I came across this excerpt of Growing Up bin Laden: Osama’s Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World written by Bin Laden's first wife and one of their sons. There were a few segments in this brief excerpt that stood out to me.
Since the time I could observe and reason, I have mainly known my father to be composed, no matter what might be happening. That’s because he believes that everything of earthly life is in the hands of God. It is difficult, therefore, for me to imagine that he became so excited when my mother told him I was about to be born that he momentarily misplaced his keys.
After a frantic search, I’m told he settled my mother hastily in the car before spinning off at a reckless speed. Luckily he had recently purchased a new automobile, the latest Mercedes, because on that day he tested all its working parts. I’ve been told it was golden in color, something so beautiful that I imagine the vehicle as a golden carriage tearing through the wide palm-tree-lined boulevards of Jeddah, Saudia Arabia.
Never did I hear my father raise his voice in anger to my mother. He always seemed very satisfied with her. In fact, when I was very small, there were times that he and my mother secluded themselves in their bedroom, not to be seen by the family for several days, so I know that my father enjoyed my mother’s company.
This one stood out to me because of how I've reacted to such reports from church leaders about their own spouses. It's difficult for me to imagine a man never raising his voice. Now take a man that we've painted to be the very embodiment of evil, rivaled perhaps only by Adolf Hitler (level of evil may itself be only a matter of legend) and imagine him never raising his voice in anger to his wife.
You might have guessed by now that my father was not an affectionate man. He never cuddled with me or my brothers. I tried to force him to show affection, and was told that I made a pest of myself. When he was home, I remained near, pulling attention-gaining pranks as frequently as I dared. Nothing sparked his fatherly warmth. In fact, my annoying behavior encouraged him to start carrying his signature cane. As time passed, he began caning me and my brothers for the slightest infraction.
Thankfully, my father had a different attitude when it came to the females in our family. I never heard him shout at his mother, his sisters, my mother, or my sisters. I never saw him strike a woman. He reserved all the harsh treatment for his sons.
My father relented when it came to football—or soccer, as Americas call it. When he brought a ball home, I remember the shock of seeing him smile sweetly when he saw how excited his sons became at the sight of it. He confessed that he had a fondness for playing soccer and would participate in the sport when he had time.
So he wasn't gentle with everyone, and was notably harsh on his sons. Somehow, at least to me, these last two passages are especially poignant indicators that he had all of the complexities of humanity that we are familiar with. Harsh and demanding of his sons, gentle with the women in his life. Yet unable to resist the joy of seeing his sons excited to play soccer. Even for Osama, some things are just too good to pass up.
I wrote the other day (or was it yesterday) that I couldn't help but feel that he was more human than we let on. I think I found my confirmation. He was human, and he was complex, and he was more like us than I imagine most people are willing to admit. It's a lot easier to stomach and celebrate the death of a person when we convince ourselves of his uni-dimensional wickedness.
I contemplated these things as I walked to scouts last night, wondering how a man can become what he became. How did he go from the well respected and liked human calculator to the man with a $25 million bounty? What I ultimately settled on (admittedly, without any evidence) is that he chose to blame all the world's problems on one thing and obsessed over it. He entered a rabbit hole and kept sliding down, never taking off the blinders to see the nuance and complexity of human existence. The solution to every problem was adherence to his particular brand and interpretation of religion. Once far enough into the rabbit hole, it's hard to get out.
Then it really hit me--I'm not that much different. I haven't written much on this blog, but if you've ever talked to me about religion and the church, you're probably familiar with my accusations that the church culture is a barrier to progress in the church and for its members. Anytime I find something I don't like about how the church or my congregation functions, I blame it on the church culture. In my opinion, it was church culture that would destroy the church if its ridiculous traditions weren't broken.
Talk about a wake up call. I was reminded of something as I walked: there's only one thing that can destroy the church. And that one thing is the failure of its members to recognize and accept the healing power of the Atonement of Christ in their lives.
Time for me to come up out of my rabbit hole.
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