Early September Morning Dune Trip

Dunes look like the spine of a dragon tail!

Notice the camel tracks off to the right?

We had business colleagues in from out of town last week and we decided to treat them to an early morning ride through the desert. These pics were taken about 8am out by Camel Rock. You have to go early during these late summer days or the heat is just too much.

I had a touch of stomach "bug" unfortunately and so the up and down driving was causing my problems. The guys dropped me on a sand dune with some trees nearby and I just sat there for an hour til they came back. I had my mobile phone with me so I cleaned up my phone book, took a few pictures, and made important calls. I had to keep blowing my phone off as the wind was really whipping up and the fine grained sand was filling every crack and exposed opening.

It was a strange experience working away as I sat alone with no one visible for as far as the eye could see. And it was really heating up by the time they came back to get me!

We were back in the office by 11am.

p.s. Hope I can make it to the desert more frequently this year! It's amazing.

Quote on "The Cost of Following Jesus..."

(Forgive me... I'm 'stuck on' quotes right now :)

If all you have found [in Christianity] is advantage,
whether it is fun or profit or security, then you haven't
started following Him yet. His way is the way of the Cross.
The world can be very hard on those it hates. If it is not
hard on you, perhaps it sees nothing in you to hate. But then
it doesn't see Jesus in you, for it hates Jesus with an
undying hatred. While your way is still all fun, all easy, all
jolly, it is only your way: when you turn from it to follow
His way, it will cost. It may cost you everything you have.
That is what it cost Him.
... Robert MacColl Adams (1913-1985), "Of Rice and Men"

Quote on "Heaven and You..."

The purpose of religion--at any rate, the Christian
religion--is not to get you into heaven, but to get heaven
into you.
... Frederick Ward Kates (b.1920)

Quote on "Greatness"...

The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Idioms + Multicultural Context = Humor :)

Whenever I return to the Southeast part of the US my accent thickens. Indian friends came to visit with us last summer and they laughed at how our language changed almost as soon as we stepped off the plane.

Along with the accent comes a fresh dose of American idioms. They are really easy to adopt and hard to rid from your thoughts and speech (as well as writing for that matter). Merriam-Webster says this:

Pronunciation: 'i-dE-&m
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French & Late Latin; Middle French idiome, from Late Latin idioma individual peculiarity of language, from Greek idiOmat-, idiOma, from idiousthai to appropriate, from idios

2 : an expression in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself either grammatically (as no, it wasn't me) or in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements.

In a multicultural context they create misunderstandings that are humorous. Living in Dubai has trained me to try and expunge as many of these from my speech so I can communicate as clearly as possible with people of other cultures. But it's really hard to do and especially upon just returning. Here's a brief conversation I had with a fellow church member who had just returned from a Christian program in England.

Briggs: "We had a special speaker come in and address the group... I think his name was Colin Chapman..."

Me: "Wow... he's a real 'heavy-weight'"

Briggs: Actually he was a short and slim man.

I had a good laugh about this one on the way home this past Friday. If you want to read a funny article about idioms, or cliches, check out this short article in a recent Newsweek. It's short and very funny... especially the last paragraph.

Article: Fatwas (Islamic religious decrees) and the Internet

This is a fascinating article on the effect the internet has had on Islam and it's practice of issuing religious decrees or "fatwas". Here's the first several paragraphs to the article...

Cairo: The internet, satellite television and even the telephone are increasingly being used in the Muslim world to issue fatwas — religious decrees — on issues as varied as whether women can pluck their eyebrows or good Muslims should read Harry Potter.

A fatwa is a ruling by a recognised Islamic scholar, often on a weighty matter. But the traditional definition is becoming blurred as Muslims turn to Islamic websites and "tele-imams" for advice on how to live their lives.

For example, going online turns up the fatwa on British author J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, banning reading about the boy wizard because of his ties to witchcraft.

Another says plucking women's eyebrows is "haram," or forbidden, because it alters God's creation. One exception: if the lady's bushy brows displease her husband.