Stress Fracture Points To A Bigger Problem
Shortly after Felicia became officially engaged, I remarked to Barbara, "I don’t know who it will be, but I am predicting a death in the family before the wedding. Sarah may kill Felicia or else she’ll die with a heart attack or stroke, but I don’t see both of them living ‘til the wedding day." Surely, I spoke in jest and relied on exaggeration to make my point, but when it comes to planning a wedding, tempers sometimes flare while sensibilities are tossed in the wind. And, when a strong-willed mother and a strong-willed daughter bump heads, anything can happen. I believe I detected a stress fracture in my sister’s mental health late last week. Barbara and I were in my car and about to back out of the drive as Sarah arrived in her car. Barbara opened her window and invited Sarah to join us. "We’re going to Tupelo to mail the Ridge Riders," she told Sarah. "Would you like to go with us?" "I just came by for a cup of coffee. I’ve got groceries in the back of my car," Sarah shared.
"Tell her we’re not stopping anywhere in Tupelo, except the Post Office,"
I chimed. "We can visit while riding." Normally, when my sister drops in for a visit, she parks directly behind my car and angles her car toward the garage door. But, since Jason was at band practice, we told her to park beside us, where Jason’s truck would normally be. She did and then rode to Tupelo with us. I shared the reason we were taking the newsletters to Tupelo rather than dropping them in the mail in Pontotoc was because even our local mail is sent to Tupelo for processing before being returned to Pontotoc for delivery. In my mind, dropping the newsletters off in Tupelo increased the likelihood some readers would receive their newsletters on Saturday. When we came home, I parked where I most always park. Sarah’s car was to the immediate right of my car, and as Sarah sat on the right side of my car and exited the right rear door, she could not have missed seeing her car. Because Barbara and I have made a habit of keeping the garage’s overhead door closed this winter, as an energy saving measure, the three of us entered the side door of the garage in order to get inside the house. Sarah and Barbara got to talking about something that didn’t interest me, so I went to the living room to watch TV. Sarah may have visited thirty minutes before I heard her exiting the kitchen door. A few moments later, she was back. "My car’s missing," she stated. Immediately, I headed toward the kitchen. "Your car’s missing?" I quizzed. "Are you sure?" "Yes, I’m sure!" Sarah exclaimed in an exasperated tone. "It’s not the other side of mine?" I asked, still believing she had simply overlooked it. "It’s gone," she assured me. "Somebody’s pranking with you," I suggested, without wondering if ‘prank’ has a verb form. "Did you check the circle?" I could tell by her expression she had not. I started toward the front door as did Sarah and Barbara. We looked like ducks, in single file, waddling into the night, along the sidewalk. There was no sign of Sarah’s car in the circle. But, as I rounded the corner of the garage, I clearly saw Sarah’s car, right where she had parked it. "It’s here, Sarah," I reported. Sarah didn’t believe me, until she saw for herself. She had no explanation for her oversight but was elated to find her car. I don’t remember anything else she said, but she talked all the way to her car, and if history repeats itself, I’m sure she talked to herself all the way home. I believe I know exactly what happened. Because Sarah most always parks close to our garage, she walked outside expecting to see her car behind mine. And, with her car parked on the other side of mine, I can see how she might have not noticed it. Toss in the fact that she typically leaves her keys in her car when she drops by our "safe neighborhood," it would be reasonable for her to suspect she had fallen victim to foul play. Only a few days after the missing car incident, I administered a personality test by reading the questions to Sarah and then explaining how to score it. It was a short, multiple-choice quiz with each answer worth between one and six points, and because it was a personality test, there were no wrong answers. Once I supplied the point value for each of the answers, I asked her to add up her score. "I’ll add it on an Excel spreadsheet, if you’ll call out the numbers," I offered, sitting before my laptop PC. "I’m good with addition," Sarah boasted, but agreed to my request before dividing her problem into two parts with two columns of numbers. When we finished, our respective sums were different. Sarah checked her work and declared hers correct. I stuck by my sum, also. "Well, let’s see," she stated confidently, as she orally added the first column correctly. It was on the second column that I heard her mistake in adding 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 1, "Four fours are sixteen and one is fifteen." I could not contain my laughter, "Sixteen and one are fifteen?" "Yes!" By this time Barbara and I were almost rolling in the floor. Half crying with laughter, I managed to tell her that sixteen and one were seventeen. If, in fact, Sarah has experienced a "stress fracture," as I truly suspect, then I can only hope the fracture does not become a fissure or worse.
Sunni vs. Shi’ite Essay By Mark Alexander The historical complexities and theological nuances of the 1,400-year-old rift in Islam make the 600-year division between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, or the contemporary divisions within Protestantism, seem simple by comparison. There is no way a thousand-word essay can say it all. Thus, though I may outline these differences in a nutshell, I'm certain to leave countless other nuts yet to be cracked. Muslims today make up about one person in four, some 1.4 billion altogether. Of these, nearly 90 percent are Sunni; the remaining 10 percent are primarily Shi'ite. Of the world's 52 majority-Muslim states, only five are majority Shi'ite: Iran (90 percent), Azerbaijan (80 percent), Bahrain (70 percent), Iraq (66 percent) and Lebanon (50 percent). With minor exceptions, the rest are majority Sunni. These facts notwithstanding, Shi'ite Muslims exert an influence in the Muslim world and beyond that transcends their comparatively meager numbers. As both friend and foe, Shi'ite Iraq has been a focal point of U.S. foreign policy for at least three decades. Iran's enormous oil wealth, hard-line theocracy and pursuit of nuclear weapons continue to pose problems for the Middle East and the West. Azerbaijan's post-Soviet dictatorship not only enjoys enormous oil and natural-gas wealth, but also functions as an unavoidable corridor for oil transport between Russia, Central Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Bahrain hosts a key U.S. naval base and enjoys a reputation as a strong and growing world financial hub. Lebanon, once the Westernized gem of the Middle East, is now plagued by Hizballah and Syrian interference but continues to hold a pivotal role regarding Israeli security and regional democratization. For better or for worse, the Shi'ites cannot be ignored. Two prevailing issues lend urgency to our understanding of these, the two great sects of Islam. First, as Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein demonstrated in a series of biting reports over the past several years, even the most senior and seasoned U.S. legislative, foreign-policy, intelligence and law-enforcement leaders have next to no understanding of the differences between Sunnis and Shi'ites, what countries are dominated by which sect, or why it matters. Second, as is so readily apparent in Iraq today, Sunnis and Shi'ites have little compunction when it comes to slaughtering each other. This is because each considers the other heretical -- that is, outside the oma or community of true Islam. Across the entire Muslim world, it's dangerously naïve to think that the differences between Sunnism and Shi'ism are all that matter; in fact, it's far more complicated. Yet given that these differences do matter, what are they? It is no small detail that the rift between Sunnis and Shi'ites dates to the death of Muhammad, Islam's founder. Shortly before his own death in 632 AD, Muhammad's last surviving son, Ibrahim, also died. By this time, Islam was already tightly woven into a religious and political community led by a man who was at once both a religious and political leader. In the absence of an heir apparent, the question of succession -- who would lead Islam after Muhammad -- quickly engulfed this nascent but powerful Islamic oma. The term Sunni comes from the Arabic word sunna, which roughly translates as "example," indicating those who follow the example of Muhammad. Sunnis refer to themselves properly as Ahlus Sunnah wal-Jamaa'h, roughly "the people of the example [of Muhammad] and the community." The name is meant to connote their own claim as the heirs of "orthodox" Islam and as the majority among competing Muslim sects. The name was chosen because Sunnis believed themselves to be following the example of Muhammad in several key respects. Muhammad, they say, did not designate a successor or dictate a procedure for selecting one. Also, Muhammad's claim to prophethood was unique -- his successor would be a leader of the community, not another prophet. Finally, what was clear was that Islam should remain united under one individual -- a leader of the oma, a military commander and the final arbiter of disputes within the community and interpreter of its law. Implicit in these assertions was the belief that Islam's leader need not come from a particular family, clan or tribe. Consequently, Abu Bakr, one of Muhammad's inner circle and among the first converts to the new religion, became Islam's first leader, or caliph. Serving as caliph from 632 to his death two years later, Abu Bakr was the first of whom Sunnis recognized as the four "Rightly Guided Caliphs." Before his death, Abu Bakr named another of Muhammad's inner circle, Umar, as his successor. Umar ruled as caliph to his death in 644, during which time he created a sort of electoral college to choose future successors. This group chose Uthman as Islam's third caliph (644-656), followed by Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law and cousin, who held the title until his death in 661. The caliphate continued after Ali but was marked by increasing political disunity and corruption through several dynasties, causing Muslims to look back on the era of its first four caliphs as the "Golden Age" of Islam. Golden to the Sunnis, that is. The Shi'ite minority, by contrast, considered Ali as the rightful heir of Islam, designated as such by Muhammad himself. The intervening three leaders -- Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman -- were, therefore, illegitimate. They stole Ali's position from him, Shi'ites say, despite all three having been present when Muhammad allegedly designated Ali as his successor at the oasis of Ghadir al-Khumm. For the Shi'ites, Ali was no mere caliph; to them, he enjoyed a similar -- but not identical -- prophetic status as Muhammad before him. Whereas Muhammad received revelation from Allah (wayh), Ali and his successors received divine inspiration (ilham) allowing them to guide and judge Islam sinlessly, both spiritually and politically. Thus, for Shi'ites -- also called Shi'a Ali, the "party of Ali" -- Ali is the first imam, the leader of the oma descended from Muhammad. To them, the Imamate, not the Caliphate, is the rightful ruler of Islam. In 874, Muhammad al-Qa'im became the twelfth imam at the age of six, and the end of Muhammad's line. Shi'ites claim that for the next 67 years he existed in a state of "lesser occultation," where he was directly accessible to his followers, followed by an inaccessible "greater occultation" which will continue until the Last Days. When this "Hidden Imam" is again revealed, he will initiate an apocalyptic struggle against the foes of Islam, hailing the end of the world. In the meantime, the rule of Islam resides in the ayatollahs, the "sign of Allah," who act in the name of the Hidden Imam. In the lead up to the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeini never directly claimed to be this Hidden Imam, but his followers propagated the idea in order to legitimize Khomeini's claim against the secular government of the pro-Western Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, and to consolidate power after the Shah's exile. Today, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad purports to be making preparations for the Imam's second coming, which he believes to be close at hand. While Ahmadi-Nejad is doubtless a true believer, this claim may be intended to buttress the hard-line theocracy's often-tenuous rule in Iran, as well as helping mobilize fellow Shi'ites across the border in Iraq. There, Shi'ite-Sunni relations will be at the heart of conciliation or disintegration -- whichever may occur. Indeed, religious, ethnic and tribal divides define four conflicts being simultaneously waged in Iraq today: Shi'ite on Shi'ite violence in the south; Shi'ite-Sunni sectarian violence in Baghdad; Ba'athist-inspired violence against the government; and al-Qa'ida/jihadist violence against anti-Western Shi'ites and the pro-U.S., Shi'ite-dominated government. While religious violence is not the exclusive cause of the violence in Iraq, without it the conflict would be greatly simplified and far more manageable. As it is, working to quell one of Iraq's conflicts often has the result of inflaming another. It may be an oversimplification to say so, but a Vatican II-styled resolution between Sunnis and Shi'ites may be just what the Muslim world -- and the rest of the world -- needs most. From: Patriot Post Vol. 07 No. 07; Published 16 February 2007
Bodock Beau It was brought to our attention that the colorful anecdote we shared in this space was an infringement of copyright. The material was removed from our site on January 25, 2008. <The Editor>
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Stress fracture is a term that applies to a
hairline crack in a bone, usually one of the weight-bearing bones in the
legs, but I’m of the opinion that the term lends itself to other usage.
Engineers are able to determine the amount of stress or load a construction
beam can bear without breaking. Psychologists recognize the symptoms of mental
stress and recommend solutions to prevent stress from contributing to a nervous
breakdown, and it is within this context that I believe "stress fracture"
is applicable in describing someone about to reach the breaking point.
