This Ramadan had special importance to me for two reasons.
1) last year I had a serious accident with 12 stitches over my right eye. I lost consciousness, and that has never happened to me before. One minute I saw the motorbike coming at me and knew I would be hit, and the next minute some one was helping me to the curb. I thought then, well, at least I did regain consciousness. Because, just as quickly, I might not have. It could have been fatal and I really thought about the second reason then.
2) Hajj is suppose to be a “once in a lifetime” thing. I decided after the accident, that I really needed to push my intentions up a notch and make the hajj. There was not sufficient time to do it for last hajj season, but I always felt you should make your intentions the year before and then see what happens.
After I made my intentions, a friend said, you cannot go for hajj unless you are invited by Allah. Well, some people might think that’s kinda quirky, but it really changed my perspective on the whole: make-my-intentions-thing. It’s like the Qur’an says about provisions: if Allah provides, none can take them away. And if Allah does not decree, then how can it be? It just made sense to me.
At the moment, I am not having the best relationship with the tour company I selected (online), so even now I feel a bit uncertain if this will be my year. Few things have made me feel so vulnerable and yet so motivated of late. So I will take this with the small wisdoms or the lessons I learned this Ramadan.
In no particular order:
Although Allah is always present, in the company of conscientious and devout believers, ones experience of that Divine presence is enhanced. This is what the Sufis mean with the idea of suhbah: companionship for the sake of Allah. But, and here’s the thing I got this year: people are different. It is really, really worth it to encourage yourself and others with whom you are comfortable to increase your ibadah or worship. I mean, just because people are worshipping Allah does not mean you are going to be on the same page.
I prayed tarawih regularly at the mosque closest to my home but nothing resembling companionship ever resulted. I prayed tarawih at the community around my shaykh (whom I have known for 8 or 9 years), with most of them American converts about my age and level of education, and the worship was sweeter. Go figure.
Family matters. I did take a few days off from the intensified worship just to be with my family who lives farther away from me. Still, we fasted and prayed and ate together and that too was a reminder of what is good and meaningful in life. It brought me to that place of shukr: gratitude of Allah. That’s important.
The lesson I taught at my shaykh’s retreat was on the Qur’an’s special notice of the struggles of two women, the one pregnant and in labor, Maryam, the other nursing her infant child Moses. Some one pointed out the same mercy in the story of Joseph, with his father’s expression of deep love and care. I have always liked the idea of a sacred text that takes the time to notice.
This year, I learned that as we get older, our capacity for even the prescribed worship might change. There were more people in chairs for prayer than I remember in the past, and I had to take one myself for one of the tarawih. I finally finished the Qur’an reading I had started last year and decided that now I’m at the point where it will take two years to read through. To be merciful with our aging is like Allah’s mercy with those parents: it’s a part of the Divine nature and I am grateful.
Finally, and of course unique for this year, I learned that it is possible to blog your way through Ramadan, sharing many ideas along the way, and yet still keep some things between you and Allah alone. The idea to do this one hundred-day blog came to me on my recent return from Indonesia. While there, my friends said hajj would be a challenge because of gender restrictions. Then a friend described people doing tawaf, or circumambulation around the kaaba, while sending text messages on a mobile phone. I just cannot see totally giving up my one-on-one moments with Allah just for a blog.
That being said, let the preparations to meet the king begin.
