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.