JonathanBenz.com

Gratitude is a Choice

I've been more conscious recently about living from a place of gratitude. One would think in my line of work that it would come naturally. 

But it doesn't. I find it more often than not a choice.

The Egyptian Miracle and a Prayer

I'm re-posting comments that my friend Linda Rios Brook wrote on the peaceful revolution in Egypt. It's a wonderful call to prayer for Egypt, the Middle East, and America too.

 

No one has watched the Egyptian miracle with more awe and hope than I for the brave people who staged a non-violent revolution in a quest for freedom that has stunned the world.  But to be honest, I am a little worried about how this could turn out.  My concern has to do with how one understands "democracy" verses "westernization."  In much of the Middle East, the idea of western style democracy is the equivalent to a lack of moral restraint.  Let me give you an eyewitness account of what I mean.

We were in Cairo in October and visited the pyramids of Giza.  The tour officials were very clear that the common Egyptian dress code required modesty, especially for women - no shorts, no sleeveless tops, no bare midsections.  In spite of this warning, a family from the US allowed their teenage daughters to go to the pyramids dressed in brief tank tops and short shorts that would have been questionable even by the most liberal American standards.  I was behind the girls by about thirty feet when I realized they had fallen quite a distance from their parents.  All at once they crossed paths with a group of Egyptian students of about the same age.  The Egyptian girls wore the traditional head covering, long sleeved shirts and long pants.  With no warning, the Egyptians surrounded the American girls and began pointing at them, laughing, and making obviously demeaning comments.  Unharmed, the two frightened and embarrassed foreigners rushed away to their parents leaving the ridiculing group behind.

When I asked the guide about what had happened, she said the Egyptian students were making insulting remarks about the American girls because they considered them to be naked and deserving of humiliation for appearing undressed in public.  Now here's my point.  I have some concern that the conservative moral culture of Egypt, as well as that in other Arab countries, might mistake American democracy and what they view as western vulgarity as the same thing - something to be avoided. 

So here is how we need to pray for Egypt.  Let not the opportunity for the high ideals of freedom, liberty, civil rights, and equal opportunity be lost in a determination to shun the fringe expressions of moral freedom so often associated with the West.Prov. 29:18 Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed are those who heed wisdom's instruction.  On second thought, perhaps this is how we ought to pray for America.