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The tragedy of a dictatorship is that they so eviscerate their countries that, even after they are gone, it’s hard for people to pick up the pieces and move forward. But I am hopeful in seeing the banner of the pre-Qaddafi monarchy rooted in the Sufi orders that led the resistance to colonialism.

“People always leaving just as other folks arrive.” That is the line that suddenly came to mind when I learned that Father Matthew Kelty left this world peacefully at noon on Friday last. This is a great loss to those of us newly, and not-so-newly, arrived, and I wanted to try to explain why I think this is so. This remarkable monk spent fifty off-and-on years at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, where he was the last confessor that Thomas Merton ever had; and if that wasn’t enough to warrant further discussion, he was also a gay priest who came out in one of his most eloquent essays at the ripe old age of ninety. We will not soon see the likes of such monks again.

I, like many others, have found myself unable to turn away from the Arab revolutions. As a strong believer in the egalitarian nature of the Muslim religion, and a fervent critic of common assumptions that are held about Arabs and Muslims, these revelations were a welcome confirmation of my…

Along comes Jersey Shore with its cast of self-described Italians. These are not the magical white folks of world-conquering, democracy-building myth-but they’re still “white”. They behave like the Museum assumes only people of my color behaved. The sum total of their television life is a kind of late-capitalist tragic anthropology: doing laundry to go to parties, in order to have sex. For me, it’s been tremendously liberating to know that people of my color and faith are not the only people who are embarrassing to watch on television.

According to Vatican representative Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, ending discrimination against gays, lesbians, and transgender persons would make those who oppose such human rights the real victims.

A consciousness change is happening in Syria, a country of twenty-three million that has been brutalized under Martial Law since 1963. My parents left in 1971 with their children, including me, because the repression of civil liberties had already become intolerable. The sense of helpless terror became so ingrained among Syrians that relatives who remained in Syria spoke only in hushed tones and coded words about the brutality of the state—even, incredibly, when they were visiting us in our suburban U.S. home, miles from the reach of any Syrian state police agent.

It is easy to blame the war machine or the pornography industry, but the more mundane problem is with our addiction to visual thrills. What some people see as a lack of moral vision (watching a porn video, for example) is perhaps better approached as an amoral astigmatism, a lazy eye, a privileging of the visual over our other evolved senses. The thrill of watching may mingle with compassion for those being harmed, but unless you as a viewer do something to actually alleviate that suffering, you are only a voyeuristic addict, entranced by the power of the gaze.

The assassination of Osama bin Laden has revived the so-called torture debate. Even if it did help in his capture (which it didn’t), torture is still wrong.

The number of those who believe that rape survivors should have to carry a pregnancy to term is rising, though scrutiny of the position reveals it to be cruel and extremist.

I have no desire to set off fireworks, jump into a car and yell out the window while waving fists and flags. If I were in New York City, I would light a candle at the memorial and keep vigil. In San Francisco, I pray in a room lit only by a streetlamp, filled with sadness for those who have died in America, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and apprehension at the terrorism-related deaths to come. Our work as Americans and Muslims is far from done.