The Jasmine Revolt

Ever hear of that before? Most of the western media is not giving it much airplay and most Americans are not paying much attention to it. The “Jasmine revolt” is not a long-ago historical event that has little impact on us today… (e.g. the “Whiskey rebellion of 1790” - Google it)… rather, the Jasmine revolt is a current event happening right now in the North African country of Tunisia, (ancient Carthage) that may, in fact, have a great impact on all of us in the near future! This month, the long-oppressed Tunisian people rose up and ousted their president, Ben-Ali, a corrupt power monger who had remained in office for decades on the backs of his people. (Not unlike many before him!) Something woke-up in me and I began to think back to 1989. .... Remember before the Berlin wall came down and the breakup of the Soviet Union? It all started with the Romanians overthrowing dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu in a week long riot. The resulting domino effect rippled across all the eastern-European Soviet satellites. Within weeks, the wall came down and over a period of months things happened that most of us thought were flat-out impossible: the fall of the iron curtain and the dissolving of the Soviet empire. What if this Tunisian revolt is the beginning of a similar shake-up in the Muslim political world?

Remember the Iranian revolution of 1979? The Islamic hardliners overthrew the corrupt (and staunch American ally) Shah of Iran resulting in the Islamic Republic of Iran ruled by the Ayatollahs and bringing us to the present apocalyptic death-cult leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad! Could what started then be expanding now? Well, it appears that the dominoes may be starting to fall across the 10-40 window. Since Tunisia, surprising demonstrations and revolts have erupted in Yemen, Algeria, and Egypt. (Although none have produced a Tunisian-like overthrow of their seemingly securely entrenched tribal / royal / aristocratic potentates ….. yet.)

History teaches us that when any oppressed people begins to imagine that they might actually be able to throw off the yoke of their oppressors…it is only a mater of time till they do! One might think that overthrowing oppressive dictators would be a good thing. It would be, if what followed was freedom. But what is waiting in the wings for these poor people is not freedom but an even harsher taskmaster: a Sharia law-driven Islamic Caliphate. If Ahmadinejad gets his way, all the Muslim nations of the world will throw off their secular governors to prepare the way for the Caliphate and the Mahdi. In the mean time, what will result will be anarchy and chaos, like what now reigns in places like Somalia, and Darfur. After a while people will be so sick of it they will flock to a charismatic leader who promises peace. Does that ring a bell?

If I am right these revolts and demonstrations will spread both in scope depth of violence. Right now, these relatively small demonstrations have some very well known people shaking in their boots - some who are enemies of America like Libya’s Khadafy, and some who are our “friends” like the King of Saudi Arabia. In the end, the 10-horned beast will utterly destroy the prostitute who rides it. (Rev. 1715-18) Consider the possibility that the “beast” is the religion of Islam, who in the final days will be led by the Mahdi Anti-Christ, and that the woman who rides it, ripe for a fall, is none other that the House of Saud. These kings have been riding on the backs of Islam for generations and certainly fit the descriptions of corruption given in Rev. 17-18.

There once was a woman from Niger, who smiled while riding a tiger…she went for a ride… and came back inside… with the smile on the face of the tiger!

The View From ……. THERE?

Since my last posted “View,” we have had a geographic change. Over the first four days of this new year, we traveled almost 1400 miles westward over mountains and plains and have now arrived at our very own “little house on the prairie” Honestly, along the way, we felt a real kinship with our pioneer ancestors who made the same journey generations ago in Quaker bonnets and covered wagons. Our sturdy Conestoga was of the U-haul variety, and it only took us 3 ½ days instead of 3 ½ months, but we felt like wagon-train settlers just the same!

The title of my column/blog has always been, “The View From Here.” Several of my Virginia friends have teased that I will now have to change it to “The View From There!” But another good friend of mine taught me a saying over the years that certainly applies now: “Wherever you are… be there!” That seems kinda obvious, right? But obvious or not, many people live in the past, dwelling in the regretful land of coulda- shoulda-woulda, while others are constantly worried about what’s coming up next. Many of us flip-flop between the two, never landing on “today.” Often I find I am not really enjoying the experience of the “right now” because I am not “being where I am? Does that make sense? Have you ever heard a coach being interviewed after a big win? Usually the coach fails to celebrate the team’s great victory even for a moment. Instead he immediately begins to talk about his next game; all the future problems and obstacles to be overcome, and all the past mistakes they made during the last game. It’s hard to live in the present – to be where you are!

God proclaimed His name to Moses as “I AM”. Not “I was” or “I will be,” although both those things are true…. as we perceive time anyway. God is outside of time, He lives as the constant “I Am” - the forever present. He is always “being where He is” and He is omnipresent! (Ever-and-everywhere-present) So what’s the application? Well, it would be easy for me to try to hang on to the past right now and perhaps just as tempting to fret about the future. God calls us to neither. He asks us to give Him the past and trust him for the future. He wants us to just be where we are, and where we are is …. in Him. So whether from my new office overlooking the grasslands of central Kansas or from wherever my “View” originates, it will always be from “here.” My goal for now is to work on simply “being where I am”…. want to join me in that?

PS. This will be the last “View” posted on the Hanover Friends website. “Being where you are” means embracing the present and you can’t wholeheartedly do that until you let go of the past. So to that end, no more “View” at friendlychurch.org. You can however, keep following my musings at www.davidacrisp.blogspot.com. If you’d like to continue receiving the “view” via e-mail, send me an e-mail at davidndes@gmail.com with that request and…. eventually…. I’ll make it happen. Blessings!