Bliss In Practice

FITRA Fitra, or fitrah (Arabic فطرة ), is an Arabic word meaning ‘disposition’, ‘nature’, ‘constitution’, or ‘instinct’.The word fitrah comes from the Arabic radicals fa ta ra.The root action means, he clove, split, slit, rent or cracked it. The term fitrah literally means, creation; the causing a thing to exist for the first time; and the natural constitution with which a child is created in his mother’s womb. It is for this reason that Muslims prefer to refer to those who embrace Islam as reverts rather than converts, as it is believed they are returning to a perceived pure state. Babies don't have a problem with self image. They have milk from their mother because they're hungry and they don't care what anyone thinks about their crying and attempts at the breast. They feel themselves become stronger and are up for a new challenge. Time to crawl! Yes they mushed their nose on the carpet a hundred times and even went backwards for a while but do they giv...

TRUE STORY A woman called into the hospital last night. She explained that her 12 year old son had a concussion. She had been waking him up every hour for the past two days and was exhausted. I asked her to continue her story. She explained that she had a requisition for a CT scan but she had to wait for tomorrow for the appointment. Should she just bring him to the emergency room tonight? Then...she started to cry. Clearly, she was not asking for factual information, she needed emotional support. Like most situations when we are asked for help, we step lively and are careful with our advice. I decided to manage her feelings by encouraging her to listen to her mother's intuition. Whether or not she stayed the night in the emergency room is unknown to me and I will probably never know the outcome of the events with her son, a sort of open system if you will. HAVE YOU HAD TOO MUCH TO THINK TODAY? Scary thoughts run through a mother's head when their ...

While looking for the next sura to read, I came across one that drew me because of it's title “Ranged in Rows”. The title struck me for 2 reasons. I liked the alliteration in the title, it rolled off the tongue. I also was curious as to what exactly was (a)ranged in rows. So, why “ranged” and not “arranged”? My first thought was that of course the angels are always arranged by Allah. They have no will of their own. Then I thought, ranged reminds me of an artillery range which again is fitting with the first image of a stellar battleground. As soon as I typed “ranged” into google the first 3 things that pop up are ranged training, ranged weapons, ranged armour all have to do with runescape. The rows bit is I think  referring to the hierarchy of angels. The first being on the “front lines” to protect any eavesdropping on the “higher assembly”. I then turned my attention to the psychological effect of sound symbolism in the first 10 lines. Alliteration helps to cre...