Epiphany on the Central Line

Do you ever find yourself assessing people on the Tube? Yestarday I was standing in a crammed carriage and found myself unconsiously passing the time by inspecting my fellow passangers. It's the shallowest kind of judgement, deciding whether someone looks interesting or attractive based on a few seconds glance in a sweaty train. Most of the people around me looked depressing, ugly and smelly (as I'm sure I appeared to them). No one's at their best on the Tube, but some people look particularly repelant (and other passangers edge away from them, not wanting to be squeezed up with against an Arsenal supporter reeking of lager or an obesse American tourist) while once every few days, among the thousands of people one passes, there is the flash of an angelic face, seemingly untainted by the London grime, which causes one to gasp and almost miss a stop.

Then it struck me. Looking around at all those depressing and ugly faces of my fellow commuters - God loves them.

Not in some sort of general philosophical way (love is an attribute of the divine nature) but in an intense and individual way. Mel Gibson's controversial new film The Passion covers the most extreme expression of this love - that God "became nothing, taking the very nature of a servant" and chose to bear immense suffering to wipe away our sins. But God's love is also revealed in more tender ways. The Bible says that he counts the numbers of hairs on each of our heads (the sort of thing lovers might do as they are wrapped in each other's embrace) and that he even sings love songs about us! [Phil.2.7, Matt.10.30 and Zeph.3.17]

I've known this all for many years, but occassionally it strikes me at a particular moment in a profound way. And that's what happened yestarday on the Central line between Oxford Circus and Bond Street!

I've just watched the DVD of "Bruce Almighty" the rather mediocre Jim Carrey film in which a very self-centred TV reporter is given God's power for a week. The film is not very theologically sound of course, but I rather like Morgan Freeman's representation of God as a wise-cracking cleaner. It captures two characteristics of God - the way he humbles himself in order to relate to humans and the deep love he has even for Carrey's spoilt and irritating character.

Nonviolent muslims and Bollywood stars

I'm reading a really inspiring book "Nonviolent Soldier of Islam" about Badshah Khan, Ghandi's contemporary in the North Western Frontier province (now the Afghan/Pakistan border). He transformed a hundred thousand Pathans, renowned for their blood feuds and fierceness as warriors, into a nonviolent satyagraha force (the Khudai Khimatgars = "Servants of God") who contributed a great deal to the end of the British Raj. Here is a quote:

"There is nothing surprising in a Muslim or a Pathan like me subscribing to the creed of nonviolence. It is not a new creed. It was followed 1400 years ago by the Prophet all the time he was in Mecca, and it has since been followed by all those who wanted to throw of an oppressor's yoke."

It would be wonderful if this example of effective Islamic nonviolent resistance could inspire people in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. If anyone has any ideas on how to go about doing this then please do get in touch.

Lots happening with Jubilee Iraq over then next fortnight: A demonstration in Geneva against the reparations Iraq is paying, a conference on Saddam's odious debt in Berlin hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and then a meeting in Vienna with Austrian MPs. Alongside this I'm writing articles, putting together a report for Iraqi politicians, failing to control my bursting inbox... as well as doing my day job and trying to keep some contact with my friends and family.

Just discovered that a friend from university, Soha Ali Khan, has become a rising star of the Bollywood film industry! She has two (!) films under production and when I Googled for her I found over a thousand articles, mainly from the last few months, in english alone! Her forthcoming films are "Yeh Dil Maange More" and "Mohabbat Ki Kii Kiii" which is apparently a "breezy romantic comedy depicting three phases of love directed by Ananth Narayan". Here's an early interview and a more recent one. Here are some photos. Also turns out one of the stars of my favourite Bollywood fic Dil Chahta Hai is Soha's brother Saif.

I wonder which of our Balliol colleagues will be next on the big screen? Will Adi McGowan quit his job as a Vice-President at Deutsche Bank and become the next James Bond? Will Mike Follett soon eclipse Hugh Grant in trans-Atlantic romantic comedies? What about John Riordan in Dennis Hoper style bad-guy roles? All of this will be meaningless of course to most of the readers of this blog.