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LITTLE ELM, TX (ANS) -- "Tea with Hezbollah: Sitting at the Enemies Table Our Journey Through the Middle East" by Ted Dekker and Carl Medearis, might have been an amusing read, had it not been spoiled by the dust-jacket that promised to address "questions that lead straight to the heart of the Middle Eastern conflict" and provide me with "a completely fresh understanding of those we call our enemies and of the teaching that dares us to love them."

All it served, however, was a diluted blend of Jack Kerouac and Lewis Carroll.

Nevertheless, I sat down at the table under a tree with Ted and Carl, Alice and the March Hare, the Hatter and the Dormouse, and we began by asking riddles.

"What is the one thing Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Jesus have in common?" Carl began.

"They were all murdered?" Ted guessed.

"Actually, that's right," said Carl. "And they all died for the same message," which was "To love your neighbor. Even if they're the enemy."

But they're not the same thing a bit, I thought. Dr. King and Mohandas Gandhi were martyrs. Jesus surrendered his life of his own accord, as recorded in John 10:17-18. Nor did Jesus die for a message. He died to pay the penalty due for the sins of mankind and reconcile mankind to its God.

"'I want a clean cup,' interrupted the Hatter: 'let's all move one place on.'"

"Why don't we go to this country's greatest so-called enemies and ask them what they think about this scandalous teaching [referring to 'love your neighbor']?" Carl suggested.

Now we're talking. I perked up. Bring on the tough questions.

"We sit with these so-called enemies," Ted said, getting into the spirit of things and picking up momentum, "ask them what their favorite joke is, and what they think of the parable of the Samaritan, which teaches us to love our neighbors even if they are our enemies. And we do it all to discover if anyone really can love his enemy."

What? Their favorite joke? Is he kidding?

"And in writing about it all for an American audience, we would be sitting Americans at the table with their enemies. We'll let them decide what to do with this radical teaching that got Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Jesus killed."

They want Muslims to explain what got Jesus killed? Read the book. He said he was God.

Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

Suddenly, the tea-party was no longer under a tree but in the exotic streets of Cairo, as things will do in dreams. Joining us at the table was Abdul Fadeel Al Kusi, "one of the most powerful men in all of Islam."

Ted: "What kinds of things make you laugh, Mr. Al Kusi?"

Abdul: Strange things make me laugh. Unexpected behavior. . . . Our children do many unexpected things that make us laugh, but in their eyes we are the strange ones.

Are we at the heart of the Middle Eastern conflict yet, I wondered.

Ted: What is your favorite joke?

Abdul tells the joke. The punch line is: "Palm tree?" the judge cried. "Then are you going to live from blessings alone?" None of us get it, but somehow it doesn't seem out of place.

Ted's next five questions are: What does your wife do that makes you laugh? Do you have any hobbies? What is your favorite movie? What about Britney Spears? and What makes you sad?

"Suppose we change the subject," the March Hare interrupted, yawning. "I'm getting tired of this."

So he did.

Ted: What would you say are American's greatest misconceptions of Muslims?

Abdul: Americans only think of Muslims in three ways: One, that they are all terrorists, and this is not true. Two, that Arabs spend all their money on women and wine, and neither is this true. Three, that Muslims are enemies of the West. Again, not true.

Ted: And what are Muslims' greatest misconceptions of America?

Abdul: Yes, well, we are as guilty of misconception. One, that every American is responsible for bad politics. And two, that Westerners are immoral and have no boundaries with women. These are false.

While all of this is politically correct tea-table discourse, it was not what I spent $22.99 to learn.

Wrapping up his interview with one of the most powerful men in all Islam, Ted said, "When asked what his most important teaching was, Jesus answered that it was to love the Lord your God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. Are you familiar with this teaching?

It is doubtful that anyone would be familiar with this teaching, since Ted misspoke. The passage is found in Matthew 22:34-40 and also in Mark 12:

"Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?' Jesus replied, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: "Love your neighbor as yourself." All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.' "

There is a world of difference between Jesus' most important teaching and the greatest commandment. But there was no time to quibble.

On to Saudi Arabia where we were joined by Minister of Information Muhammad Yamani. Different opening.

Ted: What kind of car do you drive?

Yamani: A Mercedes, series 600.

Then, however, Ted defaulted to questions about favorite jokes and hobbies, followed by everybody's misconceptions of everybody else.

When asked the erroneous "most important teaching" question, Yamani replied, "I don't think this is the word of Jesus. It is the word of God. . . . "

Unfortunately, "Tea with Hezbollah" never picks out of this statement the central and irreconcilable difference between Christianity and Islam, which is the deity of Jesus Christ.

Instead, chanting its "love one another" mantra and asking inane questions, the tea-party moves from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to Lebanon to Syria to Israel, as Hatter & Co. move from one place to another around the table.

With its eye on loving one's neighbor, Tea with Hezbollah begins and ends with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Well, it begins with the parable. It ends with a conversation with a real, honest-to-gosh Samaritan guy (one of only 700 remaining) sitting "at a rickety card table in a carport outside of Tel Aviv."

While I am sure that Ted had hoped for something profound about loving one's neighbor, he had to admit that he got nothing but "the most trivial parsing of truth and opinion that I have ever heard . . . . It was like hearing a Presbyterian explain just why God didn't like what the Pentecostals were doing. Like hearing an Episcopal priest explain why the Baptists were all wet."

Finally, our weary travelers headed home. Mercifully, the tea-party was over.

"At any rate I'll never go there again!" said Alice, as she picked her way through the wood. "It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!"

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

For more of Ron Brackin's blogs, please go to: www.ronbrackin2.wordpress.com