I was sitting in my living room the other day, doing nothing in particular, just thinking and staring away, when I noticed that my flip flops were upside down. I immediately went to them and returned them back to their normal position. Thought about this for a second, and realized why I did this.
It was one of those things that stays with you from your childhood: we were taught never to leave flip flops or shoes upside down. And why is that? Because it would be disrespectful to God. You shouldn’t put the sole of your shoes heading upwards towards our Lord in the skies! What absolute rubbish. Then I remembered that how as a kid, I was obsessed with keeping all the shoes, sandals, and flip flops of the household in their God-respecting positions. And to think that such a thing goes around spreading between people and people taking the time and effort to implement such a thing. As if God had nothing better to do than sit there getting offended from the soles of flip flops facing him around the world.
It got me to thinking about other bullshit that you’re told as a kid and how you take it and believe it then. I remembered that we had this nanny that would tell us that God came and gave a choice to Muslims and Christians: The choice was between faith and beauty. Muslims (naturally) choose faith, and Christians chose beauty. And that is why (she explained) most Christians are beautiful. But not to worry, because it will all be sorted out in the after life, where we will go to heaven, and get rewarded for putting up with our ugliness. Not to worry at all. Thank God our parents corrected this crap when we told them about it.
Indoctrination is such a powerful tool. Once you imprint something in the impressionable mind of an innocent child, it will most likely stay there forever. This is something that’s always s in the back of my head when dealing with my child.
9 comments:
Nice post, I also grew up with the flipped over flip-flops, shoes, ... etc. and I still carry it around.
My younger brother used to freak out everytime he swallowed a watermelon seed and I think that was cuz our nanny used to warn him "don't eat the seeds, you don't want to grow trees in your tummies do u?"
People used to criticize me for not saying ما شاء الله و تبارك الله الخ all the time every time I gave somebody a compliment.
"I was obsessed with keeping all the shoes, sandals, and flip flops of the household in their God-respecting positions"
hehe...hilarious!
I remember my mom telling me the same when I was young.
I still do it, thankfully don't have a problem with my fiance regarding that, had trouble with my ex'es, when i tried to tell them that it's "disrespectful to god" they looked at me as if i'm some kind of alien. Some of them didn't even believe in God. Go figure.
Good one... Someone once told me: "How could you believe in God and never say: Insha Allah". made me laugh out loud
I think we can all relate. I'm still trying to convince my mother that you don't catch a cold from being out in the cold.
Done the flip-flop thing, but never heard the Christian/Muslim story! That's a riot!
I never knew about the whole Muslim/Christian tension till I moved back to Egypt when I was a teenager. I was quite young when we left Egypt and had TONS of Egyptian friends here in the US who all happened to be Christian. It never occurred to me that we were "different" or that there was any kind of reason for tension to exist. It was only when I moved to Egypt for college that I was exposed to all this, which made me quite sad to be honest with you...
The things we do out of being conditioned, makes me cringe at myself. Nowadays i leave them the wrong side up on purpose...
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