5 minutes of YOUR time

I'm not sure what this picture has to do with the post

For one reason, or another, I have been growing out my beard. I tend to go in cycles of facial hair. There usually isn't much of a pattern or reason behind the hair on my face. I just wear what feels good. Right now, I have a beard. It's not quite the length of George MacDonald, but definitely longer than the Russell Crowe Gladiator stubble.
Oddly enough, this beard makes me very out of place in northern Iraq. I have hardly seen anyone with a beard at all. Almost everyone is clean shaven with closely cropped hair, and this especially goes for the young men. So when I walk around the city, I tend to turn heads. Apparently I walk like an American, but have a beard reminiscent of a wahhabi.
I was hanging out with some friends the other day. We were at a "ranch" outside of the city sitting on the only patch of watered grass I have seen all summer. We had met a man earlier in the day that called me Mamareesha. They told me it meant Uncle Beard. Obviously I was as confused as you are now. Number one: I'm not their uncle. Number two: Do I even need a two?
Apparently, Mamareesha was a Kurdish resistance fighter from the late 1980s, who vowed not to cut his beard until Kurdistan was free from greater Iraq. That sounds pretty epic, right? I thought it sounded lagit, but soon I began to put it into the context of the very real conflict between Arabs and Kurds. This isn't a movie where the enemy is evil and killing is an automatic service to the good.
As an outsider, an American, only getting a brief look into the confusing muddle of the conflict between Iraqi Kurds and Arabs, I cannot begin to see a political solution or lend my voice to "this side" or "that side." In fact, as appealing as it is to target the evils of a single side, all have transgressed, and all need to be reconciled.
So here I am writing a blog post from the office of an organization that exists to pursue peace between communities at odds. The Preemptive Love Coalition unites Arabs and Kurds, they unite Sunni and Shia Muslims, they unite Kurds and Turks, they unite Muslims and Christians under the banner of saving the lives of children deemed unhelpable.
Right now PLC is nominated for an award by what is being called the "Grammys" of the nonprofit world. Winning this award would significantly raise awareness and provide opportunities on a level we have yet to see.
I say all this because you can help.
You can vote by clicking here. Click "the South" tab, then scroll to find Preemptive Love Coalition, click it, then find the submit button. The voting ends with the sunset in California on July 26, but the sooner the better, right?
They tell me that war is hard. So is restoration. Help PLC seek to bring peace and healing to the children of war.

walkin' pictures

An Empty Funeral Tent

Kurdish de-Construction Worker

The two happiest kids in Kurdistan

"When...?" Cont. Again, subtitled - "Yens and Paolo"

Jens walked back in the room apologizing for being so disorganized. The two old men explained themselves to be a part of an order of monks from Mar Mousa, Syria, which they specified as between Homs and Damascus.

Every monk I have read or heard about I have imagined with a brown habit, so imagine a monk and then replace the habit with dress slacks and a polo. They were big, boisterous and vibrant with life and generosity. Jens and Paolo, two 21^st century cloistered Europeans hovering over a computer in Kurdish-Iraq arguing in Arabic about a plane ticket. This wasn’t really a scenario I experience every day.

Eventually they booked the plane ticket and immediately they focused all their attention on accommodating us as guests. Yens brought tea and the remaining biscuits from outside, while Paola asked Hastiar and myself about our lives. Most of his questions were directed at me, his thick Italian accent added weight and intelligence to the sound of his deep voice. His questions varied from asking about my school and career to my religious affiliations and political stances. He wanted a quick rundown of me before I left the country. Paolo was much more subtle and slow with Hastiar, as if he was handling his conversation with care and tact.

We stayed with the monks for over an hour, and I don’t know if I can say that I came away with any new revelation. I can say that I have enjoyed the hospitality of monks from Syria, and though admittingly modest, to me their company rivaled that of kings.

When do days...? Continued

Hastiar and I boarded the bus, he in a black polo and matching black capris and (according to Matt Willingham) I looked like a regular Baylor frat guy. Apparently Baylor frat guys where cream-colored linen pants and blue polos from Target. We boarded the old city bus. Dust and dirt painted the plastic covered seats. The windows were open and letting the welcome hot breeze inside. We both sat on the crowded two-person seat with our bags in our laps and our knees to the back of the seat in front of us. I learned fairly quickly that Hastiar had never been to this church and that we were both in for a new experience.

The neighborhood we were headed toward was called Saboon Karan. Soap Makers. Later I was told that it was once the Jewish/Christian quarter. I had been down this road to the bazaar many times during the past month and a half, but never beyond the bazaar. I would totally be in the hands of this humble teenager, younger than my little brother, who just graduated from high school. We walked through the bustling street that runs through the middle of the bazaar. Malawi street. It is the most crowded, but fluid sidewalk and street I think I have ever seen. At the end of Malawi street the crowds began to thin and the shops began to change from a hodgepodge of fruit and western clothing stores into more shops of traditionally Kurdish character.

Hastiar asked a shop owner about the old church in Saboon Karan and he directed us down what looked more like an alleyway than a road. The roads became very narrow and the stone covered walls, with smaller metal gates, were higher than in other parts of the city. I felt like I was wandering down the side streets deep in the Arab quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, only the cobblestones polished by centuries of shoes were missing.