i'tikaaf at an end, i return home, after once again the pleasance and sweetness of life alone. i actually slept for ~six hours last night, in my own bed - first time in many weeks. different things have happened, since i last wrote, among them blog quake day: and i say everyone who reads this should find ways to help. all theists who read this should at this very moment stop to whisper a prayer, and everyone who reads this should give of material possessions. these are circumstances we cannot even imagine; these are millions of people without homes or adequate shelter, and it is soon going to snow.
the second spate of midterms is fast approaching, but i am still greatly enjoying classes. i think next year i will take hebrew, and german, and art history. i have started wearing a beret. a political act, it defines how people see me.
ramadan is over. i miss ramadan. i wasn't ready for it, this year.
you lose track of time during i'tikaaf, it gains a surreal quality.
at the 'eid prayer today i prayed next to q and i, z's little brothers. the circumstances leading to this are nearly identical to those leading to the same fact two years ago. history repeating.
today at ph.r.d's we sang many qasidas, over and over again. "yaa rabbi bi'l-mustafa balligh maqasidana / wa'ghfirlana ma mada yaa wasi'al-karami". apparently we are performing on sunday, at the sunday school.
the new issue of the muslim minute is out, the printing quality is very good; content-wise it can take some work, but is reasonable. i called one of its editors from the MCE, where i was working on my two-week-late artikel. "i'm developing a skill quite well" "what skill is this?" "that of straining the bonds of brotherly love." the bonds persist, from a younger world.
went to the first of four lectures called "rethinking religion": very over my head, references to people i had never heard of, but very interesting nonetheless. may post thoughts on it later. main problem is the superficial reduction of religion to a binding force between individuals (man/man, deity/man), which it seems to me ignores Spirit. but i am there to see what post-christian, post-secular intellectuals are saying today, so i will listen and take notes.
except that i skipped the second lecture because i was sitting on a comfortable sofa in SUB, my feet on the table in front of me, singing in a texan accent with farooq, and thus did not feel like walking across campus to humanities.
i wasn't even gone for two weeks, but, having returned, everything usman does appears beautiful.
