So I wake up the other morning turn on my computer and go to my blog to add another item for the day. I get up to make myself a cup of coffee and hear the familiar sounds of the song from the minaret calling the faithful to prayer. I heard that sound many mornings in Nairobi and Kisumu and Keisi town when I was in Africa. It is a sound that you will never forget. I went to the computer and saw a brightly lit new site that said I have been hacked by Muslims. It said they were proud to be Muslims, and they had hacked my site. Someone hacking a blog site is not necessarily news, but since an unexamined life is not worth living I found my reaction to be most interesting.
The first reaction can only be described as almost a panic. What I was afraid of was that other people going on my site might have themselves infected with some kind of virus that I was not aware of and I don’t want to be someone who brings that on someone else. I know what a pain that can be I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
The second reaction was a kind of a cold ice cube feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was afraid. I was afraid that maybe my blog had been read by the wrong kinds of people, and then maybe there was a fatwa out on me somewhere. Perhaps just the wrong Muslim cleric had read one of my articles at just the right time and had decided to come after me. I thought about going to the window and seeing if there were some strange characters with masks on wandering around my neighborhood.
The third reaction which was almost immediately on the heals of the second was a sense of shame and embarrassment. Who in the world did I think I was, that my modest little blog would garner enough attention that assassination squads might actually be out looking for me? What kind of a mind thinks of scenarios like that? I have been accused before thinking of myself as the center of the universe, which of course is really what sin is all about, but how sinful am I really, if I am not self-centered. that I would have a thought like that?
Reaction number four was actually a sense of sadness. For a moment I felt sorry for the other kind of mind. Who thinks like this – I’m going to get up this morning and I want to spend my time trying to find a blog site somewhere that I can sneak in and hi jack and show everybody first of all how creepy I am, and then cover up my own creepiness by advertising my religion which isn’t exactly getting the best press in the world right now.
Reaction number five was totally unexpected, and that was a sudden rush of clarity. I actually laughed out loud for a second. The absolute absurdity of the situation, my reaction to it and the picture that is present to someone else who might be standing there at the time was really quite farcical. Standing in the middle of my living room wearing a pair of crocs, my bathrobe, holding a cup of coffee, and staring at my computer while the Muslim call to prayer echoes in my living room.
