12/10/08

Punk Rock Islam


The Koran, punk rock and lots of questions.
By Erika Hayasaki
November 19, 2008, LA Times

This much Hiba Siddiqui knows: She is a Muslim teenager living in America. But what does that mean for her?
Cool feature in the LA times about modern Muslim American teens and the Muslim punk subculture. Mentions of Muslim punk rock and Michael Muhammad Knight's novel The Taqwacores about a group of punk Muslim friends.

Spiritually Significant Movies

Looking for more spiritually significant movies?
Check out the Top 100 Spiritually Significant Movies.

In the Not-So-Distant Future

1. Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler

This dystopian tale set in Los Angeles in 2025 centers around Lauren Olamina, a young black woman who flees her community to seek a better life. Lauren suffers from hyperempathy (she feels the pain of others as if it were her own), but dreams of a better world through her religion, Earthseed.





2. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess


Told in a futuristic slang similar to Russian, this is the dystopian tale of Alex, a juvenile delinquent who thrives on Beethoven and violence. When Alex undergoes psychological rehabilitation for his behavior, the reader is forced to consider the nature of free will.








3. The Adoration of Jenna Fox, by Mary Pearson


When Jenna Fox wakes up from a coma, she has zero memory of the past seventeen years of her life. As she slowly unravels the mystery of her identity, Jenna must come to terms with what it means to be human in an age where science rules.







4. The Brief History of the Dead, by Kevin Brockmeier



A deadly virus has killed everyone on Earth, except for Laura Byrd, a wildlife specialist who has been isolated on an expedition to the South Pole. Meanwhile, the newly dead populate “the City”, an earthlike afterworld, where their existence depends on the memories of the living—in other words, on Laura.

New Takes on the Old Book

Looking for movies that deal with Christianity in new or surprising ways?
Here's a list:

1. Dogma
Two fallen angels find a loophole in the church dogma that may allow them back into heaven. Irreverant and sometimes disgusting, always funny. Alanis Morrisette plays God and Chris Rock is the 13th Apostle!

2. The Last Temptation of Christ
A new take on the man who represents the struggle between the spirit and the flesh. Stars Willem Dafoe (Jesus), Barbara Hershey (Mary Magdalene), Harvey Keitel (Judas) and David Bowie (Pontius Pilate)

3. The Decalogue
Originally made for Polish TV, each episode revolves around one of the Ten Commandments and the lives of people in a Warsaw apartment complex.

4. The Life of Brian
The Monty Python movie that is often considered blasphemous and sacrilegious, this is the tale of Brian, a nobody in Jerusalem who seems a lot like Jesus.

5. Saved!
Mary is a good girl at a Christian school. When her boyfriend tells her he thinks he's gay, she decides to save him by having sex with him. You can't get pregnant your first time, right? What follows is a funny, punchy, smart story of Mary and the misfits that surround her.

Donnie Darko must be going insane. Why else would he be friends with Frank, a giant, sinister Bunny who says the world will end in 28 days?
Enter the strange, dark world of a teenager who nearly escapes death when a plan crashes into his home, who is interested in time travel, and discover the gateways between past and present, between life and death.

Like the paranoia and end-of-the-world feeling of Donnie Darko?
Try reading Don DeLillo's White Noise.

Defending Your Life

A lighter look at the afterlife.
Defending Your Life is the tale of a man who dies in a car accident and finds himself in Judgement City, the purgatory where the fate of souls are determined.
When Daniel falls in love with a perfect woman sure to get to heaven, he is more determined than ever to get to heaven too.
Watch a clip!

Books About Death and Afterlife


1. Blind Faith, by Ellen Wittlinger




After Liz’s grandmother dies, her mother becomes deeply depressed and finds solace only at her spiritualist church, whose members claim to communicate with the dead.
Liz’s atheist father disapproves, and Liz is caught in the middle. When Liz meets Nathan, she begins to deal with her complicated feelings about loss, love and faith.


2. Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin


Liz is only fifteen when she gets hit and killed by a car. She ends up in Elsewhere, a land where the deceased age backwards until they are born. Initially furious, Liz soon begins to accept her afterlife and even finds joy.




3. Restless, Richard Wallace


Seventeen-year-old Herbie is a great athlete and is getting geared-up to do both football and cross-country in the fall. But while out running one night, Herbie begins to sense that he is not alone. Eventually, Herbie meets and communicates with spirits who are between worlds and who are searching for answers about life, death, and how to move on.


4. Bone Dance, by Martha Brooks

When Alexandra inherits land from the father she has never met, she is surprised and even resentful. When she goes to Medicine Bluff, she meets Lonny,
the stepson of the man who sold the land to her father. Lonny wants to hate Alexandran, the “city girl”, but finds himself drawn to her in this story of love, loss, redemption, and deep spiritual connections with the Earth.