The heart of the matter- India Arie

I got the call today, I didn't wanna hear But I knew that it would come An old true friend of ours was talkin' on the phone She said you found someone And I thought of all the bad luck, And the struggles we went through And how I lost me and you lost you What are these voices outside love's open door Make us throw off our contentment And beg for something more? I'm learning to live without you now But I miss you sometimes The more I know, the less I understand All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again I've been tryin' to get down To the Heart of the Matter But my will gets weak And my thoughts seem to scatter But I think it's about forgiveness Forgiveness Even if, even if you don't love me anymore These times are so uncertain There's a yearning undefined ...People filled with rage We all need a little tenderness How can love survive in such a graceless age The trust and self-assurance that can lead to happiness They're the very things we kill, I guess Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms And the work I put between us, Doesn't keep me warm I'm learning to live without you now But I miss you, Baby The more I know, the less I understand All the things I thought I figured out, I have to learn again I've been tryin' to get down To the Heart of the Matter But everything changes And my friends seem to scatter But I think it's about forgiveness Forgiveness Even if, even if you don't love me anymore There are people in your life who've come and gone They let you down and hurt your pride Better put it all behind you; life goes on You keep carryin' that anger, it'll eat you inside I've been tryin' to get down to the Heart of the Matter But my will gets weak And my thoughts seem to scatter But I think it's about forgiveness Forgiveness Even if, even if you don't love me anymore I've been tryin' to get down To the Heart of the Matter Because the flesh will get weak And the ashes will scatter So I'm thinkin' about forgiveness Forgiveness Even if, even if you don't love me anymore..

Manhattan, Yemeni food & conversations

A second Woody Allan (Manhattan) Night with Annie, Meghan and Kelsy… Yemeni food is always good shared, all food I must say. I was looked over for feeling for George Bush, Meghan thinks am too forgiving, truth is the man is just but human with human failings… and he was in a position of power, misused it and led to millions of deaths. I am sure we could all do that if we were in circumstances where we are exposed to our evil side.

I often think people who do not exercise evil motives, have learnt to be aware of the sensitivity to the human being, a selfless level of attitude and a conscience towards the law. Imagine a situation or position where someone knows full well that they can manipulate the law, Museveni changing the Ugandan constitution, Ghadaffi, Mubarak, George Bush, Hitler, and Bin laden. I think of the greater evils done in society, The Rwanda Genocide, the Jewish genocide, the massive African slave trade, Yugoslavia, and the most recent Darfurian genocide. All these people and more have been able to manipulate the law, killed millions of people and yet the law exists as a way to maintain some moral level in society. Imagine a world without law and norms… we would all be excising evil. And mind you, I am not justifying their acts, am only saying that we all have the potential to be evil and yet we learn and understand what is good and what is bad and we choose, and some choose to be more evil than others and yes, they have to pay for whatever they do but its not our place to point fingers at them and trash them but it is our place to hope and pray that it does not happen again and teach our children what is right and to exercise love for human kind instead of pumping them with wealth and selfishness, that they can not afford to look out for others in the wider picture of the world.

We talked about the Bible earlier on with Meghan and she talked about how it has huge contradictions, honestly speaking, I don’t think the Bible has contradictions, I believe that our interpretations of it can be contradictory especially seeing as we tend to want to analyze things from the way we are raised and brought up. To be honest the Bible is a book about God and his relationship to man, the specific cultures and customs expressed in that time are not of concern to us, I believe the Bible being a book about God revealing himself to man within time and space and that is what we have forever and that is what makes the Bible relevant to us. Am not one to read books and people’s views on the Bible I read the Bible to understand and relate to God I know is for real and who loves me. I read it to get encouragement like Isaiah, David, Paul etc… got. I don’t read with criticism because it’s about my relationship to God, if I want criticism I will get it from analyzing man’s expressions of his mind.

Annie, Meghan, Kelsy and I watched a Woody Allan movie- interesting stuff. Nicole and I chatted in the wee hours of the night while insomnia had taken over at Wust el balad, we chatted for a bit and laughed so. Nicole and I met up at New campus on Wednesday, had coffee, talked and sat on the grass at the AUC campus, gosh that grass is so fake that it has dodgy effects on my skin. I would rather just wait for real grass and enjoy it. Delayed gratification has its place in life. Woody Allan, is a crazy witty man, filled with sarcasm and satire, he is a funny kind of person who finds it hard to enjoy life as so much suffering goes on in the world, he is an illustration of someone who does not pursue materialism in a world so filled with it, he is oblivious of what others feel and imagines he is not, he seems rather nice, but I think selfish to a great extent. He does not live in the moment but through experiences.