FAITH

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Hi,

Where do we stand? Where are we going? What is to be done? So many questions! So many answers! How do you fathom the human heart? How can you understand cruelty? The beheading of an innocent human being in cold blood! The kidnap and brutalization of humanitarian workers such as the Italian girls, how can one reconcile oneself with all that? How can you understand the evil of others? The hatred and wrath; the suicide attacker; the lust for death and blood! In short; how can the psyche readjust and erect defenses to simply cope with such pain and ugliness, without descending into a paralyzing gloom and stifling anger, rage and disgust.

Only yesterday, the car bomb exploded quite near to our house. The house shook, a door lock was broken, so close was the explosion. They are roaming the streets and attacking at a fearful rate. Imagine two or three car bombing per day; this is too much. This is not just terrorism; it is a frenzy of hate and mass murder. One is surrounded by fear from all sides; fear seems to pervade the atmosphere; the air itself seems so thick with it; you smell it, you breath it, you live with it constantly. These are masters of terror. For as long as I remember we have been living in this atmosphere. It is not just now but in the old days of the regime also. Fear has been the weapon and method of these people. Of course the ones who are doing this now are the same, the same old operatives; past masters at intimidation and terrorism. One of the important principles of their art is to vary the methods of torture, so that people don’t get too accustomed to only one type and perhaps by this lose some of the poignancy of the feeling of fear.

By deposing Saddam, we were all hopeful that the days of fear would be over. But cruelly, it was not to be so. We are being treated with new forms of torture, and new kinds of horror. It was not just Saddam, but whole tribes and hordes of sick vampires. Saddam was removed and captured but the hordes and tribes are still there, let loose and now without even a Saddam to control them. They are running wild, unchecked and uncontrollable. God have mercy upon us. At these times the vision of the early Christians thrown to the lions comes to mind; the defenseless men, women and children clinging to each other while the Romans (in this case the Arabs), watched with sadistic pleasure the grisly spectacle from their comfortable seats in the amphitheatre. But the Christian faith was not defeated; soon afterwards it was triumphant all over the Western World. Triumph seemed to issue from the torn flesh and open wounds of the children of the early Christian Martyrs brutalized by the beasts of the cruel,decadent, expiring, pagan civilization. Although the lions did tear and devour, yet it was pagan Rome that died and Christianity that lived and conquered the world. Faith proved to be the more potent weapon.

And so it shall be here, so it shall be here, God’s willing, and in God we trust.