text: Daniel P. (Danny) Coleman: 05/01/2012 - 06/01/2012
  I am a contemplative progressive Christian Quaker theologian, and author of Presence and Process. Wednesday, May 30, 2012
  The Music of Sufism
  A journey to the other side of Islam. This is a great documentary about the music of Sufi Islam. What is surprising are the close links between Sufism and Christian desert monasticism.
  Posted by Danny Coleman at 5:25 AM
  Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKoIFYWOIys
  Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYjcL5u9POQ&feature=relmfu
  Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK0NnpCyGzY&feature=relmfu
  Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH1crmLDrmY&feature=relmfu
  Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-8iRrNCGck&feature=relmfu
  Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9CrQKtHYR4&feature=relmfu
  Part 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNH-EMmauMw&feature=relmfu
  Part 8: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY3KaEBdHPA&feature=relmfu
  Part 9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utZoWSemztI&feature=relmfu
  Posted by Danny Coleman at 5:57 AM
  I was riding alone on a train in Germany one evening when a friendly young man struck up a conversation with me. His name was Martin and he writes scripts for German television shows. We spoke about the differences--pro and con--between Germany and the U.S. Martin told me about his recent trip to Los Angeles, his first visit to the U.S. He had arrived at LAX in the evening and took a taxi into downtown L.A., excited about seeing the city. He told me that what he saw shocked him. The condition of the downtown area and the number of homeless wandering the streets were beyond anything he had expected. The taxi driver refused to let Martin out of the cab to walk about, instead driving him to the relative safety of his hotel.
  I had just spent a week walking around Martin's city of Munich, including the supposedly "seedy" central train station. I never felt anxious or in any potential danger; never saw anyone who was obviously homeless and, in all that time, encountered a grand total of 2 panhandlers.
  I asked Martin, "The things that cause homelessness: unemployment, alcoholism, drug abuse, mental health issues, teenage runaways, etc.--these are universal problems. I'm sure they happen here in Munich as well as in Los Angeles. And Munich is an expensive city to live in. So why do you think there are some many homeless people on the streets of L.A. and so few here?" Martin thought for a few moments and then shook his head, "I don't know," he said "I guess maybe we take care of our people."
  Posted by Danny Coleman at 5:13 PM
  Posted by Danny Coleman at 8:17 AM
  Posted by Danny Coleman at 4:08 PM
  The taxi driver who picked is up at the hotel in Munich was neatly dressed in button-down shirt, slacks, suit-jacket and dress shoes. His salt and pepper hair was neatly trimmed. He was not friendly at first. I told him to take us to the central train station (about a mile away) and asked if he could get us close to the embarkation point for the shuttle bus to the airport (which is 17 miles from the train station). "Why you not take taxi to airport?" he asked brusquely. "Because the shuttle is only ten euros each." I explained. "How much will you take us to the airport for?" my wife asked. A brief negotiation ensued and we met at an acceptable price (since my wife was on crutches and had a cast on her leg, it was worth it to pay double and stay in the taxi rather than struggle with getting to/on/off the shuttle bus.
  As we headed away from the city I broke the silence by asking the taxi driver where he was from. "Iran." he said curtly. "Ah, I have a friend from Iran." I said and provided the friend's name. The taxi driver suddenly warmed. We had a great conversation for the rest of the ride in which he told us some of his life story:
  Mahmoud is sixty years old and has lived in Germany for twenty years. In Iran he was an engineer and oversaw a large staff at a factory that made automobile glass. This was during the reign of the Shah and life was pretty good. Then came the Islamic revolution. "The first year," said Mahmoud, "it was great." The Shah's repressive laws (some enacted as bulwarks against the Islamic movement) were lifted. "But then it got very bad." The new regime, under Ayatollah Khomeini, became far more repressive then the Shah had ever been. Mahmoud became afraid to speak any opinion that might be construed as dissent against the new government. Eight years of brutal war with Iraq devastated the Iranian people.
  Somewhere along the line, Mahmoud made it to Munich with his wife and son and daughter. He and his wife (who had been a medical student before the revolution curtailed her education) live in an apartment. His children are adults now and have good careers. "So Germany has been good for them?" I asked. "Yes," he agreed, "but German people very cold to me. They look down upon me. I could not get hired, so I drive a taxi." Mahmoud summarized his life by saying "I went from here..." holding his hand up high, "...to here." swooshing his hand down low. He sighed. "I would go back to Iran..., if things changed there." When we got to the airport I asked politely if he would mind if I gave him a tip. "No, no, is not necessary." he said, shaking his head. "Please." I insisted and as he relented I paid the full fare he had asked for prior to our negotiations. We shook hands. "You tell your Iranian friend in America that you met Mahmoud." he said, and then the engineer got in his taxi and drove away.
  Posted by Danny Coleman at 11:26 AM
  "The Quakers sent me books, from which I learnt how they had, years ago, established beyond doubt the duty for a Christian of fulfilling the command of non-resistance to evil by force, and had exposed the error of the Church's teaching in allowing war and capital punishment...
  ...Further acquaintance with the labors of the Quakers and their works--with Fox, Penn, and especially the work of Dymond (published in 1827)--showed me not only that the impossibility of reconciling Christianity with force and war had been recognized long, long ago, but that this irreconcilability had been long ago proved so clearly and so indubitably that one could only wonder how this impossible reconciliation of Christian teaching with the use of force, which has been, and is still, preached in the churches, could have been maintained in spite of it."
  -- Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894)
  Posted by Danny Coleman at 6:33 AM
  A very articulate and theologically astute young man speaks about being gay and Christian and engages in some very solid Biblical exegesis and historical exposition.
  Posted by Danny Coleman at 9:04 AM
  "A Friends' meeting, however silent, is at the very lowest a witness that worship is something other and deeper than words, and that it is to the unseen and eternal things that we desire to give the first place in our lives. And when the meeting, whether silent or not, is awake, and looking upwards, there is much more in it than this. In the united stillness....there is a power known only by experience, and mysterious even when the most familiar."