A Third Meeting with Khidr, Part 2

“Sounds just like you are putting some distance between yourself and them.  I mean, you got some sort of problem with
 the Muslims?” I says.  Khidr looks away, dark. 

“A great tragedy,” says Khidr.  “An elevated and noble tradition that has given itself over to childish expressions of its
 nature.  I weep.” 

And damn, if he really didn’t start crying, into his hands.  It was kind of embarrassing.  It went on and on.  He soaked up
 his tears using the collars of his shirt.  Everyone was looking. 

“Jesus,” I says to him quietly.  “Buck up, man.” 

“Pig,” he says to me really hot, like he more than meant it. 

“Alright, alright,” I says to him, and turn away, to give him some time, you know, and so I give the current dancer a
 couple of dollars US.  Nice smile, good eyes. 

“Well, I am at least glad,” I say, “that you have come down on the side of the US, in this whole clash of cultures thing.  I
 had kind of figured you for a Muslim sympathesizer, truth be told.” 

“On the side of the US?  On the side of the US?  (he was kind of shouting) Don’t be an idiot.  The Muslims are children
 because they have regressed.  The Americans are children because they have never grown up.  It is children battling
 children.  How is that not grotesque?”  And he starts crying again, in a sob. 

I’m embarrassed to be embarrassed, but it’s just embarrassing. 

“Why don’t we go back away from the stage,” I say.  “Back over into the private dark over there?” 

We take our drinks and head back to a table back far away from the stage. 

When we were seated, I say to him: “You said to me once that this matter between the west and the east wouldn’t be
 settled in my lifetime, and I’ve come to believe that.  But what, exactly, is it that needs to happen over that time?  I mean,
 what’s driving it?” 

“What’s driving it?  What’s driving it?  Well, the West, she has something of the Spirit, that Islam does not have, and Islam,
 after all, hates to be found wanting…   And Islam, she has something of the Spirit that the West understands not all; and
 only even now, it is only barely suspecting that it is missing something… “ 

“There is something young and true in western spirituality,” he says, “that Islam does not recognize, and needs; and there
 is a direct perception of the divine that is a commonplace in Islam, that the west is yet to recognize, and needs.  This
 crushing-together is a mercy.” 

“A mercy?  You kidding me?” 

“All is mercy,” says Khidr. 

I thought a moment. “Good luck proving that,” says I. 

“An enormously painful mercy, this one,” says Khidr, reflecting.  “But proof?  Only proof is proof, and time, much time
 for that.   The better world to emerge, after prolonged error.”