About Calls to Prayer

For several years I have taught week-long courses at law schools in Istanbul, Turkey. Those visits have been put on pause due to COVID. I was a couple weeks from traveling to Istanbul once again in early March, 2020, but I reluctantly cancelled that.

I often think of the many people I repeatedly visit when I'm in Turkey. Like most of my friends in the U.S., digital technologies have made it possible to keep in touch, but I look forward to the day when I can once again take it all in through all five senses.

Back here in St. Louis, Missouri, I tend to my ordinary life. Every week or so, however, I fondly think of something that I couldn't have predicted before I first visited the Middle East. I often think of the call to prayer.

In the Middle East, the muezzin calls out from the top of nearby minarets five times each day (sometimes more than one at the same time if you are between minarets). It's a call, for sure, and almost seems like a song, but I've been told that it is not singing. The calls seemed like intrusions on my ears until I heard many of them. Gradually, over my repeated visits, the call to prayer became an exceptionally beautiful moment for me. I write this as an atheist who doesn't understand any of the words of the call to prayer. For me, its beauty is about the sounds and the moment, coupled with images of the venerable mosques I visited (I took these photos in Turkey and Egypt). Also coupled with the second-to-none hospitality of the people I met in the Middle East. It's different than church bells, because it's only five times each day and because you are not hearing a mechanical bell--you are hearing a human being earnestly calling out to you.

As I repeatedly visited Turkey, I started looking forward to the calls as opportunities to stop and think about life and my place in the world. I also took it as a reminder to always be tending to things that really matter because the day is always slipping away. It is also a reminder that you are part of a much bigger community because that call is to everyone in hearing distance, not just you.

There are many reasons for craving an effective vaccine for COVID. For me, this is a reason that I didn't anticipate. This is a good example of a reason that you should travel to new places: If you travel with the right state of mind, you will be changed by what you encounter.

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Magic Places: Cappadocia, Turkey

I'm starting to plan my next trip to Istanbul Turkey in the spring (I teach law school there periodically). I'm so looking forward to seeing friends who live there. That led me to look at some of my photos from my trip in 2017. One of the highlights was driving to Pigeon Valley in Cappadocia with good friends. What a magical place, and it actually has lots of pigeons! The top photo is the iconic photo of the valley that I took in 2017. The lower photos is also from Cappadocia, from the city of Goreme.

There are certain places in the world to which I have said "good-bye" out loud, hoping that someday, somehow, it would not be the last time I would visit. Cappadocia is one of those places.



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On Gibran, Silence and Friendship

I have been able to find increasing amounts of solitude lately. Part of this is that my daughters have been away at college, but there have been other reasons that I will merely characterize here as opportunities for growth.

Spending more time in solitude has enabled me to desynchronize from my surroundings, which has allowed me to reintroduce myself to myself (the Fundamental Attribution Error be damed!). The quiet is also fertilizer for groves of spouting thoughts that are much more colored and varied than those philistine thoughts that push their way out when we are trapped in environments of commotion.

Last year I had the opportunity to travel to Lebanon. While there, I toured the Kadisha Valley north of Beirut. It truly felt like a holy place based on its deep history. I knew I was following in the footsteps of the many others before me as I hiked through the valley. I took the following photos while there, including the bottom photo, a grove some of Lebanon's ancient cedar trees (they are so revered that they appear on Lebanon's flag).




I thought of these images as I read Maria Popova's article, "Kahlil Gibran on Silence, Solitude, and the Courage to Know Yourself."  Gibran was born along the Kadisha Valley in a town called Bsharri.  As I hiked, it seemed to me that the Kadisha Valley was exquisitely designed for evoking poetic thought.  That's how it was for Gibran.  Popova features an excerpt from Gibran's 1923 classic, The Profit, on the topic of solitude:

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.


Gibran also explored silence in the context of friendship:

Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.” And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart; For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.


I was touched by these inspirational verses.  I hope you have enjoyed these writings too, as well as these photos.

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Experiencing the Beauty and History of Cappadocia, Turkey

My girlfriend Jen and I are back home, but our hearts are still in Turkey. As I sit at my computer post-processing photos from Cappadocia, I still can't quite get my head around the magic and immense beauty from that region surrounding the town of Goreme. Not only was there natural beauty, but also signs of ancient history everywhere we looked. On our first morning there, we saw Cappadocia from the air - a glorious early-morning balloon ride.

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Obama- hoist by his own terrorist petard

But what happens when President Obama aids the enemy?  Will we as a nation insist that the President should also be subject to the law?  Are we a nation of laws, or corrupt banana republic which only enforces the law against those powerless to resist?

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