A couple of weeks ago, I did something incredibly stupid. I mean, it was so stupid, I can’t even tell you what I did. It was one of those irreversible moments in time, where you see time stop. My bones turned liquid, I could feel my marrow quiver, I literally collapsed to the floor in sujood and all I could think in that moment was, “Allah, help me and forgive me. My life is over. I turn over everything to you, I cannot protect this person anymore. I tried to help him, and all I did was ruin my own life.” I couldn’t even tell my mom what I did until this past Friday. It was that magnitude of epic stupid that slammed home the cold harsh reality that should have been obvious to me for months now.
All of the last two weeks, I’ve been hoping and praying that the repercussions will not be hideously unbearable. Today, I got the first good sign that maybe it’s all going to okay, inshaAllah. Because, today, that issue that I was trying to protect someone from, that I was trying to solve by myself, today, that person handled it all for themselves. All the people involved seem to have revealed themselves in the best of ways. My mother told me, “It was like the moment you turned that person’s protection over to Allah, Allah blessed us all with His Immense Mercy and Protection.” Alhamdulillah.
All I can do is see to my own life. I can’t protect you. I can’t teach you. I can’t learn for you. I can’t do anything for you. All I can do is a meager amount for myself. And even then, Allah is in control. I really am nothing more than a lump of clay, and Allah protects me from myself in ways I probably don’t even realize.
Change;
(Noun), “Change is a-coming!”
(Verb), “Change the subject, please.”
Simultaneously effortless and impossible.
The path to transformation is littered with debris,
including a million lists of tasks to be done,
a few epics containing dreams to be realized,
and a lengthy playbill of the people I’ve disappointed.
A lonely trail,
one in which I seek only my own company
because I am too afraid
to see myself in the eyes of my loved ones.
An unlit road,
where I go through the motions of the day
as if under a cloud,
and I feel I really should have just spent the day in bed.
It comes like a hot flame,
shining a light on the scars within,
guiding me towards the Only One who will hold my hand,
burning to bits the debris of a former life.
Making it so
I can breathe
again.
Change is not easy,
and if I achieve it,
I’ve waged a most meaningful battle.
I can’t change the world, but I can change myself.
This was a Nomadic Production, originally blogged here for the series on change.
No wonder! I was pressing the up button, and the station was going down. Then I looked and realized the remote control was upside down.
LOL… My brother is a genius!
We all ate together tonight, of course mother took her own time getting to the table because Allah knows mothers have a million things to do before actually getting to enjoy a meal. Except for big brother’s attempt at conversation, which was quite the odd topic at that, it was oddly quiet. Meal times are usually full of life in our house when we actually eat together, and might even erupt into quite heated discussion where two people are agreeing with each other yet somehow don’t realize it. But I had a headache today, and it appears everybody is sleepy. How utterly strange. To add to it, the night is really quiet too. Aside from the chirpy lil cricket and my typing, it is quiet out there. Oh my gawsh, the cricket stopped chirping!! I almost feel creeped out. At least I have a blog to seek comfort and security in. (Wow, that looks lamer on the screen than in my head!)
Here I am, sitting on my prayer rug, seeing the end of the 15th night of Sha’baan. The night feels very different from other nights, and I have no idea why I am so blessed to feel the difference. I have been nothing but forgetful of Allah this past year. I have filled my life with frivolity, and wonder if I can snap out of it. I have stumbled more times than I care to remember.
My soul is burdened with the errors of my conscious doing. My heart is cold with the number of black spots I have placed upon it. Yet, Allah in His Infinite Mercy has allowed me to see this night, and feel it’s quiet beauty. There is so much for me to pray for, so much for me to ask Allah’s Help and Guidance for. Not for the first time, I am afraid of myself. I am afraid of my inability to learn. I am afraid of my lead feet which keep dragging me backwards.
The night is coming quickly to an end. I have only an hour or so more to send durood to the Prophet صل الله عليه و سلم. Only an hour or so more to ask for forgiveness. And only that much less time to pray for the wonderful people I’ve been blessed to know.
So little time, so much to do.
This is a little conversation that took place this morning. It’s a simple but amazing illustration of my mother’s silence and strength.
Me: Mom, it’s your birthday today!
Mom: No, yesterday was my birthday. Today is the 7th.
Me: *horrified -> look at the calendar -> relieved* Nope, today is still the 6th.
Mom: It is? *peers at the calendar* Oh, it is!
Me: Did you think we forgot your birthday?!
Mom: Well…so today is my birthday! Ok, then!
And she didn’t even say anything all day yesterday, which she must have spent intermittently thinking that her own kids, who she freaking slaves away for to make us happy, forgot to wish her a happy birthday. Now, we don’t celebrate birthdays with the whole presents and party kind of thing, but I think that mommy deserves a present for not even showing us that she was sad over us “forgetting” her birthday.
I got tired of being alone, even though I had my sister visiting, but it still wasn’t the same. So now I’m back “home” with my sister on her lovely, funky, blog, the place where my blogging venture was born. 
I have imported my posts here from my other blog, so that I can shut that one down with ease without missing my pearls of stupidity. Haha! The most absurd thing is that as I’m sitting here quietly typing away in the dark on my laptop, my brother is sitting downstairs making a racket typing some address with a typewriter. Yes, we still have a typewriter, and my brother decided recently to go retro by typing any mailing addresses with it… It is a true honor to be related to that man.
Just to warn you, I’m a bit ditzy, and have no intention of matching up to my sisters to eloquence in writing. So yea, see you soon. Really, very soon! 
And I’ll leave you now with an amazing quote that I just read, which has nothing to do with anything I have written, but it is quite profound.
The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and the thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children…the children yet unborn.
[-Rod Serling-]
Tomorrow, August 5, I’ll be making a Starry Eyed Cameo over at Falak’s Starry Blog. Be sure to join me there, as I’ve written up two pieces, and have a photo for you to enjoy, criticize, etc.
Don’t forget to let us know what you think!
I was watching some old video of President Bush (cleaning up my YouTube favorites…don’t ask why President Bush was in my favorites, I don’t know; and Obama and Hillary Clinton were favorited, too). It was late at night, and you know how late-night surfing goes: one click led to another, and somehow I ended up looking up my IP, and then seeing if the IP locators are really all that great at pinpointing locations.
At first, I was freaked out because, wow, it is pretty accurate, and any of you for whom I leave comments can track me down and demand a cup of tea and slice of cake without even warning me you’re coming! So, at first, I thought it had my location dead-on target. Then I zoomed in, and was so relieved, because it’s off by like a mile, and of course that will force you guys to twitter me for directions, meaning I’ll have time to, I don’t know, fill the sugar bowl or something.
Then I freaked out again, because I realized that it has me located in the local cemetery. That cemetery even happens to have a Muslim burial corner. I am not blogging from the cemetery! I am not Twittering from the cemetery! I am not surfing the web from the cemetery! I am not! in! the! cemetery!!!
It would have been better for the locator thingie to have been dead-on rather than have me considered dead altogether.
What’s up with the issuing of fatwas over every newest fad and technology to emerge? I remember sitting in a lecture being given by an ‘aalima (religiously educated woman), and she said something about Hell Phone. Since I don’t speak Urdu, those were the only two words I picked up, and after the lecture was over, I asked one of my friends if I really heard those words, and what the heck was she talking about?
Apparently, the woman was talking about cell phones, and all the funky ways young people do all sorts of haraam activity with them, and so you should take your kids’ phones away from them as soon as you get back home. Now, I understand that this is a bit of a problem, a very real, very legitimate problem among young adults of today. There is definitely a need to stress the importance of morals, and the Islamic definition of morality, to growing minds and hearts. But, seriously, calling the cell phone a hell phone is not the way to address that situation. Allow me to illustrate a few ways in which a cell phone is really a God-send, arguments that your own child will certainly use on you when look at his phone the wrong way:
- Cell phones are a brilliant tool for parents to keep in constant touch with their kids. Yes, now you call your kid during lunch, while she’s blushingly pulling out her peanut-butter-&-jelly sandwich in the middle of all the cooler kids who are buying their lunches from the vending machines and what-not…and you can embarrass her by talking really loud so that every kid within 15 feet will hear you asking, “Sweetie, have you eaten your lunch yet? Don’t forget to call me before you leave from school so I know you’re safe!” Sure, your poor kid will feel like it is indeed a Hell Phone at that point, but you and I know better: You’re pretty happy making life miserable for the dear with the very phone she begged for!
- Additionally, if you’ve ever been in a car accident during rush hour and the guy who hit you is behaving like a completely petulant child, then you know how nice it is to be able to call the police to the scene (so they can write up the accident report) from the comfort of your own vehicle, rather than walking down the street to find a pay phone. If I had to search for a pay phone, in that kind of situation, then I’d be thinking the pay phone is the Hell Phone.
- Lastly, cell phones now have awesome browsing, GPS, and of course photo-snapping abilities! When I’m in Barnes & Noble, trying to decide if I should buy a book there, or see if Amazon has it cheaper, believe me, my cell phone does not feel like a Hell Phone. Perhaps, to the bookstore, if they come up on the losing end of that query, they’ll think it’s a Hell Phone, but me? I’m sitting pretty. When I’m lost someplace, how absolutely spectacular is it that I can power up my phone’s GPS and get pretty rocking directions? Heavenly delicious! And then there are the times when I’m completely bored, or totally inspired, and don’t have my real camera on me…but hey look! Cell phone to the rescue, because this baby has 3 mega-pixels worth of power, and is actually worth taking pictures with! Hell Phone? I don’t think so.
These are just a few examples to illustrate the absolute silliness of an admittedly catchy label. Believe me, your child will come up with more and better reasons for the term Hell Phone to never cross your mind ever again. So, you might want to discuss potential inappropriate behavior and the reasons behind those behaviors if you really want to help your young adult become a responsible human being.
I realize this type of labeling is not a new trend; such lazy cleverness has been ongoing ever since at least the invention of the television. The TV, while now old-fashioned, still occasionally gets the label FitnaBox, and Shaytan Tube. Another common thing emerging is renaming FaceBook to FitnaBook. I’ll bet Twitter is going to become something like Haramster (I’m not good at coming up with these things, as you can tell!).
When are we going to get it that the technology is not the problem, it’s how you use it that leads to potential problems? Everything has a good side to equal it’s bad side. Pretending like the technology is the root of all ills is just crazy, makes the religious class sound crazy, and encourages apathy towards really examining our moral compasses. On the one hand, the labels are kind of catchy-sounding…on the other hand, they really annoy me with the lack of intellectual depth that comes with using terms like Hell Phone, and FitnaTube. It smacks of fear-mongering, and haven’t we all had rather enough of that?
