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    A Life in Books

    Filed Under books, islam, nostalgia, people 

    Today is cloudy and cooler than it has been for a while. Almost as though the sun got tired after the long holiday weekend and needed a break. It’s been a strange day for me. I’ve holed myself up since Monday and don’t feel well at all. It feels like October.

    I’ve been cataloguing my books at The LibraryThing and the process has brought up a lot of memories. My family moved a lot when I was a child - in 1992 my mother and I counted the number of apartments and houses we’d lived in since I was born: 25. So naturally I don’t have many things from when I was a kid, but I was permitted to bring a select number of books with me when the family made the big move from New York. The books I chose are all about writing and poetry. No novels at all, but an old textbook anthology that my grandfather gave me, a “synonym finder,” some grammar texts, and so on. This makes a lot of sense because at the time my biggest dream in life was to become a writer. Even though I shelved that notion more than a decade ago, I’ve somehow managed to keep some of these books - through eight additional house moves.

    I also came across several math textbooks, the highly useful and recommendable “Practical Mathematics” series put out by the National Educational Alliance. These books are phenomenal in the way they teach math. I also have some books by Francis Schaeffer, the Christian theologian and L’Abri community founder. The math texts and Schaeffer books were lent to me by a co-worker about six years ago. M- was such a strange and sensitive man: deeply religious, childlike (and at times childish), allergic to everything, and a natural tinkerer obsessed with computers. He was in his 40s, and before the home computer era, his thing was ham radios. His social skills left much to be desired, but he could be a very sensitive and generous person. I think he was desperately unhappy much of the time, but he tried to live in the way he thought Christ would want, and he avoided all vices, like sex, drugs, alcohol, smoking, and violence. He was extremely intelligent. The reason I still have his books is because he died in the Phillippines while doing missionary work. He and his fiancee - whom he met there - and two of her nieces/nephews were drowned one day at the beach. They’d made a special trip (they were extremely poor), but when they got there they were warned not to go in the ocean; conditions were too treacherous. M- could be terribly headstrong, I’d witnessed it at the office many times. He disregarded the warnings and went in the water anyway, followed by the fiancee and her young relatives. I think about him a lot; I’ve never met anyone else like him.

    I have some other books here that are about Islam. My first trip abroad was to Great Britain. I’d already begun having doubts about the Islam I was seeing practiced and preached. Before heading to the UK (on my own), I’d been in Internet contact with some alternatives who believed in using the Qur’an only as a source of God’s law (most Muslims base their religious practices on the traditions of Muhammad in addition to the Qur’an). Turns out an important little network of these alternatives lived in England, and when I got there I met up with one of them. We talked for hours and hours. I took him to see The Thin Red Line, and his response was highly appreciative. We took the train to Birmingham where we met up with a university student who was writing reinterpretations of important Islamic concepts. The first fellow, K- was highly secretive; he went by several aliases and never revealed his real name to me! His life had been threatened numerous times by fundamentalists. I don’t know if they were genuine threats, but he took them seriously. The uni student, however, was open about his beliefs and identity, saying that he refused to live in fear. A bunch of sympathetic Muslims came over to the dorm room of the Birmingham student and we had a study session about Islam; he spoke passionately about the need for reformation and returning to the word of Allah as a way of releasing ourselves from the horrors of male chauvinism, capitalism, and other idolatries. His writings were highly interesting and I kept some of his articles.

    Later, I followed K to the house of an older, Pakistani couple who lived on the outskirts of London. They were so kind to me! They did not care that I was American, or of African descent or female. It was true Muslim hospitality. We were joined by some likeminded Muslims friends of theirs and we talked about religion (they talked; I listened) and dreams of Islam returning to its true roots after 1000+ years of human-based innovations and oppressions. They gave me many little books and pamphlets to take home with me. They warned me to be careful of who I revealed my religious intentions to, and wished me well. While I can’t recall names or faces, I’ll never forget the earnest good-heartedness of those progressive, yet pious Muslims. Their path is not an easy one.

    Reflecting on it now I can’t believe that really happened! The intrigue! If my parents had known I was meeting up with strange, radical Muslims in another country they probably would have never let me travel again. Well, it’s been seven years; I don’t suppose it hurts anything to spill the beans of those three or four “lost” days now. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it to anyone.

    Time to get back to life.

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    5 Responses to “A Life in Books”

    1. Stephen on July 6th, 2006 11:38 am

      Dude, I never knew you’d been to B’ham. Was it the University of Bham you went to? What year was that? I’m trying to work out how close our paths crossed.

    2. LaReinaCobre on July 6th, 2006 12:13 pm

      LOL. Yes, as I was writing that I thought, “Hey, Stephen is from Birmingham.” I went to a university in Birmingham. I don’t remember the name exactly but I think it contained some words having to do with sciences or technical something or other. It was a big school. And I remember us walking down a street that had a big, old bookstore on it, and then we turned a corner and …. I don’t really know what was next. I am horrendous with remembering details like that unless I switch myself to “details on” mode. *sigh*

      The dorms were a funny color, like sand or something. Not very cute. Very 1960s or so. The science area, which is where the uni student was going, was very cement like and square. I remember thinking, “This is really mid-20th century architecture.” Oh, and this would have been in March of 1999.

      It was an unseasonably warm March. Folks were laying out on the grass of London parks in their swimsuits. It was 20-24 degrees in London and it only rained once or twice the whole 18 days I was in the UK (one night in Scotland? and possibly the day I left). I would love to visit there again; but good god, it was the most expensive trip I’ve ever taken in my life. The hotel costs is what really got me. And the food probably. Heh. I must have given away at least 100 pounds to buskers because I kept forgetting that the huge amounts of change rattling in my pocket came in denominations worth a lot more than 25 cents (as in the US). I kept wondering where all my money was going, it wasn’t till I got home that I realized I’d been dropping 2 and 3 pounds’ worth of coins in guitar cases and empty coffee cups! It certainly explained the huge smiles I received from pretty much every street performer I gave money to. They must have thought I really loved their art or that I was an idiot!

    3. Nio on July 6th, 2006 2:35 pm

      I believe there’s an expiration date on past events in which you can tell your parents.

      Like that time I said I was sleeping at Nancy’s and really I was at a Metalica concert…

    4. Stephen on July 7th, 2006 4:51 am

      I moved to Birmingham from Walsall in Setpember 2000, and lived in a 17 storey dorm/halls of residence (you’d probably remember if it was that one). I went to the University of Birmingham which is on the south side of the city in the leafy surburbs. The other two unis are Aston University which is in the city centre and the University of Central England which is in the north, very much in the ghetto. Hmm, I’d guess you were at Aston. A lot of Birmingham is very 1960s. Anyway, come back some day!

    5. PeaceBang on July 9th, 2006 8:02 pm

      How cute are you in your SESAME STREET T-shirt!!?

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