The Gospel of Damascus

My friend Omar Imady, Sufi poet from Syria, living in Jordan, where I met him, has written his first novel, The Gospel of Damascus. I don't think I am just being partial to Omar and his work to say that the book is very well written. Those who have read it really like it. It takes amazing turns as you proceed through the story, and I, at least, found it impossible to put down. It just came out April 1, and Omar is looking for people to review it. If anyone is interested in reviewing it and putting a review on line at Amazon or Barnes &Noble, please let me know (elizabeth.mahlou@gmail.com) because Omar is willing to send a free copy to any reviewer. Otherwise, if you are just interested in reading it, you can find it in the usual places, all the online bookstores and in some brick-and-mortar ones, too. Omar has also set up a web page about the book on Facebook. He also wrote a book earlier of Islamic short stories that has been quite popular with my friends. Even our priest used one of the stories in his homilies he was so taken by it. That book is called When You're Shoved from the Right, Look to Your Left: Metaphors of Islamic Humanism. And yet one more of his that is available in the United States and through the regular channels, for sure, at least, through the online bookstores is The Rise and Fall of Muslim Civil Society, an interesting read for anyone with an academic interest in the subject. I think the book is actually a revamping of his doctoral dissertation.

Just thought I would share some good reads...

Ask Forgiveness

It is often easier to ask for help than to ask for forgiveness. However, forgiving someone usually brings a sense of satisfaction and even pleasure and being forgiven even greater reward.

How does one go about asking forgiveness? First, expect to be forgiven. Expectation is often the greatest factor in whether or not something happens.

Second, ask simply. Say, for example, “I hope you will have the grace to forgive me,” or even more simply, “I’m sorry.”

Not everyone is ready to forgive, and that is a risk one takes in asking. However, few can resist a direct request. And when they do forgive, they feel good about themselves, and so do you. When this happens, don’t forget to say “thank you.”

My sister, Danielle, says that admitting one’s own humanity (i.e. the frailties that go with being human and the mistakes that one makes because of being human) can go a long way toward defusing hostile situations. Her approach is to say, “Well, that was less than perfect. Some days I just seem determined to prove how human I can be. I guess I get to cancel the angel wings and halo for another week.”

She says that generally people laugh or give her a hug. Even the sternest will relent and say something like “Well, as long as the problem gets fixed…”

Laughing at oneself in the act of asking forgiveness, Danielle, a psychiatric nurse, claims, allows the other person to step away from his or her perfectionism or excessively high standards for a moment and to relax and enjoy being human.

Here is another important part of forgiveness. Give credit to the other person for being “big” enough to forgive.

As a young soldier stationed at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, I found my check missing one pay day, and, it turned out, it would be missing for some time to come because of problems with the financial paperwork associated with my belonging to the Army while stationed at an Air Force base.

Military regulations allowed only partial cash payment in such cases, which put me in a financial bind and would be a hardship for some time to come. I was certain that the error was the fault of the finance sergeant in charge of processing pay information. SSG West (not his real name) and I exchanged some acrimonious words, but that, of course, did nothing to improve my financial situation. A few days later, I learned that the fault was not his and that everything that he had told me was accurate. I returned to his office, told him what I had learned, and apologized for my earlier words. He quickly forgave me and redoubled his efforts to help me. A few months later – and much sooner than anyone had expected – my finances were back on track.

Soon after that, SSG West and I ended up working together, as I was assigned to casual status in the combined personnel and finance office while action was being taken on my application for a direct commission to officer ranks. SSG West became my strongest advocate, and he was as pleased for me when the commission was awarded as he would have been for himself.

There is a tradition in the Army that the first person to salute a newly commissioned officer gets a silver dollar from the officer. After the commissioning ceremony, SSG West jumped up to salute me, but the First Sergeant (Top) of my unit beat him to it. As I handed the silver dollar to Top, I saw disappointment on the face of SSG West. Later that day, I stopped by the finance office and handed a silver dollar to my advocate. You would have thought I had given him a million silver coins, not just one.

My apology in this case led to much more than forgiveness. It led to a special relationship between an unlikely pair of friends: a black guy from the deep South and a white girl from New England, and, later, between a non-commissioned officer and a commissioned officer – a friendship that began with an apology and solidified by a silver coin.

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Excerpted and adapted from a collection of vignettes I published, copyright 2003.

Letter Home from a Redneck Farm Kid in the Marine Corps

Another goodie from the Internet -- 

Dear Ma and Pa,

I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.

I was restless at first because you get to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. But I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay.

Practically nothing.

Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food, plus yours, holds you until noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much.

We go on 'route marches,' which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A 'route march' is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.

The sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none.

This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges They come in boxes.

Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake. I only beat him once ... He joined up the same time as me, but I'm only 5'6' and 130 pounds and he's 6'8' and near 300 pounds dry.

Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.

Your loving daughter ,

Alice

Listen

Listen. Such a simple idea. One we all know is important. And yet, one that we rarely incorporate into our busy lives.

We may her many things; we listen to few. Take birds, for example. They have marvelous songs. Each one is so different. Some years ago I spent ten days teaching a seminar for teachers in Chisinau, Moldova. 

We were at a conference center that was very much a resort. It was located in the woods, and each morning before the teachers (my students) arrived, I enjoyed opening the windows and hearing the songs of the swallows that sat on the branches outside and created background music for my instruction.

My very earliest memories of birds’ songs and the joy of listening come from toddler days. My father would come into my bedroom in late evening in the house we moved from when I was three, and we would sit together by the open window each night and listen to the whip-poor-wills. The bitterroot bouquet that came from listening to the whip-poor-wills remained in the toddler’s mind throughout childhood and into adulthood and for nearly thirty years since my father’s death. Although I no longer live near an area where whip-poor-wills congregate, whenever I hear any kind of bird song, I also hear the whip-poor-will, and I am transported back to a special moment.

Listening to people can be equally enjoyable. “How are you?” we often ask in passing, and the expected answer is “Fine.” We do not usually anticipate a response that is detailed, and, if we get one, we are often annoyed that we are being detained from the destination to which we were heading when we asked the question. Yet, when we take the time to ask the question for real and to listen to the answer, we often find out many things we did not know, as well as the ways in which we just might be able to help a friend or colleague in need. If nothing else, we have just made someone feel better because everyone likes to be listened to.

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Excerpted and adapted from a collection of vignettes I published, copyright 2003.

Make Your Desire the Other Person's, Too

The easiest way to make your desire the other person's, too, is to ask questions. Often, a very simple question, asked sincerely and unemotionally, gets another person to see things your way very quickly. The following questions were raised at Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings for my children. They are just a few of the many situations where simple questions, calmly asked, can create an immediate change of heart.

Before the beginning of one IEP meeting that my husband and I feared would produce verbal promises for Noelle's education that the school had no intention of fulfilling or putting into writing -- we had had experience in this area before -- we asked a very simple question, "May we tape this meeting?"

By law, we had the right to tape, so the question was understood as pro forma. We did tape the meeting, but we did not need to. All agreements at that meeting were put into writing and accomplished.

Here is another question that will get an administrator's attention very quickly. When my younger, multiply-handicapped son's high school refused to put reading and other academic goals into his IEP, saying that such goals were inappropriate for Doah, I asked, "May I share with the media the view of school officials that literacy is not an appropriate goal for all children in the public schools?" Very quickly, reading was added to the IEP.

At an even more difficult meeting, when the best program for Doah was at a school that was not conveniently located in our home area, officials arbitrarily and adamantly refused to place him there, clearly because of transportation inconvenience, not for educational reasons. Pressed for time to get Noelle to a medical appointment, I suggested that we had obviously reached an impasse in discussions and that I had to leave but would let the group, without me, choose how to answer my final question. I told them I could be completely flexible: I would accept either option they preferred.

My question? Would they prefer to have a few days to figure out how to place Doah in the most appropriate program (the one we had identified) or to figure out how to present their position in court?

They did not even ask for time to discuss the question. They immediately agreed to the placement we wanted -- which worked out so well that when the teacher was transferred to another school, Doah was transferred with her!

In all cases, our desire quickly became the other person's when we reframed the question. In all three cases, we developed warm, long-term relationships with the administrators involved.

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Excerpted and adapted from a collection of vignettes I published, copyright 2003.

Make Your Option the Only Possible One

People quickly acquiesce when there are no other options. Getting your own way is usually as simple (and complex) as making your option the only one possible. I have watched two of my own children as middle schoolers do that quite effectively.

Each time we have moved into a new school district the tendency had been to place Noelle in special education because of her paraplegia. However, she preferred to be in regular education and was able to handle the academic work there quite well. When we moved to California from Washington in Noelle's eighth grade year, the school administration's proposal was once again to place her in special education.

When Noelle indicated her preference for regular education, the principal explained that all children who cannot walk had always been placed into special education, and, therefore, she would, too.

"Well, then," Noelle commented, "I wonder how you are going to handle the problem that comes with that placement."

When the principal asked what problem she was talking about, she said, "Clearly, I'm the one who has to go to the classroom every day, and I do not intend to go to that one." She was placed in regular education and was very happy there.

The principal met his match, as well, in her younger, gifted brother Shane, who was in her grade because he had skipped some earlier grades in school. The principal wanted to place Shane in the Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program. however, Shane looked through the materials and found them unchallenging. He preferred to make his own program through the Independent Study program. Frustrated by Shane's lack of appreciation for the GATE program (and probably feeling the need to have another GATE student in the school program), the principal explained that being in the Independent Study program would bar Shane from school dances and other such activities. Shane replied that he preferred books to social activities and willingly accepted that restriction.

Seeing that his words had no effect, the principal said in a rather frustrated tone, "You don't understand! You have to have a behavior problem to get into the Independent Study program!"

Very calmly and pleasantly, Shane indicated that he would be willing to meet that entrance requirement, saying, "I could develop one if you would like." He was placed in Independent Study and was very happy there.

Noelle made her option. Obviously, no one could physically force her to go to a particular classroom on a daily basis and monitor her to be sure she stayed there all day. The alternatives to her choice were simply too cumbersome, impossible, or undesirable.

Shane also made his option the only choice. Of course, the principal did not want another child with a behavior problem. He could avoid that in only one way -- by meeting Shane's request.

These two children very much enjoyed their middle school years. Noelle learned far more in regular education than she would have learned in special education and passed the state exams just fine for regular education students. Shane immensely enjoyed his learning situation. His teacher had been a gifted education teacher in earlier years and was one of the few teachers who did not fear Shane's ability to inhale information and question assumptions. For math, the teacher asked Shane to work with a tutor from the local college because Shane learned too fast for the middle-school teachers to keep up with him. She learned incredible amounts of math that year, in addition to completing most of the high school program in other subjects -- all while being in a "punitive" program rather than the GATE program that, ironically, would have asked far less of him. It was, indeed, a good year.


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Excerpted and adapted from a collection of vignettes I published, copyright 2003.

When Someone Kicks You, Still Your Leg

When someone kicks you, kicking back is not always the answer. Sometimes it seems that a nice swift kick, especially in a vulnerable spot, would garner a wonderful feeling. However, holding one's leg back from doing what it wants to do sometimes ends with even better results than any amount of revenge would have brought. In short, don't get mad, and don't get even: get what you want.

In my own life, I have written three doctoral dissertations in order to finally finish one doctoral degree. For one fabricated reason after another, my department chair did not accept the first two. (Rumor told me that he blamed me for his not being hired at the institute where I worked and had told one of the other graduate students that I would finish my degree only over his dead body -- a rumor that appeared to be true at face value although he would not state something like this publicly and I never cared enough to expend the effort to confirm the details. Since I was a slow learner, apparently, it took two dissertations for me to realize that perhaps the rumor was true and at the very least something was wrong.) I could have sued the university, had I had the inclination, money, and energy, and I might have won. I could have taken on the chair in other ways, but I did not. I chose to move on from a painful situation, still the leg that wanted to kick back, make my career through competent work and publication, and wait for serendipity to help with the dissertation and degree issue.

Many people along the way offered to help, and that made me feel validated. The department chair of another department at the same university wrote me a note of encouragement, suggesting that I complete the degree elsewhere and let her know when I could put the initials behind my name; that comment kept me going for years, and I was able eventually to let her know that she could, indeed, use those initials.

Colleagues treated me as if I had "punched" the dissertation ticket, and I have not been held back in my career. In fact, I would not trade my career for any other. For that reason, too, I have not felt the need for revenge. As for the dissertations I wrote, they proved useful in other ways -- another reason for not taking revenge.

The first dissertation topic was quite esoteric. I received a couple of fellowships to conduct the research for it in Siberia during the height of the Cold War, a time when Americans did not go to Siberia, least of all for research. I not only went there, but also I took my oldest daughter, Lizzie, with me. Through the years, the Siberian connection has been of professional and personal value. I have many friends there, have provided much consultation there, and was able to bring a child artist from there to the United States for medical treatment. If I had not worked on that dissertation, none of those connections would have been made. Besides, I made a conference presentation and published an article on the dissertation.

The second dissertation topic was less exciting, but it helped me land a dream job in my specialty, a job that most people get only at the end of their careers but which I got at the beginning of mine. Although my advisor never read the dissertation, it has been published piecemeal as several articles, presented at numerous conferences, and cited in the works of others. That is better than revenge.

The best outcome was that the trajectory of the kick landed me in an extraordinary position much later. I have now completed a third dissertation, this in in Russia, at a university that is better respected than my original university. Had either of the other two dissertations been read and processed, I would not have been eligible to do the later degree. Perhaps thanks to my earlier negative experience, I appreciated all the more the comment that was made by the department chair in Russia at the end of my dissertation pre-defense: "We don't know why you need us, but we feel fortunate that you came to us."

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Excerpted and adapted from a collection of vignettes I published, copyright 2003.