Fasting

I have a small confession - sometimes I feel guilty about fasting.  Not that I am cheating my  fast, just that it has always been very easy for me.  As a matter of fact, I suppose I am fasting every third day at anytime of the year, at least when I am on my own. Since my conversion, more than four years ago, I have spent each Ramadan by myself, and I really never had the excitement of breaking fast with someone else, someone else I wanted to be with, so the anticipation of iftar lacked the promise of  that commune.  I understand that these issues should have nothing to do with my reverent observance, but I am human.  I think there were some very valuable components missing from my experience.  In reality, the discipline of the fast was not arduous, and the evening meal was often lonely.

This year has been different in many ways.  My daughter is with me for two weeks, and it is very nice to have her company during this holy time, although she is not a Muslim.  She is beginning to understand my faith, and she has always been very respectful.  Her presence reminds me of all that I should be grateful for, and that has added some life and color to my days.  I am also fulfilling a goal that I have failed for the past four years - I am reading the Koran, and I am writing about the inspiration I feel from its pages.  By the end of the month, I will have read most of it, and I will have singled out a lesson from most of the suras, and that has added a serenity and sense of satisfaction to each of these sacred evenings.

Finally, our fast this year is quite lengthy, and it is beginning to test me - the length of the days, the heat, the fact that I am not as busy as I usually am, all have contributed to a more significant experience.  By the end of the day, I feel the fast, feel what I believe I am meant to feel.  There is a lightness in my chest as I prepare my evening meal, no sense of urgency, I feel as if I am clean, worthy of the month. I eat sparingly, and the patient abeyance of my hunger and thirst ushers me into a peaceful, contemplative mood.  I chat with my daughter, then I turn to my Koran.  I have never read it this way before; it is as if I prepare myself each day, cleansing my thoughts, my dreams, my pain, and the words wash over me warmly, massaging my heart.  

I love these days now, no longer tolerating them, but living them.  Alhamdulilah.