighted to put their own interests before the common good, the future of the world? Did God really create human beings to self destruct?