Averroes

Averroes Originally uploaded by Sibad.

I think of Averroes, and the Islamic thinkers who helped found modern medicine and who, centuries ago, strove to bring wise secularism to Europe's murderous theocracies. Thank goodness I have so many Muslim neighbours, so many teachers, friends and students who offer me and my family nothing but kindness and respect and who'd never be so ill-mannered as to insinuate their faith on me. Then I know the courageous conversation of Averroes and his contemporaries lives on Democracy Street. (see this analysis of Islam's modern dilemmas)

' ... doing little things with great love

E-mail from me to someone with a group on Flickr called 'hum drum town': I think your interest in the ordinary is extraordinary. I've been involved with local government all my career. It's focus is on the hum drum in people's lives - tho' of course there are dramas too. My blog is called 'waging peace'. It's about the ordinary things people and government's do - or don't do - to maintain civility and safety and peace. Among fire officers it's as much about preventing fires through monitoring and regulation as it is about bravely and efficiently putting them out. I'm interested in mundane tasks that keep the peace. When Hanna Arendt wrote in 1963 (I read her book Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1969) that Adolf Eichmann personified the 'banality of evil', it occurred to me that could be reversed. Best wishes Simon Reply: My father is involved in local government as well - so I guess from a young age I've been exposed to arguments from the Planning Commission regarding zoning, and building, etc. Waging peace makes a lot of sense to me. The small and the ordinary that comes into play here. Think of how much depends on people behaving in a civil manner. Big problems occur when we stop paying attention to small or ordinary things. Or maybe I'm just making excuses for myself. :-) I'm not really a 'big picture' kind of person. I just find that it makes more sense to 'think small' and to do little things with great love, if that makes any sense. Cheers & Best wishes, N