Thoughts ...
I've been looking over some of my previous posts, and am a little taken aback at some of my honesty and even ... *ghasp* coherence. The last several weeks I've been going through a sort of writers block, which makes even blogging incredibly frustrating. I'm usually able to rile myself up by reading the NYTimes, or Washington Post, or just surfing the internet - but none of that has worked. I feel a bit ... complacent, but not quite complacent enough to kick myself into gear.
These are old thoughts ... from late last year-ish. Trying to get rid of some drafts.
Darfur bothers me. As does Iraq. And Iran. Western Europe's determination to cleanse the world of any portrayals that do not fit within their secular models scare me. Africa calls to me, asking for help - help that I cannot give. Glaring domestic issues are screaming at me - gun control, gang violence, drugs, health policy, immigration reform, poverty, homelessness, education, discrimination.
Ignorant people annoy me, and people that don't want to learn make me want to smack them - even though I previously sat squarely in both those categories about 5 short years ago.
If everything fit in a nice little mould, would life be perfect? Is that the point? or is the point for us to strive to make it perfect? Then again, what is perfect? A peaceful world might be perfect to me, but not to you (not neccessarily YOU, but the rest of the world you).
So many issues, and so little time to fix them.
Sometimes I think that I shouldn't worry about the world's problems, until I have my own life sorted out. But, my life is never going to be sorted out - it's an endless circle of complications. Too many emotions, too many moving parts. But is that the purpose ...
I remember watching this clip of Yousuf Estes ... he was at a conference in India (woo woo homeland!) The question posed was - what is the role of Muslims, what is their responsbility? It was posed in the context of how to spread the word of Islam, but I look at it as a general responsibility of us as Muslims to engage in certain conduct. Yousuf Estes' response was quite profound, at least to me - or maybe it was just something that hit me. He said every single Muslim is responsible for carrying the message of la ilaha illAllah mohammed ur rasool Allah.
"It is hoped that those who are here to today will carry the message to those that are not present. And that those that hear it at the very end will understand it better than those that are here today."
[this is my addition/interpretation/random barrage of thoughts] Implicit in this message is an expectation of a certain conduct worthy of the message, and implicit in that conduct is a responsibility of the believers to stand for justice - for how can we have a creator that is injust. [did I just make a logical leap?]
Ah, such responsibility... have I conveyed the message?
These are old thoughts ... from late last year-ish. Trying to get rid of some drafts.
Darfur bothers me. As does Iraq. And Iran. Western Europe's determination to cleanse the world of any portrayals that do not fit within their secular models scare me. Africa calls to me, asking for help - help that I cannot give. Glaring domestic issues are screaming at me - gun control, gang violence, drugs, health policy, immigration reform, poverty, homelessness, education, discrimination.
Ignorant people annoy me, and people that don't want to learn make me want to smack them - even though I previously sat squarely in both those categories about 5 short years ago.
If everything fit in a nice little mould, would life be perfect? Is that the point? or is the point for us to strive to make it perfect? Then again, what is perfect? A peaceful world might be perfect to me, but not to you (not neccessarily YOU, but the rest of the world you).
So many issues, and so little time to fix them.
Sometimes I think that I shouldn't worry about the world's problems, until I have my own life sorted out. But, my life is never going to be sorted out - it's an endless circle of complications. Too many emotions, too many moving parts. But is that the purpose ...
I remember watching this clip of Yousuf Estes ... he was at a conference in India (woo woo homeland!) The question posed was - what is the role of Muslims, what is their responsbility? It was posed in the context of how to spread the word of Islam, but I look at it as a general responsibility of us as Muslims to engage in certain conduct. Yousuf Estes' response was quite profound, at least to me - or maybe it was just something that hit me. He said every single Muslim is responsible for carrying the message of la ilaha illAllah mohammed ur rasool Allah.
"It is hoped that those who are here to today will carry the message to those that are not present. And that those that hear it at the very end will understand it better than those that are here today."
[this is my addition/interpretation/random barrage of thoughts] Implicit in this message is an expectation of a certain conduct worthy of the message, and implicit in that conduct is a responsibility of the believers to stand for justice - for how can we have a creator that is injust. [did I just make a logical leap?]
Ah, such responsibility... have I conveyed the message?
posted by zai5h at Thursday, January 25, 2007
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home