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If Sarah Palin can have a ghost-writer, dang it…

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Announcements on Nov 26, 2009

With this post, I’m inaugurating a unique feature on my blog. I call it, “Notes From My Next Book.”

My next book will be a leadership guide for a new generation of progressives. By “progressives,” I don’t mean left-wingers or right-wingers. I mean those of us — those hundreds of millions of us worldwide — who believe that progress comes from the moral courage to be honest about all that we are, since that’s when we replace lying with living.

Building on the success of The Trouble with Islam Today, I’ll show that the mission of reform-minded Muslims contains leadership lessons for anybody who hungers to make positive change inside his or her community.

* Are you desperate to marry the love of your life, who’s not from your faith tradition, but who deserves a chance from your ultra-traditional parents?

* Are you a Christian who’s sick of the prosperity preachers reducing faith to net worth, and wants to do more than complain about it?

* Are you an atheist who’s disgusted by the intolerant scientific supremacy of Richard Dawkins and his ilk, and is equally disgusted by your continued silence about his missionary atheism?

* Are you a Jew busting to call out the hypocrites who coo about Israel’s democracy but won’t let secular Jewish women in Israel get proper divorces?

* Are you an African-American girl who craves to shout from the mountaintop, “Why is it that when a white man calls me a nappy-headed ho, he’s racist but when my Black brothers pull the same shit, they’re entertainers?!”

* Are you a money manager interested in learning how to convince Wall Street that free-market fundamentalism only corrupts the capitalist project?

* Are you a reporter troubled by your boss’s refusal to hold certain ethnic, cultural, or religious leaders accountable in order to avoid offending and losing ad dollars?

* Are you a European (or Aussie, or Kiwi, or Canuck, or Yank) whose conscience screams when you hear about the latest stoning in Somalia yet screams even louder when you’re told that “it’s none of our business because we’ve done enough harm to Third World people”?

* Are you a closeted Muslim reformer dying to emerge from the shadow of fear so you can finally speak your truth and be one with Allah?

Then my next book is for you. All of you.

Non-conformity invites backlash from dogmatists in every conceivable camp: liberal, conservative, religious, atheist, queer, homophobic, socialist, capitalist, feminist, misogynist, nationalist, multi-culturalist, you name it. After all, purity disdains honesty.

Tough. My motto: “I don’t mind being a pariah. I do mind being a liah.” (Imagine delivering this with a New York — excuse me, a New Yawk — accent.)

In the same spirit, my next book will demolish the profound dishonesty driving today’s geo-politics, international relations and cultural debates.  Among other things, I’ll reveal:

* What inter-faith marriage can mean both for personal happiness and for social policy. 

* Why Muslim moderates are part of the problem, while reform-minded Muslims are part of the solution.  I’ll also explain why Martin Luther King would have agreed that moderation is an extreme cop-out in times of moral crisis.

* Who inspired Gandhi’s approach to non-violent resistance, and how these inspirations prove that your identity is not nearly as important as your integrity.

*  Where the Statue of Liberty was really born. (Hint: It’s neither America nor France.)

* How we can be pluralists — people who appreciate multiple perspectives — without becoming relativists — people who fall for anything because they stand for nothing.

I could go on and on about the myths, mysteries and misunderstandings that the next book will tackle, and that’s why I’m launching “Notes From My Next Book.” This new feature will bring you into my writing process.  What big ideas am I grappling with?  Why do they matter to our world — and to your life? How can you use this information to live with greater purpose every day?

As an author, I know that whenever I sit down to write, I embark on a winding, even tumultuous, journey. That’s if I’m being honest with myself.  Now, you get to be part of that adventure. With “Notes from my next book,” you’re invited for the ride.

More than “riding” with me, though, you’ll be writing with me: I want you to comment on the ideas that I’m posting. If your comments strike a nerve with me, I’ll use them to refine my drafts.  Usually, too, I’ll post these ideas on my Facebook fan page. There, you can discuss them with fellow Facebookers, helping me clarify my thoughts that much more. If Sarah Palin can have a ghost-writer, dang it, why can’t I get a little help from my friends?

You never know — your comments could produce the final title of my book.  I’ve got a working title, but you’re bound to come up with a better one. In fact, I hope you do.

This could be fun. At the very least, it’ll be a fascinating experiment, pushing the parameters of social networking.  So please return to this site every few days for a new post under the banner, “Notes From My Next Book.”

The End.  For now.