thedrifter
04-22-08, 09:03 AM
And the White Horse Looked On
Posted By Grim
Lieutenant G, a scout cavalryman who enjoys great respect here for his literary skill as well as his work, writes from Iraq:
Augustly, it shoots out of the Babylonian dust to defy the sandstone skyline. Surrounded by a haphazard maze of tiny homes and shops lacquered in grime, a sea green minaret sits on top of the building like a crown. It has overseen more easy wars and more fragile peaces than any human being could ever fathom, even in this post- oral history era. The mosque stands as proudly today as the day it first became a place of worship, many dawns ago.
The sound of a loudspeaker’s hollow echo rolls over Anu al-Verona from the mosque. It is the early morning prayers of the Salah. My interpreter, Biggie Smalls, often translates these words for me while we’re out in sector and sometimes joins in to pray for us himself; admittedly, it has taken some time to not feel threatened by these austere, foreign chants unleashed in Arabic. I justify this visceral reaction by comparing the prayers to certain passionate sermons I remember from back home, spoken in words I understood, but emotions that I did not. Spiritual cadences from the heart uttered in any language will sound menacing to a stranger. With my terp’s help however, I’ve come to appreciate the tranquility offered in the simple repetitiveness of some Muslim prayers.
Meanwhile, the literary editor of The New Republic -- a publication whose reporting section has enjoyed scant praise from BlackFive.net -- writes from America:
For a long time I did not hear the beauty of church bells; or more accurately, I did not wish to hear it. They sounded only like Christianity, which in my early years was a vexing triumphalist sound--the pealing of history, from which my honor as a Jew required me to recoil. When the tintinnabulations of the Church of St. Francis Xavier on Avenue O reached my ears, they brought the message that I was a member of a minority....
I was loitering in the magnificent little cloister at Magdalen College. It was a late afternoon in an Oxford autumn, and the yellow spears of the waning sun were landing in the severe stone geometries of the place and striking the walls like friendly lightning. Suddenly I heard the harmonies of a choir rehearsing evensong--a piece by Byrd, I later learned--in an adjoining chapel. Fixed by the lights and the sounds, I was overcome[.]
According to the story, St. Vladimir converted Russia to Christianity because of his emissaries' reports of their visit to the Hagia Sophia. He is said to have consulted with Muslims and Jews as well, but it was that "Christian beauty" that convinced him.
I have my own -- strong -- opinions on the relative values of the various religions, and am a partisan: but I understand what these two men are saying. I've also heard the calls to prayer, and wondered at them. For a while, last autumn, we were getting mortars shortly after the end of the curfew on a regular basis. The morning call to prayer, just after the curfew was lifted so that people could get to those prayers, was like a warning. Yet, if to me they were a warning, and to the insurgent a signal, there were thousands in Baghdad for whom that same mosque's song was only what Lt. G. describes: a soothing moment in a hard life, a time to welcome the dawn and pray that today will not be terrible.
Lt. G says, "How did I help the counterinsurgency today? God only knows."
Perhaps.
Ellie
http://kaboomwarjournal.blogspot.com/2008/04/house-of-holy.html
Posted By Grim
Lieutenant G, a scout cavalryman who enjoys great respect here for his literary skill as well as his work, writes from Iraq:
Augustly, it shoots out of the Babylonian dust to defy the sandstone skyline. Surrounded by a haphazard maze of tiny homes and shops lacquered in grime, a sea green minaret sits on top of the building like a crown. It has overseen more easy wars and more fragile peaces than any human being could ever fathom, even in this post- oral history era. The mosque stands as proudly today as the day it first became a place of worship, many dawns ago.
The sound of a loudspeaker’s hollow echo rolls over Anu al-Verona from the mosque. It is the early morning prayers of the Salah. My interpreter, Biggie Smalls, often translates these words for me while we’re out in sector and sometimes joins in to pray for us himself; admittedly, it has taken some time to not feel threatened by these austere, foreign chants unleashed in Arabic. I justify this visceral reaction by comparing the prayers to certain passionate sermons I remember from back home, spoken in words I understood, but emotions that I did not. Spiritual cadences from the heart uttered in any language will sound menacing to a stranger. With my terp’s help however, I’ve come to appreciate the tranquility offered in the simple repetitiveness of some Muslim prayers.
Meanwhile, the literary editor of The New Republic -- a publication whose reporting section has enjoyed scant praise from BlackFive.net -- writes from America:
For a long time I did not hear the beauty of church bells; or more accurately, I did not wish to hear it. They sounded only like Christianity, which in my early years was a vexing triumphalist sound--the pealing of history, from which my honor as a Jew required me to recoil. When the tintinnabulations of the Church of St. Francis Xavier on Avenue O reached my ears, they brought the message that I was a member of a minority....
I was loitering in the magnificent little cloister at Magdalen College. It was a late afternoon in an Oxford autumn, and the yellow spears of the waning sun were landing in the severe stone geometries of the place and striking the walls like friendly lightning. Suddenly I heard the harmonies of a choir rehearsing evensong--a piece by Byrd, I later learned--in an adjoining chapel. Fixed by the lights and the sounds, I was overcome[.]
According to the story, St. Vladimir converted Russia to Christianity because of his emissaries' reports of their visit to the Hagia Sophia. He is said to have consulted with Muslims and Jews as well, but it was that "Christian beauty" that convinced him.
I have my own -- strong -- opinions on the relative values of the various religions, and am a partisan: but I understand what these two men are saying. I've also heard the calls to prayer, and wondered at them. For a while, last autumn, we were getting mortars shortly after the end of the curfew on a regular basis. The morning call to prayer, just after the curfew was lifted so that people could get to those prayers, was like a warning. Yet, if to me they were a warning, and to the insurgent a signal, there were thousands in Baghdad for whom that same mosque's song was only what Lt. G. describes: a soothing moment in a hard life, a time to welcome the dawn and pray that today will not be terrible.
Lt. G says, "How did I help the counterinsurgency today? God only knows."
Perhaps.
Ellie
http://kaboomwarjournal.blogspot.com/2008/04/house-of-holy.html