SILENT MUSIC: A Story of Baghdad

On the Sunday of our Flower Ceremony, June 7th,  I sang a song based on Miss Rumphius, a picture book, for our Time for All Ages.  Barbara Cooney wrote and illustrated this classic, about a little girl named Alice Rumphius who was inspired by her grandfather (an artist) to help make the world more beautiful, however she might find the way.  Perhaps you remember that she planted lupin flower seeds so they would bloom all along the coastline of eastern Canada and New England....

For my very last Time for All Ages, on June 14th, I told a story ALSO based on a picture book, SILENT MUSIC:  A Story of Baghdad, written and illustrated by James Rumford.  It’s about a boy named Ali who also was encouraged by his grandfather to make something beautiful -- but Ali was even more inspired by a man who had lived many hundreds of years before them, a man named Yakut, who lived in long-ago Baghdad, in the country we now call Iraq.

Yakut was the most famous calligrapher in the world, someone who knows the art of Calligraphy, or the art of drawing letters, by hand, to make beautiful writing... You know how on a computer, we can print words in different fonts, or styles?  Here is our theme for this month, the word "beauty" -- printed in different fonts: beauty, beauty, beauty.  Imagine being able to do that by hand!  I bet it takes a lot of practice to write so beautifully using a brush or pen and ink!

Here is an example of some framed words about UUism that were drawn by a calligrapher for Diane -- she keeps them in her office:  UUism is faith in people, hope for tomorrow's child, confidence in a continuity that spans all time...

And here is the Hebrew word "Shalom" which means "peace" made into a wall tile by a calligrapher who wrote onto clay and then baked that beauty.  (show tile)

 Like the famous calligrapher Yakut, Ali's family also lived in Baghdad, and they were Muslims, part of one of the great world religions called Islam. Islamic people worship in a Mosque, a holy building that often is built with a tall tower or minaret, (where the leaders can climb up high to call the people to come for prayers or services). Muslims use calligraphy to decorate their mosques and to make their holy book, the Qur'an, look as beautiful as possible.  A page of Arabic writing looks like a page of music.... So calligraphy is an important and beautiful part of Islamic culture....( We have a lot of books that can tell you more about these topics in our R.E. Library.)

After all that introduction, I'm ready to tell you about "Silent Music:  A Story of Baghdad."

Ali loved playing soccer in the dusty street with his friends.  He loved loud, parent-rattling music, and he loved to dance.  But most of all, Ali loved calligraphy!  He loved writing the letters of his language, Arabic, and making them go from right to left across the page.  He loved to make the ink flow from his pen -- starting and stopping, sliding and sweeping, leaping and dancing to the silent music in his head.  He said that writing a long sentence, leaving an ink trail of dots and loops behind him, was like watching soccer players in slow motion as they kick the ball across the field.

Ali practiced and practiced writing Arabic beautifully -- he doodled on napkins and newspapers, on old envelopes and faded receipts --even on the bathroom mirror!  Some words were much easier than others -- his sister's name, Jasmine, flowed from his pen, but his grandfather's name, Mustafa, had too many "loops and tall mast strokes" -- still Ali kept on with his calligraphy

Ali's mother would tease her son, and call him Yakut -- the most famous calligrapher in the world.  800 years before Ali was born, Yakut also practiced writing every day, even inventing new ways of making Arabic letters.  Ali knew Yakut was a genius!  He didn't tell anyone, but Ali thought of Yakut as his secret hero, because Yakut could create such beauty, such silent music....

Ali remembered the legend that in the year 1258 C.E., when the Mongols attacked Baghdad, burning the houses and killing hundreds of people, Yakut fled to a high tower, a minaret, where he created beauty -- he shut out the horror of war and wrote glistening letters of rhythm and grace. People throughout the Middle East still recall this old story....

One night not so very long ago, in 2003, Ali did what Yakut had done.  It was a terrible night, when bombs and missiles fell on modern Baghdad and once again, death and destruction filled the city's streets, so Ali followed Yakut's example -- he wrote...

And wrote...

And WROTE, all night long and during the many nights of bombing that followed, he wrote...and wrote, filling his room with pages of calligraphy, filling his mind with peace...

When the bombing finally stopped, and one war became another, Ali kept writing, kept practicing, the easy words and the hard-to-write ones where the loops tangle or the dots of ink smear. He noticed how easily his pen would glide down the long sweeping hooks of the word HARB, the Arabic word for "war" --  and how stubbornly his pen resisted making the difficult waves and slanted staff of the word SALAM --or "peace." Ali knows he has so much to practice, until the word  SALAM flows freely from his pen, and so he keeps writing, keeps making silent music.

I wonder how each of you will find ways to make our world more beautiful?

And because this is my last Sunday with you as your DRE who loves to tell stories, I wish that each of you will find what you love to do in the world, like Ali and Alice, and practice and practice, keep working at it, keep spreading the seeds, as your lives unfold ...

May it be in beauty.  Salam!