Salaam All
Night 28
Salvation is remembrance, recollection, and confirmation of a knowledge deeply embedded in the very substance of our being.
As Ramadan comes to a close let us reflect on the month and consider what we have learned and how our lives will be different going forward.
More than anything else, let us be hungry for the rest of our lives. The physical fast ends very soon, but spiritually, we should never be satisfied again.
We should always be hungry for the kind of dialogue we experienced during prayer – deep, soul-enriching conversations about God, about God’s purposes for the world, about God’s purposes for our lives.
We should always be hungry for a world where people do not kill each other in the name of religion; where violence is entirely rejected as an acceptable way to make oneself heard in the public square. Let us commit to becoming the kind of person who will simply not tolerate hate speech against Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, atheists, or persons of any other kind of religious expression.
We should always be hungry for a world where people respect freedom of thought, speech, conscience, and religion, and where people do not fear the threat of heresy. It is important that we all remain open to listen to people who differ from us, even if those differences are significant.
We should always be hungry for justice to be done – especially on behalf of the world’s neglected. As we fill our plates tonight, we must remember that this is a luxury for millions of the world’s people. There is something wrong with that fact. How can we truly be satisfied deep in our hearts when we know that so many people remain painfully poor and hungry?
We should always be hungry for quiet moments of solitude – the periods during the days of Ramadan when we carved out a little time for prayer, or walked into an empty room at work to be alone. We simply must repeat these habits throughout our daily life.
We should always be hungry to know the will of God – to discern God’s ways amid the distractions and obstacles of life.
We should always be hungry to be more like the Prophets – to imitate their ways, to follow them into the world.
Until we meet God face to face, we should always be hungry...hungry to make this world peaceful & just. Pick up your pen or let your fingers be piano-like on your keyboard as you write against the unjust & the mischief makers.
Only then will we finally be satisfied. Only then will we find the fullness of joy, the perfection of peace, the eternal peace, which we have been pursuing all our lives.
But until then, we fast.
The best recipe to gain self-control & for character building is to Fast. The best way to conquer the animal within with the Divine is to Fast.
Shamal
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