Lunch with a Muslim

Im writing this a little bit earlier than I normal do. I was invited to the closing night party at Aqua Fuego. My friend Sidd is moving his club to a new venue. So since we have our “Funniest Person” contest there, I thought I should attend. I told Sidd, its funny that we’re friends, because I hate clubs. For a number of reasons. The club (in general) is one of the places where my marriage was destroyed. So I don’t like that environment. Plus I don’t drink, smoke, and can’t dance a lick. So Im kind of like a Muslim in a pork butcher shop there…or a diabetic in a candy store. I just don’t fit in. But I want to be a support.

I stayed up late…really late chatting with friends in the U.S. last night. I didn’t get to sleep til 5a. It’s the weekend, so I didn’t mind. But imagine my surprise when I woke up at 2pm. What.!!!!! That was kind of surreal for me. So I hopped out of bed answered a couple of emails, and made it to my kayak. It was really dusty today, so visibility was only about 40-50 feet. I didn’t want to go out too far, because im a little kayak and there are sometimes speedboats that might not be paying attention. So I stayed closer to the shore. I had to rush back to get to an appointment/lunch I had with a man by the name of Isa. Isa somehow happened upon my blog and wanted to talk to me about certain tenents of my faith. He posted a couple of comments on my blog. So I thought it would be more effective to communicate on a face to face basis.

So Isa is of Persian heritage and grew up in Bahrain. I think he wanted to challenge me on some aspects of my faith…and that is fine. I love to talk about politics, religion all the stuff you aren’t supposed to talk about. What was amazing about my lunch with Isa is that we both left encouraged. He had certain pre-conceived ideas about Christianity and Americans, and I think I helped dispel that. I really respect Isa, who is a devout Muslim because he is so passionate about his faith. He is articulate and very intelligent. But what made me really respect him, he was so interested and understanding of my background. I told him my entire story, the Hollywood years, the missionary journeys, the divorce, the rebuilding, the kids…everything even all my flaws. He was quite surprised how candid and open I was about my faith/life. I told him that it was part of my ministry. Im so open in the blog and with others about all my fears, faith, and failures. I think one of the tragedies in life is isolationism. If we think we are all alone and that no one can relate to us, we won’t have the strength nor the encouragement we need to rebuild. I have mentioned previously in my blog, about my failures in life and marriage. One of the big things that I had to deal with in life…was my pornography/sex addiction that I had in the late 90’s primarily but has briefly reared its head in other times of my life. I try not to go into too much detail about it, because I don’t know who might be reading this blog, and I don’t want to give X and new hubby more legal ammunition to go after. She has used some of my public admissions of guilt against me in the past. So Im trying to be open…but not too open. When I was in the throes of my addiction, I thought I was all alone, a freak, a weak person. The church didn’t talk about it, I didn’t know where I could go for help. I was isolated. Which is one of the strategies of the enemy to divide and conquer to make you feel like you are all alone. So I wish I would have somebody to talk with about it. So now, I tell most everyone I meet about my struggles. To hopefully let people know they are not alone. So if you are out there and reading this and can relate to the thought of feeling alone, please feel free to email me me confidentially rickbeeman@mac.com If you’d like to talk about it. I promise I won’t blog about it. My good friend Jim, the men’s ministry pastor at Lakewood told me that 70% of the guys that come into church on a weekly basis, have looked at pornography in the last 3 weeks. That is a sobering statistic. So If I can help fight against that, I will. Pornography is just a big lie. It had an impact in the destruction of my marriage, and if I can help save other people’s marriages…im all for that.

So I told Isa all this. I think he was surprised at my candor and openness. I think he was expecting an intellectual debate on the Christianity vs. Islam and all the contradictions that he sees within Christianity. Instead he saw a man who is absolutely in love with God. Whether that God’s name is Jehovah or Allah, he respected my beliefs as I respected his. Because of the passions of our convictions, I think I made a very good new friend. He had to leave after our two hour conversation to allow him enough time to make his 6:30 prayer time. I respect the discipline in that too. I wish Christians would take the time to stop and pray five times a day. It would do us all a lot of good. I invited Isa to our positive living group. I think he’s going to come. It was a very good day…and I still have to go to the club later.