Ramadan Night 14 - A Second Entry

I have been fascinated with this sura detailing the "companions of the cave" since a taxi driver in Jordan showed me one of the suggested sites for the caves just outside of Amman. I couldn't wait another day to get to it.  I am still working on the story, trying to understand its full significance, so if any of you would like to help, please comment :)

And what is there

To keep back men

From believing, now that

Guidance has come to them,

Nor from praying for forgiveness

From their Lord but that

(They wait for) the ways

Of the ancients to overtake

Them, or the Wrath

He brought to them

Face to face?

S.18 A. 55 

This is a pertinent, direct reminder for me to do two things:  1) As I progress as a Muslim, I need to be careful that I don't grow so comfortable that I start to corrupt myself by letting back in some of those old ways of thinking or behaviors, creating an attenuated soul, and 2) That I do not wait on issues, stall my development thinking I am ok, or that I have achieved enough, as I do not know when I will be brought Face to face.

I walk in two worlds now, the old domain I know so well, and this new place as a Muslim often alone.  When stressed or sometimes when I am too comfortable, I find myself reverting to things I thought I had vanquished.  These things are tolerated in my old world, making it that more easy and tempting to slip back.  Despite this convenience, I have to remind myself that although I can temporarily rejoin this old world when I wish, I am a Muslim, and I am being observed.  I don't carry the entire weight of my faith on my shoulders, but I am determined to showcase what I am becoming, what I am destined to be.

Face to face - that is daunting!  There are days when I think I will need three hundred and nine years to get to a place where I will be worthy of paradise. There is not a day when I don't reevaluate my actions and my thoughts.  Today, for instance, I was doubly determined not to slip, as I have some difficult things to deal with, and there would be a lot of stress at work.  I was amazed not that I resisted several thoughts, many comments, it was the fact that they were so many to deal with.  It was a good lesson for me, that I need to be vigilant minute by minute - for it is easy when I pray, or when I sit in bed reading the Koran, or when I am writing in this blog, a different story back in my old world. 

Tomorrow, I will again be on my guard watching my thoughts and actions.  The day after tomorrow, the same.  This is my path until I change and eradicate many of these thoughts and temptations.  I don't mind, I have faith that one day I will be recognized as a Muslim before I have to declare it.