Perspective: Another Mosque defaced, another defiant act of grace | Colleen O'Brien

Grace is difficult and it takes work, but I know it when I see it. One of my good friends back in Spokane, Kalae, is the epitome of grace and I marvel at the ease with which she handles it.

Times of Ahmad | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: My Northwest
By Colleen O'Brien | September 20, 2017

Last week, vandals spray painted a mosque with hateful graffiti. It’s an unfortunate story that is playing out all across the nation.

I got an email from one of the congregation’s leaders, Alam Ali:

“Earlier this week the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Seattle chapter hosted the Muslims for Life blood drive to honor the nearly 3,000 victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Today we arrived at our mosque to find it vandalized with offensive graffiti.

We are responding to this assault with an invitation to peace and dialogue. The past two years have seen an unprecedented spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes, mosque vandalisms, and mosque attacks. We invite your participation in this peace building endeavor as a show of solidarity, friendship, and unity against intolerance and hate.”

They want to talk.

In recent years I’ve been having a conversation with myself about having or showing more grace. I’m certain that’s what this mosque is showing in this situation. But I’m still searching for what that means for me. I wish it was something I could bottle and then soak myself with when life throws me a conundrum. That would be too easy. Grace is difficult and it takes work, but I know it when I see it. One of my good friends back in Spokane, Kalae, is the epitome of grace and I marvel at the ease with which she handles it.

Go ahead and Google stories about mosques being vandalized with heinous, hateful words and tell me the members of those congregations aren’t also exemplifying grace. That they would swallow their hurt and invite a person who told them to die into their home? It takes my breath away.

It reminded me of a great podcast I was introduced to by my colleague Mike Lewis. It’s called The Daily and it’s a short burst of news hosted by Michael Barbaro. He focuses on one topic, one person, or one event and takes a deep dive with fellow New York Times journalists who serve as the experts.

With this newly found podcast at my disposal, and finding myself home alone the other weekend (a rare event as fellow parents know), I decided to binge The Daily while cleaning (I live a wild life). I was listening to the episode from Aug. 30 about a poor, white teenager in Fort Smith, Arkansas who, on a drunken night, vandalized his town’s local mosque with a couple of friends. I was excited to listen because it was the companion audio to the story I had read in the paper four days prior. By the end of the podcast I was on my knees sobbing. I believe that was the work of grace.

By the way, the local mosque got a surprise gift from a member of the Monroe community. The person, who wanted to remain anonymous, matched the gray paint of the food bank to cover the graffiti.

You can hear Colleen O’Brien’s “Daily Dose of Kindness” segment every morning at 7:30 a.m. on KIRO Radio 97.3 FM.


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