Egypt yesterday, today and tomorrow

Good morning my friends. This is my final post. I hope you have enjoyed reading them as much as I have writing them.

I just glanced at the mirror. Same familiar face, but the reflection is a lie. It’s backwards. Everyone sees the real me, except me. I hold up another mirror and reflect the reflection. It’s me, unfamiliar, but real. One mirror reflects, the second corrects. 

The TV camera is one mirror in Egypt. It reflects a familiar

enemy. We fear the chaos.

My first glimpse of Egypt was at thirty five thousand feet over the delta where the Nile meets the sea. Blue water, green farms, white desert. Lovely. I was pretty high up, so maybe that’s how God sees it, too.

Isaiah wrote, “the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and they will know the Lord”.  He followed with “Blessed be Egypt, my people”. (Isaiah 19).

God’s viewpoint is like a second mirror. It reverses everything.  Enemy becomes family. Love replaces fear. One mirror reflects, the second corrects.

Doug

And when will all this come to pass? Perhaps in the near future, perhaps in the millenium. But it is to this end we should pray, for in this intercession we surely pray for the word of prophecy and the will of God to come to pass.

Ian

  

Egypt, yesterday, today and tomorrow

Good morning friends. This is my third post on Egypt in which I seek to link ancient with modern.

The Sphinx is famous for its inscrutable gaze. 

In today’s Egypt, the ancient Sphinx stares at a modern pizza franchise situated across the street.  Maybe the Sphinx knows that real change, like good food, takes time. 

England’s revolution included the beheading of her king.

In France, Voltaire’s call for revolution was answered by the bloodbath of the guillotine.

In America, democracy arose on the tide of both a revolution and a bloody civil war. 

Freedom isn’t free. In the West, the hopes of a democracy inspired by the poet’s heart were field tested with the soldier’s blood. And it took centuries.

The Sphinx has watched more than thirty of those centuries pass. 

Maybe the riddle posed by the Sphinx is that democracy can’t be delivered to Egypt by the West, like fast food in a pizza box.

Blessings for the day.

Doug.

Now that's food for thought!

Egypt - yesterday, today and tomorrow.

 Good morning to you all.

In Egypt, I could see the Step Pyramid from my front window.

Pharaoh Dzoser built it 4700 years ago. He believed his spirit could inhabit a statue, so his likeness was placed outside the pyramid in an alabaster box. Stonemasons cut a three inch peep hole at eye level so that he could oversee his kingdom.

For nearly five centuries, Dzoser's statue has looked out of that same hole into the desert, blind to the changes going on behind his back.

Sometimes, it's easy to feel safe in our little boxes. The familiar perspective through the peep hole reassures us.

But life-changing events may be occurring around us, and unless we look beyond our myopic peep-hole we will be oblivious to them.

Be assured that what is happening in Egypt today will affect all of us tomorrow.

Doug.

Egypt - a new perspective

My friend, Doug Ferris, taught at a Western school in Cairo for two years. This week he will be passing on some thoughts on Egypt. I know you will enjoy his perspectives and unique style of writing.

" I hated Avatar! It wasn't the script, it was those glasses. I felt like Roy Orbison, a blind man staring at a distorted world blinking red and blue. So I poked out the lenses and wore the frames. The movie was fuzzy and I looked liked Buddy Holly, so that was O.K.

We all see the world through fuzzy mental lenses called 'point of view'. Like the chaos in Egypt. Westerners see Egypt through the literary lens of the Bible. Trouble is, modern Egypt is not the world of Moses and this week's events are not some new Biblical plague.

Something different has happened. We need new lenses if we are to have a clear perspective as to the cause and possible consequences of these unfolding events.

For the next three days I'll attempt to provide some new focus that living in Cairo helped me to obtain."

Doug Ferris

Egypt; yesterday, today and tomorrow?

If you were caught by surprise to see uproar and riot on the streets of Cairo this week, you were not alone. It appears that most of us were astonished by the scenes that flashed across the world on T.V.

However, I must confess that I was truly bemused by President Obama's solution to the mess in Egypt.

As buildings burned and bodies were hauled off for burial the President proclaimed that " free and fair elections" was the only way forward. Thus the magic word "DEMOCRACY" would solve all of Egypt's troubles.

But let's slow down a little. Even the briefest study of history will show that, while democracy has worked reasonably well in the 'Christian' West, in the nations ruled by Islam this form of government has never succeeded.

There are many reasons for this but let me give you the most obvious one.

The Christian faith teaches the supreme value of the individual and, by extension, instills in men a sense of justice and fair play. This allows for the democratic miracle to work; namely that a large minority of people are willing to be ruled by a fractionally larger majority.

In Islam (the word means submission) all too often, the mass of  people end up being ruled over by a sultan, war-lord, caliph or whoever the strong man might be.

There can never be compatibilty between a religion that demands total submission by virtue of its own name and a faith that liberates people to think for themselves and thereby come to a personal relationship with God.

If you are a citizen of a country with a Christian Heritage be profoundly thankful (whether you are a believer or not).... you may have just won first place in the lottery of life.


P.S. Tomorrow and for the rest of the week, Doug Ferris , a valued friend and colleague of mine, will be cooking up breakfasts based on his first hand experience of living in Cairo.