And you aren't new

And you aren't new but you're persistent like leprosy.

And we keep fighting through to laughter, while you claw at us, eating us.

Exposing yourself in truth.

Here the night passes slowly I keep a secret more fragile as I tire, lusting for peace, so you can eat it, and rip it.

I have become polluted my heart is dirty, my prayers are static, there's no communication between me and God.

But the destitution of this state doesn't make me entirely despair.
Love keeps laughing and crying even stretched beyond recognition,

you can condescend endlessly and steal your selves rich


(when I did this I didn't see your selfishness could make me this blind to my own.

My art now

To listen to your words as my hands painting
To sketch peace with thought

To stretch the canvas of mind on the frame of attention
To mix the colors of happiness
 

Reflection on storms

Oh I said I'll be true to you

But I did not have that much to do

When the colors ripen in the sky as the day passes by 

The sand gets soggy then gets dry

So was I!

I would lie and lie
still and never work for much more.

 

You threw me into tormoil because

How could I say I worshiped you when I did not
follow the law you gave or live the life you told us to live?

 

You decreed for me

An impossible moment lasting for years
That wrenched away even my tears

 

Suddenly one day the sun shone through
I wept with gratitude

Now I want to guard my life and keep your light close
and make different choices that the choices I chose.

Follow, listen and obey,
and keep my feet ever on the Way.

Thoughts prompted by Hurricane Sandy

The rain from the sky calls us to reflect on the people who have suffered from the killer storms and the typhoons of recent memory: the suffering of global warming embedded in our senses.Their experience looms more horrific than anything I have endured and no matter how many times the sotrms strike it does not make the heart inert. It is a sign of Your force to act on the world. The rain from the sky wrenches the buildings to lie on their sides.  The rain drenches the ground until the floods destroy all the homes.

In these days, the human heart still works but its beats are softer and less easily heard. Clouded by radiation and information our hearts must talk to us more softly and see less clearly than they once did.  Or maybe more of us weighs heavily now that population has grown so immense?  Is it that now there is more ignorance by percentage or by presence? But even with our blind hearts, with the violence of these storms God gets our attention.

 These storms can lead me in my vision back to the troubles I faced and still face, and my emerging hope tied to the hope for us as a race.  I have had chaos and disaster for years and now I find myself in a peacful moment afterwards.  The wreckage is still there but it looks like it can be fixed. I chose to wreck my life.  I chose to destroy what I had so carefully built.  I took control and created disasters all over my life.  But now it looks like I might heal.  Can the same be true of the environment?

It is too late take our place beside Iron and the Mountains and decline to take care of the earth.  Human beings are khalifah, we are the keepers of the earth.  We can not disagree.  We have killed so many species and polluted our atmosphere.  We have destroyed that which we said we would preserve.

But maybe with the brilliance we have among us we can restore the earth.  I thought my life was over but now I think I can find a way to solve my problems.  Likewise it looks like the environmental destruction we face is unsurmountable.  But now I think I have a chance to live a good life someday.  The environmental destruction is extreme but maybe there is a way out of that too. 

Maybe human beings can be more trustworthy about our keeping the earth and be trustworthy to let the LORD lead the way.

Maybe we can heal the environmental devastion, and overcome the destruction of our planet.

Sister, on the doorstep

Sister, sitting on the curb side
You live a life denied
of luxury and comfort
and full of sadness and hurt.

Yet, I see in you, in your dirty clothes
and dirty hair and humble abode
on that doorstep cold and lonely
something special for the poor only.

The LORD of time and all creation
blesses you in your tribulation
because GOD will always stay close nearby,
and listen to your moans and sighs.

GOD loves the poor even when
many will walk by and turn their heads
and I wish for your encouragement and peace
to overcome your difficulties.

 

Longing for the hills

broken by the flap of the birds
ochre from summer heat
maybe a small stream-
three lines through the trees
a lake of quiet
over the round water's edge

Song for help from the LORD

LORD you have seen me search for truth
for the years of my life
I have always embraced Your words
as the guide to how I want to live
I love the laws you have inscribed on the hearts
of all humanity

The perfect order and harmony of nature reflects
that divine beauty and plan
The light of day as it chases the darkness
like truth shines in the midst of a lie
and brings peace and tranquility
The dark of night as it covers over my faults
and the ugliness of the world and human error
and settles peace over the oceans and the hills.

LORD you know my love for you
but it has not been enough
Not preserved me from falling into mistakes
Not saved me from disgrace
Is it not enough that I have sought you out in the midst of people who ignore you
or ignore your words or lie and steal and plan to destroy other people
Please look on my love for your law and my desire to love the people around me
look at what I have done well and forgive what mistakes I have made

I am the grief of my family
My life pains my parents
My mouth always speaks louder than I plan to speak
in frustration I am yelling for help

Please come into my life and be merciful with me.
Please bless me with your Salvation and your Grace
Forgive me my sins and create a good and righteous record
for me and for those who love me.

Rizq at 38

Rizq at 38

long years behind me
my youth
years of trouble and ease

now the future rolls towards me
my age
all the sadness and grief

but like a signpost before me
the Quran
tells me to release

all the regrets that prevent me
from finding
the gratitude that would lead to peace

what is water but God's mercy
what is warmth but God's love
what is the food that sustains me
But a blessing from above
what is my life but  a moment
in a vast universe
that won't remember
the curses
that worry me now
like knots on my mind
there is a whole world I give thanks for-
endless abundance Divine.

anger

1. I can feel it in my chest
straining my heart's covering.
I can not even struggle
to keep it from appearing.
It bursts out of me
Like a tornado
and destroys any illusion
I have of a halo.

2. What keeps my son crying
on so many nights and days
what wrecks my happiness
what takes my smiles away
what makes my best plans fall apart
what drowns the sunlight and blackens the blue sky
Turns honey to water and makes faith dry.

silencing speaking and speaking from silence

We always talk about how people don't listen
says my mother as we chat
and I know I have also thought about that
but I don't think I would have this position
before everyone expected me to be silent.

Now that I talk when told to refrain
I take up space that holds others back
from their lives and it isn't meant as an attack
but it seems to bring them pain
and their response to quiet me feels violent.

Who does not speak in history?
All the women and the subaltern people
and they have emerged more feeble
from the treachery
of the dominant.

So keep speaking I say to myself
and to all the people trying to find words
to express their feelings even when told it is absurd
that they speak and reveal
their truth in the moment.

Ikhlas

Why did I start to worship God in the early moments of my life?
Why did I start to sing God's praise and send my prayers to the Most High?
Longing for greater strength of heart to love and transcend
the restraints of my humanity in this life and beyond the end.

Striving to make a better world by loving all near and far,
I tried to excelled at compassion and to keep my heart from being hard.
I worked to read the scriptures and to sing songs of praise.
I spent time in meditation and walked beside a lake.

Now I see my books get stolen and my thoughts drop into someone else's mind
I cannot think as clearly and my vision has become blind.
But the thought at first that I held to of loving all people
Keeps me resistant to the everpresent evil

Of the hateful and the greedy and vicious onlookers
who try to drag me down and blind me forever.
I try to walk lightly and to keep myself alight
with the love I felt when first loving God Most High.

They might be better from what they steal from me,
and I try to let it go and be less greedy.
I try to think that my spirit has been built to give
and I try to make my space a place where all want to worship.