“So, where are you going?” asks a verse in the Quran, the Islamic Book of Divine guidance. I have glossed over it in my past readings but in this year’s quarantined Ramadan, the verse hit me like a tsunami.
The literal answer: “Going nowhere. Staying put. Neither a carrier nor a receiver be!” It’s the deeper aspect of the question that unsettles me: Where, indeed, am I going with my life? Is it aligned with God’s expectations of me, or am I going astray from a combination of ego, ingratitude and other failings?
Fasting from dawn to dusk for a month requires Muslims to reflect on life’s big questions of meaning and purpose, of undergoing a spiritual renewal. But this Ramadan is unlike any other, just as Passover and Easter were for Jews and Christians. What I am learning, though, is that confinement can make contemplating life’s big questions actually easier. A closeup of mortality is a catalyst for spirituality. Apple’s Steve Jobs gave voice to this in an address at Stanford in 2005 after being diagnosed with cancer: “Remembering I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, pride, fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”
Deciding “what is truly important” is unique to each of us. I find that my quest for it in this Ramadan is taking me into unexplored regions of my heart.
I am a math teacher at a local college. Like millions of teachers, I had to switch from classroom to online teaching overnight. COVID-19 gave me a grim way of explaining exponential growth and “flattening the curve” to my students. But when I sent reminders to students falling behind, I received responses that stunned me, like this from a student: “I have not had a chance to finish the test because I am an ICU nurse at a hospital, working 12-hour days since the pandemic, so missed the deadline. I have lost one colleague already and two who have tested positive who are currently managing their care at home. Please allow me a few extra days.”
I was filled with remorse for not knowing that some of my students were working in the front lines saving other lives while knowingly endangering theirs. Without empathy, I learned, there can be no spirituality, while with empathy, we can transform our vocations into higher callings.
I am discovering, too, that daily tasks I thought mundane were suffused with meaning. Preparing a meal with my wife to break our fast after sunset has acquired a transcendent quality. Another example: As an amateur birdwatcher, I found that hummingbirds were heavy drinkers, so keeping the feeder filled with nectar for these blurry bundles of energy feels sublime.
The sublime also surrounds services we take for granted. I always regarded mail delivery as a birthright but my experience with students without the luxury of staying home to earn a living made me see postal workers anew. Despite the pandemic, these soldiers forge on in sun and rain. I now make a point of greeting Jose, our mailman, as he makes his rounds on foot, masked and gloved.
The doors of our mosques are closed, as are those of churches and synagogues, but I sense windows opening in my heart into a universe of grace and clarity, as I know they are in the hearts of my fellow-Americans. I pray that these windows will remain open for as long as we live.
Hasan Zillur Rahim is a professor of mathematics at San Jose City College.
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