I wish I was like you

What deeds gave you a jeweled palace secured
In heaven by the lips of the Messenger?
You have a spacious grave attended by the kindest angels.
O Lady Khadijah, beloved of our Lord Mohammad, forever,
I pray my heart proves to be pure like yours.

Dearest Allah, Your love shines in my life forever,
But I struggle to be faithful. My sins obscure
My faith and my piety. My financial dealings have been
Fraught with temptation and sin. Our Lady Khadijah in her dealings remained so pure
Of usury and corruption. Please make me like her.

She fed the poor and hungry. She gave the ability to marry
To those who could not afford it. She deserved
The titles, Ameerat-Quraish, Princess of the Quaraish
Khadija Al-Kubra, Khadijah the Great, Al Tahir,
The Pure. Merciful Allah, conform me to her image.

When the Messenger would retreat to Mount Hira
To fast and pray she would feed him. Her wealth assured
The Messenger had time to cultivate his spirit. The birth of Islam relied
On her support. When the Prophet descended and shivered
She was the one to put a blanket around him and to comfort him.

She was the first Muslim. Without her the Prophet would have had no supporter,
And no way to establish our faith. Her riches succoured
The converts. Her faithfulness to the Blessed Message
Sanctified her for all time. What love and piety! I wonder
About how I could follow her example more.

What made her marriage to the Messenger’s so strong and sure?
Lady Aisha asked what made her worthy of his love like no other.
He replied: “She accepted me when people rejected me, she believed in me
When people doubted me, she shared her wealth with me when people deprived me,
And Allah granted me children only through her.” Beloved Allah, cast me in her mold!

O Lady Khadijah we know there are four women above all others
Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, Fatimah bint Muhammad, Mary bint Emran
and Asiya bint Muzahim, the wife of Pharaoh.
You were the perfect wife for the Seal of the Prophets and the most perfect mother.
O Allah, encourage me to strive harder! O Allah, help me be pure! O Allah, make me like her!

the victim pleading innocence

Why does the conscience scream at the sight of natural disaster,
at the Big Problems that we all grieve.
Not everyone has this arrogance but I am certain
it lives like a sewer in a city, everywhere running
implied by the facts we know of our day to day lives.

Look at Hurricane Katrina. What
negligence of the Bush Presidency to send off
the Guard from the levies,
baring New Orleans to the Gulf-

Or the typhoon that swept across Asia, 2004:
orphans and widows left behind as people
washed out to sea, the dead victims of a
sudden pestilential rain. the sea gulls
were flying axial changes in Australia.

The Gulf Oil spill, the thick red drops
of oil and chemicals in the water
Barack Obama approved increased off shore drilling
just last year.


Seen in day light these must be the acts of God
at the most incomprehensible. Our ability to choose destruction
no cure for the tendency to be victims of God's will.

But how many people, like me, unwillingly opt
to cull from these evil moments- guilt,
that we pulled the trigger, in some way that we are connected
and culpable.
The attacks against us increase, we grovel and fend off
guilt and self-hate. Our thoughts within the confines of our hearts
connect us to the problems of the world.
A psychosis of responsibility or of power
created by lack of position or influence
and the tragedy of others becomes diminished to
our small mistakes we misconstrue as causes
and this travesty continues without ceasing
in the paranoid heat of our minds.

In response:

God cannot be that arbitrary.
The Creator and Sustainer of the Universe
is no unsteady adolescent.

The secret solution:

To cultivate the joyful moments
as a buffer from despair,
and the grandiose presumptions that
our death, or even human hate prompts.

Our true responsibility:

To bathe carefully, and notice the smell of azaleas after rain falls.
To chew our rice. To speak more softly than those who speak to us.