The Amber Alert in New Jersey Tonight

Tonight, this very cool night
In the state of New Jersey
A mother sits with angst
Amidst clouds of un-certainty
She grapples and swoons between hope and fear
Those two wings that Rumi [a] bespoke of
The siblings perhaps questioning
What has this world come to?
It could have been us, you or me
Why such loss, why such absence
Why such suffering, O Merciful God

The father beckoned to the call
Of a masculinity, that calls for stoicness
O you people of the World
You and your masquerading
Grant him the space of his humanity
To share his grief with his wife
With his children, indeed human we are
Out of this shared sense of grief
Will rise a family to meet all odds

Is it any different from the night
When the immaculate ones [b] worshipped
Under the stars and the moonlight
Knowing well of their fate tomorrow
Such was the certainty, that the Doyen
Of the Martyrs, offered them a safe passage
In the darkness and the safety of the night
Those very sand dunes of Karbala, in Iraq
Where the darkness and the night bespoke
Of a safety, used together, in unison
In opposition to the eveil that lurks
When both are mentioned, ah, such is fate

So, here we are then
Two faiths
Grappling with the human dimension of loss
In the backdrop of a Merciful Lord
Of a Merciful Creator and Sympathizer
My heart goes out to you, O mother
O Father
O Children
O Siblings

But you will prevail
This evil will not
It will succumb to the human spirit
Infused with His Will and Power

Its is an Amber Alert Tonight
Tears roll down my cheeks
They are warm, as I wipe them
I know they come from the heart
Of "all" believers, all "faithfuls"
In the resiliency of the human Spirit
Of the pulsating beat of the heart

It needs no reminder to the tragic
Loss, before Husayns own eyes
Of his Children, yet prevailed he did

It needs no reminder to the tragic
Loss, of Jesus on the Cross
And be assured, that the cross is
What symbolizes our faith [c] in Jesus
That we are lent to suffer
But under his shadow everything perishes

For the love and the sake of the family of Muhammad and Muhammad
For the love and the sake of Jesus and his immaculate mother, Maryam

Descend Mercy and Grace to the Amber Alert household
You are not alone, tonight, you never will be
Never when an Amber alert goes out

[a] A Sufi poet from Turkey

[b] Reference to the family of Muhammad, the Prophet, his grandson, al-Husan in the sands of Karbala, in current day Iraq

[c] Christian faith

The Hidden Spring and Our Modern Condition

There was once a powerful dictator who ruled his country with an iron will. Every aspect of life was thought through and worked out according to a rational system. Nothing was left to chance.

The dictator noticed that the water sources around the country were erratic and in some cases dangerous. There were thousands of springs of water, often in the middle of towns and cities. They could be useful, but sometimes they caused floods, sometimes they got polluted and often they burst out in new places and damaged roads, fields and houses.

The dictator decided on a sensible, rational policy. The whole country, or at least every part where there was any suggestion of water would be paved over with concrete so thick that no spring of water could ever penetrate it. The water that people needed would be brought to them by a complex system of pipes.

For many years the plan worked fine. All seemed to be well. Then without warning the springs that had gone on bubbling and sparkling beneath solid concrete could no longer be contained

We in the Western world are the citizens of that Country. The dictator is philosophy that has shaped our world for the past two centuries making most people materialists by default. And the water is what we call today "spirituality", the hidden spring that bubbles up within human hearts and human societies

Excerpted from: Belief: Readings on Faith, N. T. Wright, p. 9-10, Harper One

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Pain and Suffering: As Soul Making

In His Name
'assalam o alaykum

Been reading a work by a Christian author

Whats so amazing about Grace, pp. 95-96
Philip Yancey, Zondervan

and he quotes John Hick from his work 'Philosophy of Religion' on the subject of pain and evil

Suppose contrary to the fact, that this world were a paradise from which alll possibility of pain and suffering were excluded. The consequences would be very far-reaching. For example, no one could ever injure any one else: the murders knife would turn to paper or his bullets to thin air; the bank safe, robbed of million of dollars (without this device , on however a large scale, proving inflationary); fraud, deceit, conspiracy, treason would always leave the fabric of the society undamaged. Again, no one would ever be an injured by an accident ......... To make possible this continual series of individual adjustments, nature would have to work 'special providences' instead of running on natural laws which men must learn to respect the penalty of pain and death. The laws of nature would have to be extremely flexible: some times an object would be hard and solid, sometimes soft ....

One can begin to imagine such a world. it is evident that out present ethical concepts would have no meaning in it. If, for example, the notion of harming some one is an essential element in the concept of wrong action, in our hedonistic paradise there would be no wrong actions - nor any right actions in distinction from wrong. Courage, fortitude would have no point in an environment in which there is, by definition no danger or difficulty. Generosity, kindness, the agape concept of love, prudence, unselfishness and all other ethical notions which pre-suppose life in a stable environment could not even be formed. Consequently, such a world, however well it might promote pleasure , would be very ill adapted for the development of human qualities if human personality.

It would seem, then, that an environment intended to make possible the growth in free beings if the finest characteristics of personal life, must have a good deal in common with out present world. It must operate according to the general and dependable laws; and it must involve real dangers, difficulties, problems, obstacles and possibilities of pain, failure, sorrow, frustration, which- subtracting mans own very considerable contribution-our world contains it would have to contain others instead

To realize this .... to understand that this world, with all its "heartaches and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to", an environment so manifestly not designed for the maximization of human pleasure and minimization of human pain, may be rather well adapted to the quite different purpose of "soul making"

regards, Abbas

Kindle: Of Faith, Depression and Love of Him and Family

In His Name, The All Merciful, the All Forgiving
The Wadud, The Jabbar

For those whose loved ones
Struggle with depression, and their faith Oscillates

In the stillness of the night
The cold night, with patchy clouds
As the time for rest approached
Lingering thoughts, prayer, petition

When the head embraced the pillow
In the darkness of the room
He cried out His name from the heart
Did He even exist, he asked him-self
But, for a moment, it did not matter

What mattered was the invocation
Was on behalf of his loved ones
He knew that they held Him high
He knew that they were cognizant of Him
He knew that they had oriented to Him
He knew that they had set on a path and a journey
He knew that His attributes of perfection were raining down on them

His tears oscillated between several states
On the in-adequacy of invoking through their behalf
How could you, he asked him-self
A question put to him-self evoked a painful response
His heart kindled with shame, with the verse from the Quran
‘Mankind has been created in the best of creation,
Yet at the same time stoops to the lowest’
Ahhhh, the recitation of Sura at-Tin, the fig leaf
The lowest of the low he was
There was no doubt, he had no doubts
At this stage he could only look and gaze up and above

Choking with emotions, with teary eyes
With the pillow as his companion that silenced him
The other emotion, was that of pleading, to Him
It was strange, very strange
In one aspect, he believed that He existed
Only when he invoked on behalf of his beloveds
In the other aspect, he was doubtful
His faith was very weak
He doubted once again
And the doubt still lingers
When matters he thought of
Were related to his own self, his soul
He no longer cared for him-self

His pleadings were simple

O God, O Lord, I ask
I ask from You, not for my sake,
But for the sake of the one who love You
And Love you with an attentive heart
With an alert mind
With a polished soul
Grant them respite, grant them peace
Grant them a life of ease with him
Straighten their affairs, untie the knots

I know, O Lord, my words don’t mean much
There is a dichotomy in what I say and what I do
My Lord, this is not for me, this is for the loved ones
My love for them has transformed me
I see them through their words and deeds
That are to please You and You alone
Reminding me of You, a Loving God
But he has a difficult time holding on to this rope
Ya al-Wadud, Ya al-Jabbar

Forgive me O Lord,
Would you accept my love of them
As a token of my love for You?

Would you take all the good deeds I have
And bestow them to my loved ones

I don’t know of what other way to love You
To show an appreciation of you
To admit that there is a kernel of truth
Or a kernel, that would testify to my
Own acceptance of you, as a Sovereign Lord

My heart aches
When she is home with the children
My heart yearned yesterday to relieve her, to comfort them all
My heart ached yesterday
When his sufferings and struggles
Are a burden to her, and the children

I Lord, my soul is dark, my heart is weakened and my intellect
It has succumbed to depression
I just want to sit down in the ruins of a tavern
And be left in a state of ignonimity

Served as a reminder, of One who
Who is struggling with surrender
Who is struggling to surrender
Alas !!! even my age betrays me now
My health in a condition that belies matters
Of the self healing powers through the love
The Love of You O dear Lord

O dear Lord, this is for my loved ones
Make me not a source of grief and anxiety for them
Make me not a source of regret for them
Make me not … make me nothing

Let me not be ruined in the tavern of sadness
Brought about by separation
Separation from love
The love of them
The love of You through them
I have not recognized You
I have not recognized them

Alas ! madness prevails
I yet, hold onto You
I will hold onto You

Shukr Alhamdulillah Ya Rabbil Alamin
Ya Wadud, Ya Jabbar, Ya Rahman, Ya Rahim

Kindle: Words that are Unspoken

In the Name of the Highest
The All Loving (al-Wadud), asketh nothing in return
The Mender of Broken Affairs (al-Jabbar)

It is said, that words un-spoken carry meaning
A meaning only under-stood between hearts of hearts
Yet, it is also said, that words inscribed, give life

For what is life giving, is the interplay of characters
It creates a world of its own, of words giving life
The interplay of characters, speaking with each other
The ability to create a world, out-side ones immediate existence
Where one is comfortable, where one takes solace

The wonder of it lies, that if one is the author, one knows the end
As the words come alive, and the story un-folds, the end also changes
It is an oscillation between states, of tears rolling, of heart yearning
For a comfort, a warm embrace, for empathy, for kindness

One holds on to the book, one reads it in its different phases
One even asks the other to read and understand it from their perspective
It is a remark-able journey, of a legacy left, to the un-born souls
As the story un-folds, ones existence, in different planes of reality
One authored, created by the Creator, and the other from the creation
This is where wills collide, this is where submission is sought

The wish is to be consumed in the story narrated by His creation
An escape from reality, a reality that might be at odds

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be …………………….

Kindle: Time and Thought Transcendent

In the Name of the Highest

The Source of Love Abundant

The Source of Strength Unfaltering

In Living Memory
Of
My bearish brother, adorable sister in law
Not to forget, the rambunctious Children

To think of some one
Is to transcend the reality
A reality based on the physical
A reality of the mundane
A reality that restricts
A reality confined within
Restriction and confinement
But in what?
In ‘Time’, dear friends, lovers

My dear friend, lovers
We think beyond Time

To envision of some one
Is also to transcend reality
A reality based on the physical
For even a brief moment
Of the closure of the eyes
Breaks the barrier of the physical
And the person appears before us

My dear friend, lovers
We envision beyond Matter

To pray for some one
Is to connect through the One
The One who is Transcendent
He becomes the source of it all
Then, the act of prayer for the other
Thus becomes an act of worship
For He Him-self declares
‘To remember of some one for My Sake
Is to Visit Me’
‘To remember of some one for My Sake’
Whether they be
Happy
Sad
Ill
Depressed
Connects us to each other
Through and through Him

May God be the source of Our Connection
Always and Always, Amen, Rabbil Alaameen