A Sky So Close to Us by Shahla Ujayli

Author:Shahla Ujayli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Interlink Publishing Group Inc
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

One more step toward God. Though I never was that far from Him, even when things in life tried to steer me away. He was always there, somewhere, deep inside me. My own private relationship with God made me ashamed of myself when I angered Him. But aren’t real shame and silent anger enough? Why did He choose me for all this suffering? I know what people will tell me—they’ll say that it’s His punishment, a way to atone for sins, a random choice, or a test.

Every so often I would ask, “Why me? Em not a prophet, or a holy person, or a Sufi. I am just a weak human being. I want to know why?”

“Why, Nasser, why me?”

Nasser replied, “The cloud doesn’t ask why it’s heavy and weighted down with water. It carries its burden voluntarily and travels with it gratefully. Isn’t water an integral part of what it is? Human origins lie in pain, that’s how God made us. The glorious green meadow doesn’t resist the wind when it pulls at its grass, and perhaps even uproots its flowers. Instead it moves with it, in total submission. Birds don’t curse the frosts, they simply leave for warmer climates—even if their journeys turn out to be adventures. We too are on a journey, habibti, my love, and I have total gratitude for that. Responses to your questions will come on their own, just like the meadows discover the mystery of the wind in the spring, and the clouds discover the secret of their extra load when it falls on the earth and returns to the sky, bright, light, and young again. Miracles can happen at any moment and we have to listen closely for traces of them. Your early diagnosis is a miracle. That you wake up every morning is a miracle. Your beautiful face is a miracle. Us meeting here in Amman and not Aleppo is a miracle. Miracles need time to take hold, and time demands our patience. I don’t pray the required five times a day regularly, I drink a forbidden glass of wine from time to time, but I have a substantial relationship with God. No one can judge your relationship with God, except your own conscience. My daily miracle is waking up every morning, having a shower, and preparing to meet God. It doesn’t matter which doctrine or path I follow. I talk to Him, explain things, complain, and I also thank Him. That is my sacred moment. I won’t let anything in the world change this time or interfere with it. Afterwards I go back to my life, without caring about success or failure, meetings or awards, degrees or business cards that I have received. All those things are trivial so long as I’ve had my secret hour that day.”

Nasser took me back in time to basic issues I thought I’d finished dealing with long ago, issues of building my relationship with God, the sacred, and existence. I’ve studied all the rituals of the world and their relationship with the sun, wind, stones, human beings, and magical powers.

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