Men in Black Dresses

Zusatztext David Ignatius Associate editor and columnist! The Washington Post Yvonne Seng takes the reader on an exotic and enlightening journey to visit the mystical religious figures -- the Men in Black Dresses -- who guide the soul of the Arab world. Their ancient wisdom has timely relevance for the Western world. Informationen zum Autor Yvonne Seng, PH.D. Klappentext If we pause long enough, we can hear, above the din of our planet's rapid globalization and technological advancement, the quiet voices of spiritual leaders from ancient faiths. Middle East historian Yvonne Seng asks, What can these modern Desert Fathers with their long history of survival advise us on the future of our planet? Her intellectual quest rapidly becomes a personal journey that turns her Western training and perceptions on their head.Men In Black Dresses takes the reader behind the walls of desert monasteries, Sufi enclaves, ancient cathedrals and mosques -- where the author knocks, uninvited, and waits for the wise men to allow her in. Once inside, they discuss the universal concerns of the environment and the Internet, the building of a global community, and the education of coming generations, as well as the state of the human spirit. Chapter One: The Nile Train This is Cairo, Mother of the World, as Egyptians fondly call her. It's 1984. And I'm having trouble with my eyes. In the Middle East, as in the Mediterranean in general, eyes have a secret language that my university professors never explained. Entire codes hide in the raising of an eyebrow, in the batting of lashes, and in full-frontal eye contact, that stirs up a slurry of self-consciousness and anger inside me. Throughout my life I've always felt different, but that was my internal landscape. Here, I am visibly different; tall and sandy blond, I stand out like a stevedore at a tea party. Over the past months, I've found myself lowering my own eyes. I haven't seen the sky in weeks. And now that I have for a few short minutes, I'll be damned if I'm going to lower them again. The old man's eyes on the Nile train, however, are more probing and direct than any I've yet experienced. Rheumy with cataracts, red-rimmed and swollen from decades of desert sand no longer brushed away, they are at once cold and hot, enforcing a distance yet drawing me toward the fire. They take no interest in my hair, my skin, even my own eyes. These are mere externalities. His eyes drill beneath my damp white shirt, down to somewhere deep inside me. Like a skilled archaeologist, the old man takes a sounding of my soul. I can't move, but neither do I lower my eyes. While he fingers my inner depths, I study the smacks of history recorded on his own skin. I meet him inch for inch. His face is distended with gravity like the wax of a molten candle through which God has pushed and pulled his fingers. The once-soft ground of this man's forehead is now graven with the prints of pain and sorrow. Sweat seeps from his sunken cheeks like moisture from the walls of an underground cave and trickles into a long growth of beard that separates head from body, person from person. This gray, barbed hedge says barricade. No small bird would dare mistake it for the cottony nest of Father Christmas. In the background, a primitive air conditioner cranks into action and the train prepares to move forward. Still we continue our probes. Passengers in the last stages of settling in stuff their luggage overhead and into every available crevice around us, but we don't move. The tea maker rattles his kettle on a butane stove at the end of the corridor and stacks his mountain of small glass cups for when the brew is ready. The family across from us is tucking into their picnic breakfasts, unfurling leaves of fresh bread, unwrapping homemade sandwiches. Pungent smells of white cheese, cucumbers and boiled eggs, fresh tomatoes and olives are b...

David Ignatius Associate editor and columnist, The Washington Post Yvonne Seng takes the reader on an exotic and enlightening journey to visit the mystical religious figures -- the Men in Black Dresses -- who guide the soul of the Arab world. Their ancient wisdom has timely relevance for the Western world.

Autorentext

Yvonne Seng, PH.D.

Klappentext

If we pause long enough, we can hear, above the din of our planet's rapid globalization and technological advancement, the quiet voices of spiritual leaders from ancient faiths. Middle East historian Yvonne Seng asks, What can these modern Desert Fathers with their long history of survival advise us on the future of our planet? Her intellectual quest rapidly becomes a personal journey that turns her Western training and perceptions on their head. Men In Black Dresses takes the reader behind the walls of desert monasteries, Sufi enclaves, ancient cathedrals and mosques -- where the author knocks, uninvited, and waits for the wise men to allow her in. Once inside, they discuss the universal concerns of the environment and the Internet, the building of a global community, and the education of coming generations, as well as the state of the human spirit.

Leseprobe
Chapter One: The Nile Train

This is Cairo, Mother of the World, as Egyptians fondly call her. It's 1984. And I'm having trouble with my eyes.

In the Middle East, as in the Mediterranean in general, eyes have a secret language that my university professors never explained. Entire codes hide in the raising of an eyebrow, in the batting of lashes, and in full-frontal eye contact, that stirs up a slurry of self-consciousness and anger inside me. Throughout my life I've always felt different, but that was my internal landscape. Here, I am visibly different; tall and sandy blond, I stand out like a stevedore at a tea party.

Over the past months, I've found myself lowering my own eyes. I haven't seen the sky in weeks. And now that I have for a few short minutes, I'll be damned if I'm going to lower them again.

The old man's eyes on the Nile train, however, are more probing and direct than any I've yet experienced. Rheumy with cataracts, red-rimmed and swollen from decades of desert sand no longer brushed away, they are at once cold and hot, enforcing a distance yet drawing me toward the fire. They take no interest in my hair, my skin, even my own eyes. These are mere externalities. His eyes drill beneath my damp white shirt, down to somewhere deep inside me. Like a skilled archaeologist, the old man takes a sounding of my soul.

I can't move, but neither do I lower my eyes.

While he fingers my inner depths, I study the smacks of history recorded on his own skin. I meet him inch for inch. His face is distended with gravity like the wax of a molten candle through which God has pushed and pulled his fingers. The once-soft ground of this man's forehead is now graven with the prints of pain and sorrow. Sweat seeps from his sunken cheeks like moisture from the walls of an underground cave and trickles into a long growth of beard that separates head from body, person from person. This gray, barbed hedge says barricade. No small bird would dare mistake it for the cottony nest of Father Christmas.

In the background, a primitive air conditioner cranks into action and the train prepares to move forward. Still we continue our probes. Passengers in the last stages of settling in stuff their luggage overhead and into every available crevice around us, but we don't move. The tea maker rattles his kettle on a butane stove at the end of the corridor and stacks his mountain of small glass cups for when the brew is ready. The family across from us is tucking into their picnic breakfasts, unfurling leaves of fresh bread, unwrapping homemade sandwiches. Pungent smells of white cheese, cucumbers and boiled eggs, fresh tomatoes and olives are being quietly salted into my memory.

I dig for a clue to the old man's identity, his reason for being on the train and botheri…