Day 11

Unvarnished Commitment

I am feeling rough today, after a beautiful night spent in the beautiful light of iftar and an unexpected visit with my dervish companion ZemZem, who will be moving to Beirut in a few weeks. F. and I didn’t get to bed until 6am! We then got up earlier than we would have liked to drive back to Philly for some afternoon appointments. When I got home I moved around the apartment in a kind of happy fog—spirit enlivened, body dragging, and then came the call.

I was a public high school teacher for five years. I absolutely loved my students and build lovely relationships with a number of them, which still flower. I got a call from a student I’d only taught for a year when he was a Freshman. He graduated in June and rang me unexpectedly. “I just needed someone to talk to,” he said. We had a good chat, talking about striving to be a person of faith, to be good, to be better. He and I haven’t talked in at least a year I think and it moved me that even after all that time, he wanted to call me today. I apologized to him for letting so much time collect without reaching out to him.

“My intention, going forward, is for us to check up on each other monthly.”

“That would be good Ms. T.”

I thought about how eager I was to keep in touch with a few of my students when I first left the classroom. And I did, for a while. I am wonderful at starting things, not always so great about finishing them. How many beginnings of stories, of drawings, of films are sitting uncompleted in notebooks, sketchbooks, this computer? Many. Having ideas is never the issue, actually staying with them from start to finish is the issue. How many half-baked intentions have I not followed through on? As I spoke with my student, I realized I had not thought about the impact my failing to honor my commitment to keep in touch with him had. I don’t mean that in some grandiose “I could have made the difference…” kind of dramatic way. I mean what did we miss out on learning, sharing with each other because I didn’t do what I said I would? I am grateful that he was generous enough not to hold my failure against me.

How many times have I failed or fallen short in honoring my commitments I made to God? How many times have you? Allah does not demand perfection of us. Allah is generous in seeing our striving. Sufis say that if we take one step toward Allah, Allah runs to us.

So on day 10 or day 13 or day 16, when the bright lights of IT’S RAMADAN are less bright and you are fasting quietly, just keep going. When you fall off the horse in thought, word or deed, get back on. Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim (In the name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate).

Joy At Sudden Disappointment (Rumi)

Whatever comes, comes from a need,

a sore distress, a hurting want.

Mary’s pain made the baby Jesus.

Her womb opened its lips

and spoke the Word.

Every part of you has a secret language.

Your hands and your feet say what you’ve done.

And every need brings in what’s needed.

Pain bears its cure like a child.

Having nothing produces provisions.

Ask a difficult question,

and the marvelous answer appears.

Build a ship, and there’ll be water

to float it. The tender-throated

infant cries and milk drips

from the mother’s breast.

Be thirsty for the ultimate water,

and then be ready for what will

come pouring from the spring.

A village woman once was walking by Muhammad.

She thought he was just an ordinary illiterate.

She didn’t believe that he was a prophet.

She was carrying a two-month-old baby.

As she came near Muhammad, the baby turned

and said “Peace be with you, Messenger of God.”

The mother cried out, surprised and angry,

“What are you saying,

and how can you suddenly talk!”

The child replied “God taught me first,

and then Gabriel.”

“who is this Gabriel?

I don’t see anyone”

“He is above your head,

Mother. Turn around. He has been telling me

Many things.”

“Do you really see him?”

“Yes.

He is continually delivering me from this

degraded state into sublimity.”

Muhammad then asked the child,

“What is your name?”

“Abdul Aziz, the servant of God, but this family

thinks I am concerned with world-energies.

I am as free of that as he truth of your prophecy is.”

So the little one spoke, and the mother

took in a fragrance that let her surrender

to that state.

When God gives this knowing,

inanimate stones, plants, animals, everything,

fills with unfolding significance.

The fish and the birds become protectors.

Remember the incident of Muhammad and the eagle.

It happened that as he was listening

to this inspired baby, he heard a voice

calling him to prayer. He asked for water

to perform ablutions. He washed his hands

and feet, and just as he reached for his boot,

an eagle snatched it away! The boot turned upsidedown

as it lifted, and a poisonous snake dropped out.

The eagle circled and brought the boot back,

saying “My helpless reverence for you

made this necessary. Anyone who acts

this presumptuously for a legalistic reason

should be punished!”

Muhammad thanked the eagle,

and said, “what I thought was rudeness

was really love. You took away my grief and I was grieved!

God has shown me everything,

but at that moment I was preoccupied within myself.”

The eagle,

“But chosen one, any clarity I have

comes from you!”

This spreading radiance

of a True Human Being has great importance.

Look carefully around you and recognize

the luminosity of souls. Sit beside those

who draw you to that.

Learn from this eagle story

that when misfortune comes, you must quickly praise.

Others may be saying Oh no, but you

will be opening out like a rose

losing itself petal by petal.

Someone once asked a great sheikh

what Sufism was.

“The feeling of joy

when sudden disappointment comes.”

The eagle carries off Muhammad’s boot

and saves him from snakebite.

Don’t grieve for what doesn’t come.

Some things that don’t happen

keep disasters from happening.