Day 12
Devotional Downtime
(this is my second version of this blog entry; the internet swallowed my last one and instead of getting angry I will just accept it as a fate and offer you an abbreviated version of my original blog)
I’ve had a lot of time alone in the last couple of weeks. Time to think, be, sit, eat and just be without company… it’s been a little scary and lonely because I’m not used to it. Normally, my days are spent saturated with students, people, talking, doing, meetings, drinks/dinner with people. And in honesty, I’m pretty sure I purposely occupy my time and thoughts to avoid the more difficult internal queries.
I’ve had to ask myself why so much resistance to being alone? I guess it’s because I’m the product of my mother and NYC: there is always something to get done, clean, sew, fold; somewhere to go, something to see, someone to meet up. Even if I watch TV, it’s while I do emails or lesson plan. I realize, I am rarely present – like full on present and calm.
During Ramadan I feel a calmness like no other time. I take my time. Where I go is deliberate. With whom I will spend my time is intentional. I am wherever I am at any moment and I feel it… people, energy, sights and sounds. The smells – especially if I’m hungry! I’ve also been doing a lot of dhikr/zikr.
It’s like what TTG says in the show, Allah is in the things I do and the things I don’t.
Dhikr/Zikr is literally translated as remembrance for invocation. It is a devotional act, reciting the names of God or other Quranic verses. For me, it is about speaking with and to my heart. It is for no one else but me and Allah. For me, it’s different than salaat and the prayers I pray because unfortunately, I do not know (just yet) all that I am saying when I pray salaat. I learned the duas and I say them, however I never learned what they meant. Zikr is different because it has a different intentionality, assertion.
I am familiar with zikr after prayer, repeating subhanallah (Glory be to Allah),Allahamindullah (All praise is due to Allah), and Allah Akbar (Allah is the Greatest) 33 times each on my fingers. Knowing full well what it is that I am asserting. When I am purposeful in this way, amidst all of this NYC movement, I am calm and present and the silence around me is simultaneously deafeningly loud and like a coocoon. This is the quiet and the calm that I imagine pilgrims experience when they stand on Mount Arafat and everyone around them is in a conversation with Allah at the same time for forgiveness and mercy.
Tonight, I went to one of the Islamic/Arab stores on 4th Ave over by Atlantic Avenue and bought my own tasbeh, as an adult to zikr with. I walked the two miles home, blissfully running my fingers over each bead in remembrance and felt more purpose than ever before.
