Ramadan 2017

 Potluck every night. Dinner for 10-15-20-25, just depends.  Food scattered and gathered.  Dishes reheated, leftovers from the previous day or two. I make a mad dash to the house to pick up more food, grabbing whatever I can when surprise guests, unexpected visitors arrive!

Cleanup begins the moment the meal ends.  Endless dishes, dishwashers filled, food dated and put away, floors swept, tablecloths shaken or changed, floors mopped, pots and pans dried, counter tops wiped with citrasolv, lights out—time to pray. Then repeat the next night and the next and every night for the next thirty days.

One week into Ramadan I am sure I cannot do another night.  I decide to take a day off but there are no days off in Ramadan.  If I skip a night, I will miss the teachings offered and Qur’an reading with the group. And if I don’t fast one day it is just one more day to make up! Ramadan is unrelenting, tedious, time consuming and Divine! There is nothing quite like Ramadan.

The relentlessness of this process is the gift of Ramadan. Allah holds my feet to the fire so I can walk—really walk. The first ten days is Mercy. Thank goodness because in that first ten days all I see are the worst pictures of me, ones I have meticulously painted over the years through disbelief and turning away from Allah, not looking to find, to see, to hear.  Of course, you think you know the Truth but you are mislead by delusion. Ten days of Mercy pass as this cavalcade of images reverberate in my awareness. Oh Allah, help me forgive myself; release me from this prison of pain, sorrow, disgust and ignorance.

Then the next ten days, days eleven to twenty establishes Forgiveness, not mine but Yours. I am still plagued with my pictures but somewhere in the progression of days Forgiveness seeps into my being, into my heart, soul, spirit, bones, blood and flesh.  I am released from my images. Allah as Fashioner, al-Musawwir, covers over my pictures with His. I transcend the struggle and float free in His grace.

Days twenty-one to thirty begin and the call to night prayer intensifies with Tasbih repeated three, five or more times at each position of the Taraweeh prayer.  “Not possible,” I think, “I can’t do this!” But Freedom is the quality of the last ten day; Freedom from my beliefs in limitation, in boundaries and in pictures.  I am free from this imagining as Allah shows me pictures of unimagined beauty.  Lailat al-Qadir comes next. I wonder what mysteries may be revealed on this night of power.

This morning after Fajr prayer I walk out of the house into the pre-dawn light.  The sky is a tapestry of colors: blues, pink, white, shades of grey. I am enraptured, lifted up by His beauty al-Majid and magnificence al-Azim.  The day begins, the sun rises, the birds turn the morning into song and I remember Cat Stevens: “Morning has broken like the first morning, black birds have spoken like the first bird…” The glory of creation repeated again and again each morning, each dawn.  It is one of the most perfect gifts of Ramadan—being up as the sun rises and being out in the fresh morning dew, feeling the damp Earth as the sun rises and warms the world around me.  

Ramadan reveals a mystery.  God’s might is tender and merciful. How do I know this? Because He has gently moved me in the direction of His love even while I resist. He does not hesitate or ease off; rather He consistently moves me toward His perfection that I might see and feel and taste and touch the essence of His Divine Mercy ar-Rahman, His strength al-Qadir, His endurance as-Sabur and His love al-Wadud. It is a mystery, an unexplainable conundrum how He shows up even now, in this moment.