Ramadan Night 19 - The Ninth Entry

Yet they play about
In doubt.
Then watch thou
For the day
That the sky will
Bring forth a kind
Of smoke (or mist)
Plainly visible.
Enveloping the people:
This will be chastisement
Grievous.
(They will say:)
"Our Lord! Remove
The chastisement from us,
For we do really believe!"
S.44 A. 9-12

I know this relates to those of us who wait until the last moment possible to accept Allah.  They hope to see the signs in time to repent, they are gambling with their souls. Perhaps they think when they truly believe the world is ending, their hearts will open. I am sure that it is a doomed strategy as God will know what was truly in their hearts, and the very act of trying to out guess Him is a particular kind of sin.
This verse suggests another kind of sin to me though.  A sin I have been guilty of, too often in my life.  Its not that I am waiting until the last moment to accept God, it is that I sometimes wait until I am troubled or in peril to be pious and faithful. I bargain with God, promising all that I should have offered freely, all that was already His, for  the cessation of my troubles.  In both cases, the timing is wrong, but the consequences are just. This Ramadan I have drawn a line in the sand with myself, and I am going to be proactive, giving to God all that He requires, all that He deserves - and I will face the consequences of my actions with the peace of mind He can grant.  No more waiting, no more gambling, no more negotiating! 

Ramadan Night 3

Satan's plan is (but)
To excite enmity and hatred
Between you, with intoxicants
And gambling, and hinder you
From the remembrance
Of Allah, and from prayer
Will ye not then abstain?
S. 5 A. 91

This past year, almost 11,000 people died in alcohol related automobile accidents in the USA alone.  One in three traffic deaths is caused by alcohol, and on average one American is killed in an alcohol related accident every 50 minutes. Three million violent crimes each year are attributed to alcohol use, that is just under one crime per second. Three out of four spousal assailants are under the influence of alcohol.  These statistics do not include drugs, just alcohol.  They are also only the reported crimes.

Twelve million Americans are addicted to gambling.  More than 60% of addicted gamblers report that they have committed crimes to fund their habit.  If the expense they caused was spread to all citizens, it would come to $57 for every man, woman, and child.  

These are just a few statistics, what is not listed is the number of broken families, ruined friendships, lost lives, lost income, lost productivity, lost potential.  All for the right to consume fermented drinks, and to try to make money without honestly earning it.  Who else but the devil could have created such plagues on the earth, that the earthlings themselves would jealously covet?  And who else could kill a man in a drunken accident, then sit in the back of the room, invisibly chortling, as his relatives send off their loved one in a drunken wake?  Who else could have created such silly contrivances (when examined exhumed from human reverence) that mothers would trade for their own children, fathers for their lives, teens for their dreams.  Only the devil.

I have always been puzzled as to how liberals and conservatives alike can defend these horrible indulgences.  I think the devil is in the details and knows them well, and the details are something like this: Inside of us lies that person who longs to be superior, to be able to handle what others cannot, to be able to master anything with self-discipline.  No matter how many people perish and suffer from alcohol and gambling, as long as some can control their indulgence, others will envy the ability, and declare their right to compete. Never have I heard a logical defense of these two activities that did not include a specious appeal to human freedom, human choice.  Never a balanced accounting of loss and gain.  Very little discussion of gain period.  The most honest argument is that the cork could never be put back in the bottle (forgive the pun). Only the devil can convince you a battle is lost before it is joined, or that you can rationalize away anything with a little vain vocabulary. 

I believe in the devil for many reasons.  I believe only the devil can make us jealous of what we don't have, what we don't deserve, and he can make us settle for the false consolation of drink.  I believe only the devil can make us lust after that which we do not earn, and he can make us settle on the caprice of luck, slanted luck at that.  I believe the devil has led us to create misery  and despair in order to give us these two maladies, and let us believe they are crutches, the only way to temporarily escape the lives we have come to dread. And I believe only the devil can distract us so completely that we lose our way, and trade our blessings and dreams for the gilded folly of addiction., shinier in the gloom of our malaise than the sober strength embedded in the words of our Lord. The devil deals in trinkets and pretty looking babbles.

I don't know where the devil is, or exactly what he is.  He has been in my life since the start though, wreaking enough havoc and mayhem to distract my family from a faith they once held, allowing me to build a false sense of faith, or even an anti-faith.  I don't know if the devil is naturally inside all of us, or like a vampire has to be invited in, but he shows up.  I have discussed the horrors alcohol brought to my life in earlier posts, gambling was also right behind, taking everything good we could have know, stunting our sense of worth and self-promise, creating a reality only the devil could have loved. I have never really been frightened of or motivated by the  threat of hell, I have been there.

Revisiting God's words above, I am sad they were not known by my parents, their parents, their parent's parents, any of my ancestors.  For the devil fears a weak link, a link that can break the entire chain.  I hope I have broken my chain, that my daughters see in my life an alternative to these cruel crutches that cripple us, our families, friends, and society.  Crutches can cripple, the devil knows that too.

*A painful example: http://philosopherking-michael.blogspot.com/2010/10/leslie-set-it-off.html

Leslie "Set it Off"

I first met Leslie when I was teaching a graduate level research course. She was a very bright, precocious young graduate student. She was eager to learn and to apply the concepts we were learning to her teaching. She was an elementary school teacher like her mother, and like her mother, she wanted to eventually become a principal. She worked very hard.
She must have made an impression on me, because I discussed her with another colleague who taught a course on math manipulatives. We both had a very favorable impression of Leslie, and shared the belief that she was indeed going places. We just didn't know where.
Leslie made it through her Master's program in record speed and I soon lost touch with her. She did keep in contact with my friend though, and I got occasional reports. Whenever I thought about Leslie, I would remember our spirited conversations about music and movies - she loved both. I didn't like R&B or action flicks and she did. I remember discussing one movie in particular, Set It Off. It was a movie with Queen Latifah about a group of young women who robbed banks. I didn't like the film (partly because I was not that enamored with Queen Latifah) but Leslie loved it. It was one of many artistic subjects we did not agree upon, however I enjoyed the exchange and so did she.
Nearly eight years after I had met Leslie, our mutual friend burst into my office with a very flushed face sighing "you won't believe this." She handed me the following news brief:

DETROIT, Michigan – As reported by the Detroit News: "Leslie C. Washington, a 27-year-old elementary school teacher from suburban Cleveland, is not a typical bank robber.

"After racking up large losses while gambling at Detroit casinos with a man she met there, the teacher declared bankruptcy.

"…Washington bought a $30 gun and masks like those from the movie "Scream." She went with her boyfriend and another man to the Key Bank on Telegraph Road in Brownstown Township last summer.

" The trio was nabbed by police with $11,151 from the bank after Washington, driving a Ford Explorer, led officers on a 15-mile chase that topped 110 mph.

"The young educator is among a growing number of criminals goaded into theft by casino-gambling losses, authorities say. At least five people in Michigan have robbed banks in the past year to settle casino gambling debts, the FBI reports."

I have read quite a bit about gambling addictions since that moment. I never realized the extent of the problem in our culture. Of the many troubling statistics I have discovered, the following is particularly disturbing - More than 50% of admitted gambling addicts write bad checks to cover their debts, and 25% of them embezzle funds from their employers. Wow!
Subsequently, I don't respond well to political ads arguing the benefits of opening a new casio or betting lounge in the area. For me, gambling is like drinking and the Koran speaks very elegantly about the nature of alcohol - in my words: why indulge a practice that has minimal benefits but enormous destructive potential? I am sure Leslie has had time to consider this.