I am at the funeral parlor, they bring him out on a gurney at my request. His eyes are closed. He seems like he is sleeping, a peaceful expression on his face.

“May I see his eyes?” I ask the attendant and he removes something that is keeping his eyes shut. His eyes are open but they are not expressionless like the dead people you see in the movies. His gaze is focused on something……….that is moving away far into the horizon………………..

The Prophet (pbuh) was reported by Umm Salamah to have said “Verily when the spirit (Rooh) is taken the eyes follow it” (Sahih Muslim vol.2 p.437 no.2005).

The successful souls will be made to enter paradise as Allah said to the righteous souls “O soul (Nafs) at peace, come back to your Lord pleased with yourself and pleasing to Him. Enter among My devotees. Enter My paradise.” (Soorah al-Fajr 89:27-30)

Snow falls to the fire escape below. The rusted black bars become achromatic and plain, the complications of the cities many faces simplify if only for this moment. Edward takes a deep sip of his coffee, lets the air from his nostrils shoot downwards into the obsidian liquid below, the steam rolling upwards, fogging his glasses.

He watches as the squirrels emerge, bound across the Brooklyn rooftops in search of food, the out-of-place seagulls roaming overhead, far from their home at Brighton Beach, thinks of his childhood home which now exists only within his head.

The nostalgia for a simplicity that he knows never existed at times overwhelms him, thinks of the many days of roaming the hills around his home, the plainness, clean-lines, the innocence. Summer days and cool, foggy afternoons the regulated tempo of his younger years, he would traverse the golden grasses, the wind-swept Spanish moss hanging from the heavy branches of the oaks, the miner’s leaf lettuce patches that stretched for as far as the eye could see. The algae-covered pond, the weeping willow on its banks, the tadpoles and mosquito fish and the water bugs. The currencies of his remembered pasts abound and he exchanges them for moments of solace on cold days like these, far from home in the outer reaches of the city that never sleeps.

Someone has stopped in the middle of the street outside, the cars line up behind and frustrated drivers honk their horns with fury. The snow deadens the abrasive nature of their releases, he remembers as a young child playing with his sister on the highway that ran next to their house on a Sunday. That was before it became a major highway, still remained classified as a scenic route. Edward remembers his grandfather and father, father and son, in worn Levi jeans sitting on the alabaster fence watching them play. It was a summer day, the feint smell of tar from the hot asphalt, crisp, dry grasses, and the stillness of a mid-afternoon, the dry heat abounded. These things were etched into his memory forever and he knew that what he sought in life, more than happiness or contentment, was a return to this mythical past. He thinks of many of the mythical pasts we peg our contentedness, our senses of self-worth, our desires, our pains to and watches as the sparrows huddle against each other in the ever-increasing winter winds.

He knows that the memories he dredges up from his past are probably far different from what actually happened, that the contexts are lost, the full range of senses that accompanied each of his actions. His pasts become present through this yanking up and through time of these temporal moments that he commits. Today though, whether past or present, these moments offer condolement against the discord that erupts from the gritty, snow-covered streets of Brooklyn below and he sits, coffee in hand, as a being of remembered pasts.

Solaceのお産からもう１週間たちました。
早すぎます・・・（驚

３頭しかいないので、母乳も充分行き渡っているせいか、
カバ体型というより、丸々と太った子豚みたいになっています。。。

こんなにも小さいのに、お乳が足りないと怒ってるし、
怒ったときの鳴き声は「この世の終わり」みたいにかなりデカイです。

そのせいで私は寝不足。・ﾟﾟ･(≧д≦)･ﾟﾟ･｡ｴｰﾝ!!

でも、Solaceの乳腺炎も落ち着いてきたし、来週から安心してちょっとだけ帰国できそうです♪

ミスチル、楽しみです(o^-^o)

Temple hewn into the rock: Courtesy:http://www.flickr.com/photos/marceloruiz/2492794354/in/photostream/

A summary from the Tafseer from Dr. Farhat Hashmi

In the valley of the rocks approximately two thousand years before Christ, dwelled a most advanced nation.

The material advancement of this nation made these people content with who and where they were. Their sense of self-satisfaction lulled them into a state where they failed to examine their business practices. They were dishonest in their dealings in business. One in particular was in weights and measures.

When warned by their Prophet, a Warner from Allah Subhanawataala to stop the Dhulm (taking more than what is due to them) they laughed at him.

When his warnings started to take effect in some of the populace, the nations leaders became alarmed primarily because if the Prophets warnings took effect on the populace, the most serious consequence on the nation and its leaders would be that they would lose their current lifestyle.

Thus they tried to malign the message as well as the messenger i.e. the Prophet himself. When that failed in this strategy, they made fun of him and eventually demonized him. When all of this failed they threatened him with death and destruction of his followers.

End summary

This is where I must pause and reflect on my surroundings, and myself and the world brought to me on the wings of cyberspace.

What is happening all over the world? Muslims are being harassed, terrorized, invaded, tortured, evicted from their homes, muslim girls raped, and burned, and their homes are being bulldozed…………..listening to this and looking at the pictures and videos one loses heart.

It seems to me that when this surah was revealed in Mecca times were similar to current day, and the oppression and torture of Muslims by the powerful Quraish seemed insurmountable. Prophet Muhammad pbuh who was a gentle soul could feel the anguish of the handful of people who had accepted Islam and were being tortured for it. Allah Subhanawataala in this Surah is reassuring him by showing him vignettes of the past and sharing the outcome of disobedient nations.

Summary continues

It is in this milieu, (The situation in Mecca) that Allah Subhanawataala, rewinds time for him (pbuh) and shows him the outcome of some of the most powerful and most affluent nations when they obstinately remain disobedient.

They are eventually destroyed, and join the ranks of “the perished nations” as an example of” those who did not heed the Warner sent by Allah Subhanawataala”

End summary

My Take:

1. Being a Muslim in name does not bring the protection of Allah upon us, it is only when we are obedient to his commandments as brought by Prophet Muhammad pbuh confirming the message brought by the past Prophets, that we can be sincere in  invoking His protection and mercy.
2. When an ideology recommends a change in lifestyle, the self-satisfaction of the individual especially if he or she is materially well off is threatened. Such an individual or nations resist change, any change that will change their comfort level, even if currently entails usurping the rights of the less fortunate or the innocent.
3. Sometimes a nation (like the nation in the valley of the rocks) gets drunk with power and challenges Allah Subhanawataala’s Might and Magnanimity by removing all vestiges of mention of His name or even sometimes ban His worship.
4. Elsewhere in the Quran Allah Subhanawataala says that he will replace the nation of disobedient people with those who are obedient and fearful of Him. In this Surah he gives a vivid history lesson to Prophet Muhammad pbuh and us of how that can happen.
5. This surah also alludes to the disobedient nations that perished due to a variety of reasons which included the misuse of their sexuality, misuse of their business practices and the deliberate and overt negation of what is right in the eyes of Allah and the deliberate and overt acceptance of What He Subhanawataala has forbidden us from.
6. Elsewhere in the Quran Allah Subhanwataala reassures us that the only things that he has forbidden us are those that are harmful to us. Sometimes at first pass those things that he has forbidden us seem okay but in the long reach of the arm of time and society they turn out to be devastatingly detrimental.

Allah knows best

今日、Solaceを病院に連れて行ってきました。|￣ω￣、|ｸﾞｽﾝ

しっぽに近い２つのお乳が赤青く？
何かの臓器みたいに巨大に腫れていて、「乳腺炎か？？？」と心配になって・・・

幸い、１０：３０の予約が取れたので、急いで子犬パックを作って
連れて行ってきました。

お乳を調べてもらったら、少しだけばい菌があるとのこと。
「乳腺炎だけど、炎症はひどくないので、３〜４時間ごとにお乳を絞ってあげてね」
と言われました∑ヾ(≧□≦*)ﾉ ｳﾜｯ!!

「じゃあ搾乳器を分けて下さい」とお願いしたら、
「犬用はないので、牛の要領でやってあげてね」と・・・Σ(￣ロ￣lll)　ｶﾞﾋﾞｰﾝ

牛のお乳、絞ったことないよぉ〜〜〜（涙

早速、家に帰って、まず抗生物質と痛み止めの薬を飲ませて、
早速、乳搾りに挑戦。。。

でも病院で教えてくれたみたいに上手く行かない〜〜〜（撃沈

こんなんで症状はよくなるのかな？？？

毎日でも、乳搾りに病院に通いたいくらい心配です。。。
でも３〜４時間おきにって言われたから、無理な話か〜〜〜|￣ω￣、|ｸﾞｽﾝ

Solaceの子犬が産まれて､同室で寝ているので、どうせ睡眠不足だし、
しばらく、この調子で頑張れって事かなぁ。。。

本人は至って元気で、今日買ってきた牛の筋肉を一生懸命噛んでました♪