God In All His Glory

I will call him Omar and he hails from the ancient city of Alexandria, Egypt that was founded by the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. Omar has lived in America for over thirty years and has become a naturalized American citizen. At night he drives a taxi usually staged at the airport and takes his passengers to the various hotels along The Strip as the ten mile plus Las Vegas Blvd. is known. During the day this hard working man stands duty as desk clerk at the motel where I’m currently staying. The motel offers free coffee and treats to their guests and over the last two weeks Omar and I have had many conversations over morning coffee, as he works the desk between customers, and I discovered that we both had about the same take on politics, religion and the condition of the human race.

The chat this morning was I think classic Omar and since I cannot hope to improve I’ll simply pass it along verbatim and let the man speak for himself: “I don’t understand why so many Muslims hate Americans and want to kill them. Yes, I know about The Sword Verses in the Koran, but the Koran also teaches Muslims to be kind and at peace with ones neighbors. This was the Muslim religion I grew up as a boy in Alexandria where many of my neighbors were Jews and Christians. I love Alexandria. It is a beautiful city. You should visit it someday. Don’t believe the propaganda, Americans are liked and respected. I would still live in Alexandria, but I couldn’t find a decent job. I started thinking about moving to another country and since America was the richest and most free country in the world with its arms open to immigrants from all over the world, I chose to move to the USA. I went first to New York City. It was a struggle, let me tell you, to learn the language and keep a job, but I did it. Then it was another parallel struggle to become an American citizen. I have to tell you I’m a very determined customer and after five years I was allowed to swear the oath to the United States in a ceremony at Madison Square Garden in New York City with thousands of people from all over the world. It was the best day of my life..Well the second best. The best day was when I married my beautiful wife. She is from Jordan and we have three healthy sons. “

Omar pauses to wait on a difficult customer, a black woman with no I.D. card. He cannot allow her to stay at the motel. When she realizes he will not bend the rules even for a large bribe she curses him. Omar never loses his cool and remains polite in the exchange. He continues, “I longed for the desert and so did my wife. The New York winters and the pace of the city became too much for us. We carefully researched the matter and decided to relocate to Las Vegas. All three of our sons were born here, the first 19 years ago. We are proud they are native born Americans. Speaking of my sons, I’m very honored by my first born. He’s in the U.S. Army now and stationed in Iraq. Several weeks ago an Inman from Saudi Arabia got in my taxi. He was here for some Islamic conference or other and his first question was to ask if I were a good Muslim. I said of course! Then he asked what Mosque I belonged to and I said, ‘I haven’t been to a Mosque in over thirty years!’ The Inman said, ‘Then you are going to hell and you’re not a good Muslim. I suppose you would even volunteer for the American army, which has invaded our Arab lands and is killing good Muslims.’ I replied, ‘Sir I’m too old for the military, but my eldest son is an American soldier stationed in Iraq.’ Then the Inman said as we pulled up to his hotel, ‘I curse you and your devil son! In Saudi Arabia you two would be put to the sword.’”

Another customer appears looking beat up the road. A glance outside reveals a mud stained car with Utah tags and sleeping woman in the passenger seat. The man is quickly checked in and directed to his room by the ever polite Omar. “These were hard words coming from a man of God. He never met me or my son before – what did he know of us? What did he know about America? We have always been kind people and good to our neighbors! And I must say in all my time in America I cannot think of even one time Americans were not kind and friendly towards us. Of course, there are always bad apples, like the lady customer. But the disagreement is over another matter and not the fact that I’m a Muslim! This will always happen – people are people. The real problem happens when people begin to listen to the political and religious demagogues who seek divisions for their own personal power. I say these are the cursed of God and not those of us who do not believe literally every chapter and verse in a religious book like the Koran: A religious book written by Man and not God. I believe in God. Every so often I drive out into the desert alone to a special spot where the city lights to not blind the stars. This is where I worship God. We Muslims call God, Allah and you Christians call him Jesus, and the Jews think his name too important to be spoken of aloud. Yes I believe in this power greater than us. In the desert at night you see God in all his glory as the stars smile down on you.”