Earthquake

There was a recent earthquake that hit the San Francisco Bay area in the US. Here is a friend's experience in his own words...

"...just experienced my first earthquake. i was pulling up at the parking lot of the masjid for isha [prayer], and i waited a second to shut the engine off and i was like “why is my car shaking like that?” — i took my foot off the brake and my car was still shaking. i got out of the car, walked away from it, puzzled at the shaking (the whole time i thought it was the car, i didn’t realize it was the ground).

i only realized after the salah [prayer] when the sheikh started talking about a verse 'You did indeed wish for death (Ash­Shahadah - martyrdom) before you met it. Now you have seen it openly with your own eyes.' (3:143) and saying how we’d just experienced being saved from death, and then the man said that people should go home and be with their families. so i asked my friend and he told me it was an earthquake.
5.6 on the Richter scale."

How many times do we inadvertently experience a close brush with death unaware how close it is to us. How many times are we given a renewed lease on life unawares. Our countless blessings unaware.

The Reason for Living

I listened today to John Denver's famous song 'For you', let me quote some lines..

Just a reason for living
Just to say I adore
Just to know that you're here in my heart to stay
For you for the rest of my life, all the best of my life.. For you alone, only for you.

I felt how futile it would be if you hold someone as the reason for living, how empty your life would be when they are gone and we are all leaving in a way or another. It is very shortsighted, even if it is the love of a lifetime, to corner one's entire being in only one aspect of life, even if it is so beautiful, leaving out the rest of the abundance there is to enjoy. Life would turn into a constant nightmare, without a reason to live for.

My Lord, You are the Reason that is worth living for. You are the Motive behind every good thing.You are the Eternal Beauty. You are the only Truth that keeps me warm and safe. The benevolent gestures You kindly put in my way, the small beauties here and there, the abundant forms of Your affection, I will not let go of them. Yet, I will not allow them blind me and falsely fill up my senses. I will not forget that You gave me this beauty because of Your own Kindness.. Let me always remember; You are the One I will never lose.