There is no word for Anxiety in Arabic

The most logical way to challenge the curious struggle for information acquisition in the world today is to get out into the real world and actually touch life directly, to find out for yourself through a lived encounter with reality. If you want to understand what is going on in the minds of Trump supporters, invite them over to your home for dinner. Again and again. And listen. If you’re confused as to why many black people are scared of America right now, move to a part of the world where you are the minority and people don’t like you. Stick around a while and let it all sink in. Pay attention. If you find it strange that Indians worship many gods or that some men find other men attractive or that some people say potato when others say po-tah-to, don’t wait for Joe Rogan to do an interview with another stoned ape before you have an ahaa! moment, get a passport and spend a month in an ashram in Tamil Nadu, go explore the ruins of ancient Greece and consider what thrills were once there to be found in the steam baths of the western worlds place of origin. In other words, learn to speak another language. Several.

As many of you already know, my family and I have found asylum from the burning forests in the north of Thailand within a tiny Muslim community on a small island in the Andaman Sea. The community here has been incredibly welcoming and gracious to us and with each new day, each personal encounter, the stories that have all-too-often been told about how muslims “are” melt away and further remind me how little we can actually truly ought believe from merely listening to “the news” or culture for that matter. We all know so very little. How strange it is that so many make such bold convictions about, well, anything at all.

It happens to now be Eid al-Fitr, a major holiday on the Islamic calendar. In short, having just exiting Ramadan, a month of prayer, fasting, devotion and considerable self-control, Muslims now celebrate their spiritual accomplishments with this Festival of Breaking the Fast. In many countries Eid al-Fitr is a national holiday, with celebrations typically last for three joyous days. I learned from History.com that,

“During Eid al-Fitr, Muslims take part in special morning prayers, greet each other with formal embraces and offer each other greetings of “Eid Mubarak,” or “Have a blessed Eid.” They gather with family and friends, give games and gifts to children and prepare and eat special meals, including sweet dishes like baklava or Turkish delight in Turkey, date-filled pastries and cookies in Saudi Arabia and Iraq and bint al sahn (honey cake) in Yemen.”

I am not in the Middle East however. I am in Thailand. No Turkish Delight for me, sadly! But it does feel like I am in another world. I have not seen any Buddhist temples on this island or any churches. It is very much an Islamic society here and it is the most immersed I have ever been with their way of living. And whereas History.com points out that during this time they pray daily and generously share food and even give away money and other necessary items to those in need, I have found that the community here was already doing all this well before the holiday came. Just as I had experienced while passing briefly through a Muslim community in India not too long ago where I was similarly welcomed with enormous generosity, I am coming to learn that, lo and behold, most Muslims aren’t in fact Al Qaeda.

There are good and bad apples in every town. Every religion, every political party, every neighborhood, baseball team and bingo parlor is going to have its fair share of posers and charlatans. The far right has highjacked Christianity in such a way in recent years it is baring a strange resemblance to a jihadist movement at times. The same holds true for certain Buddhist groups in Myanmar. If we aren’t paying enough attention, right eventually becomes left and left eventually becomes right, up goes down, down goes up, outside comes in and vice versa. We humans tend to be a bit forgetful. We are easily distracted and just as easily deceived. If we stay inside our own little bubbles for too long, we start thinking everyone is out to get us, forgetting that ultimately, most of us are looking for the same things; to simply love and to be loved, to be happy and to feel free.

As I walk through lush rice fields dotted with grazing water buffalo with my daughters hand in mine, chatting with happy shepherds who tell me there is no word for “anxiety” in Arabic as they fly kites with their children and we all laugh as they tease me about how worried all the westerners they meet seem to be about every little thing, I can’t help but notice the irony surrounding how similar their definition of freedom is to those who so often fear them. Even with their understandable hesitation to embrace all western ideals, a similar deep faith in something bigger than merely ourselves, a willingness to give something up for the benefit of something greater than what we want, and a simple life dedicated to family, community and what some refer to as “god” seems a reoccurring theme indeed. This was how I too was taught when I was growing up in the church as a kid. Though many in the christian church seem to have wandered far from these basic foundational truths, as have a handful of radical muslims, I wonder, could the core teachings surface again, could we stop striving to be billionaires, to be right, to be so in control of everything and merely, once more, try to do unto others as we would have others do unto us?

Suddenly the call to prayer is sounded, and we all return home for the night.

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Question:

Have you had an experience or feeling that you could barely describe because you knew of no word for it in your native tongue?

#mayallbeingsbehappyandfree