One time someone tagged me in an Instagram story with a quote I apparently said during a major poetry feature I had — and by major I mean I basically shared the stage with two poetry legends, Olivia Gatwood and Omar Holmon. (I miss being seen as that valuable of an artist. Now people treat me kind of like a washed up poet they are barely willing to pay, all because I took time off to be with my dad during his final months, couldn’t quite keep up with digital literary life during the pandemic, and then decided to pursue an MBA. Self care can be quite isolating, huh?)
In these moments, religious people tell you, You still have God, and God is enough. So I go back to the quote I was tagged in:
“You can’t battle what you don’t believe in.”
I believe nothing can ever unearth my belief in God. I know He’s there. I feel Him, all the time — and I mean like ALL the time — and I know He hears me, but it’s been decades of what feels like unanswered prayers.
Religious people will tell you He’s just preparing you, delaying until the right time, protecting you. But religious people seem to overlook the verse in the Quran that tells us not to forget our share from this world. (28:77).
I do believe everything happens for a reason (it’s basically my motto in most of my blog posts) but I feel like humanity has reached its peak breaking point — the one that calls for a legitimate hardcore miracle to restore some balance, justice, and faith. I think of all the examples God gives in the Quran of the various miracles (small and large) that He granted or manifested. Abraham asked for one as a means to assure his faithful heart (2:260). The people of the cave were sent — as an assurance — for the people of that time that life after death is real (18:21).
Over coffee tonight, my date asked me if I was religious (turns out his grandfather was Muslim, but he and his father are not). I appreciated the question to be honest, because it was refreshing not to face someone’s presumptions of me. People see my scarf and make major assumptions.
Muslim boys think the scarf means automatic conservatism (and every Muslim man I’ve met since my divorce ten years ago has been anti-headscarf). Non-Muslim boys see the scarf and think “alien specimen” unless they’re miraculously cultured or hardcore horny (meaning, they don’t care what I’m wearing). So I’m caught in the middle of everything — middle of the religious spectrum, middle of the male thought process spectrum, middle of the socio-political spectrum — once again, a space of isolation.
Am I religious? I guess that depends on how we define religious. My faith is there — its strength wavers, which so many people are too ashamed to admit. This is a normal part of the process, but yeah, some days the loneliness feels lonelier when I’m trying to hear back from God. Especially these past few years.
Dear God, all of us are aching and I don’t know what else to say, but May You answer our prayers and #FreePalestine!