- in the name of Allah -

Alhamdulillah, Ramadan. Not the funnest time of year, but one where it's easiest to find moments of spiritual reflection. Though to me it always seemed to reinforce the sense of a prison on top of a prison (on top of a prison), that doesn't take anything away from the opportunities it gives. 

Each second, every minute, represent little gateways to improving or creating a connection to Allah, a concept so vast its true benefit and import can never really be grasped. Still worth it. Human beings are limited in the time and space and frame of mind and expectation (or lack thereof) of their daily existence, so we can never fully appreciate the kinds of favors we're shown. But they're still there, waiting for us to make some mention of shukr to Allah. 

As of late, I've been fairly even-tempered in most aspects. Still not able to tap into the emotional depth as I had some weeks back, but I suppose this is partly due to the inherent need people have to connect that finds itself always kinda limited in my case. Dad's health is getting worse-ish, chemo treatments aside, it's as if there's little left but preparation for the end. It might be that eventuality links in to my current state, giving some reasoning for its distanceness, difficulty in being able to hold any emotion for any length of time. It's extremely ironic: those who'd seek to escape and avoid their mortality find it in front of them, yet those who'd embrace their impending end find it only ever out of reach, secretly hidden in a vault of the future they're not privy to. Alas. 

I've also recently deduced I can't exactly keep my entire focus on tomorrow, on hopes of Jannah, as much I'd want. For if I did, as I have a bit recently, then I sort of lose sight of a great deal of what's in front of me, and maybe worse, I want deeply to be disconnected from what is the present and find myself in tomorrow, a paradox because tomorrow is by definition slightly out of reach for me, and like the hamster on its wheel I'm stuck constantly engaged in living in the present. There's no getting around these aspects of the mortal coil, much as I wish it wasn't, much as the soul longs to be free of its physical cages. But, alhamdulillah, I can still sometimes look forward, see into a place just barely imagined, and it serves as just enough fuel for the moments I now inhabit. Just enough that the torches lit haven't vanished, just enough that my Haq calls me to Him in tones always repeating. 

One of the things most endearing about my deen, and there are so many, but one of its most beautiful and beneficent aspects is in this hadith: "The Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم  said, “The supplication of a Muslim for his brother in his absence will certainly be answered. Every time he makes a supplication for good for his brother, the angel appointed for this particular task says: `Ameen! May it be for you, too’.” [Muslim]. " So all one has to do is make dua for his fellow brethren, and that same good automatically comes back to him, a built-in mechanism to combine the aspects of selflessness and selfishness in the best possible way: wanting good for others and for ourselves, by means of making dua for others. Can it get any easier than that? Not at all. The magnanimity in Islam is so far surpassing anything humans could devise, always calling to the inherent good in us. 

Alhamdulillah. Have a few epics to write, one for later this month and another for Septemberish. InshaAllah, should be interesting ( : o