Okay I have another practical prayer question (thanks Toby for saving my forehead with the yoga mat suggestion). Now, it’s a really big sin to pass in front of a person who is praying, but what does a Muslim do in this situation: it’s a whole bunch of sisters praying in a small space but it’s not a congregational salat, it’s just everyone doing their individual salat, plus there are heaps of other sisters waiting to use the place to pray. So, you find yourself in the middle of a ‘row’ and there are people praying in front and people praying behind. Once you finish your prayer, how do you get out without passing in front of a praying person? When a few other people leave, so there are gaps, but you still have people next to you, in front of you and behind you, do you just wait?

Conversely, what do you do if you are waiting to pray and there are scattered gaps but you’d have to pass in front of someone to get to a spot to pray? Do you just wait and wait and wait or just give up and go find somewhere else to pray because the organisers should have organised for the women to pray behind the men in congregation?

Didn’t get a whole heap of sleep last night (not caused by possible apnea problem). My baby has come down with croup! I sort of thought croup was like scarlet fever and TB, only caught if you dressed in nineteenth century clothes and said “ye” and “thou” a lot.

The day before last we thought ‘uh oh, she’s coming down with a cold’ so we kept her home from kindy yesterday. She kept complaining of a really sore throat and had a bit of a gurgle when she breathed, so I just thought it was a chesty cold, but then last evening she went downhill *real* quick. We called the nurses line (not much help, advice was: “can’t diagnose her over the phone, take her to the hospital to get looked at”) then we called a locum doctor but he couldn’t say what time he would be able to get to her, and after an hour she was getting really bad so for the first time in my life I rang the magical 000 number and asked for the ambulance. (For American readers, that’s the Australian equivalent of 911; for UK readers, that’s the equivalent of 999).

At that stage I didn’t know it was croup, having never experienced anyone with croup before, and thought she may be having an asthma attack with her cold, as my brother and I get asthma so we’re a bit touchy with respiratory lurgys. As soon as one of the ambulance men stepped onto the porch and heard her coughing inside, he said “sounds like croup”. They put the oxygen mask and whizzed her off to the hospital (okay whizz is a slight exaggeration, it was 40kms per hour). At first when the ambo said (in a Northern Irish, Belfast, accent - they’re everywhere these Irishmen) “we’re going to take you for a trip to the hospital okay?” she scrunched up her face and shook her head poor love.

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I’m in the wars *sigh*. Mostly it’s an infected wisdom tooth that is giving me the grumps. Subhanallah, we are such fragile creatures that a slight ache or pain makes us grumpy and gives us the irits. Well… those of us who have a bit of a way to go before being muttaqeen “one who has God-consciousness”.

I also suspect I am suffering from sleep apnea. Okay, bit embarrassing, but apparently - and I stress it’s an unproven allegation at this stage - I could snore for England. We’re talking setting the off the Richter scale snoring apparently, although I have my doubts. Ladies don’t snore, it’s biologically impossible isn’t it?

It took Abu Yasmin’s threat to move into Yasmin’s room to get me to the chemist. For some reason, the place where I live has a chemist that stocks the largest collection of sleep apnea solutions. So I toodled down there, thinking I could purchase a doohickey of some sort to help me stop the as-yet-unproven snoring, but I have to be diagnosed by a sleep doctor.

This involves an appointment with a specialist who refers me to a hospital for an overnight stay where they hook me up to all sorts to figure out whether or not I am stopping breathing when I sleep. Then another appointment works out the pressure of the machine that will keep the airways open as it were. Sounds very complicated to me, for what is essentially a sleeping aid for Abu Yasmin (I sleep fine during the night - he’s the one with the noise problem).

Except, that I’m not sleeping fine really - apparently sleep apnea can stop a person from getting proper restful sleep, the stuff that recharges the batteries, and can lead to further health complications down the track.

So, I saw my doctor for a referral, and I feel a bit of a dope, because I was there just a couple of weeks ago to get my current medication regime assessed and fiddled with, and here we go - I’m back for another visit. C’est la vie.

Alhamdulillah, one of the things that really attracted me to Islam and the Muslim community, was the generosity of spirit and material kindness towards the poor — that’s not to say it doesn’t exist in other traditions, indeed Christians, for example, are known for their work with the poor and needy. But when I began learning about Islam, I met Muslims, many of whom were not wealthy, who would think nothing of pulling out the money in their pocket and giving it in charity. Shaykh Nuh, God love him, writes of this in his biography, where he recounts a time in Egypt when a little old lady thought he was poor (given his disheveled state at the time) and pressed a coin into his hand. He was so startled he dropped the coin, and she scurried away.

So when I read about Muslims who give to others from their heart, it reminds me of the attitude and actions of our blessed Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, who said: “Save yourself from hell-fire even by giving half a date-fruit in charity” and the companions, may God be pleased with them: “Whenever God’s Apostle, peace be upon him, ordered us to give in charity, we used to go to the market and work as porters and get a mudd [a special measure of grain] and then give it in charity.”

Recently, two very special Muslim women I know, Dakhylina and Brynna, organised to collect money for some local school kids who came from refugee backgrounds. School shoes are items that to be honest, most of us don’t give much thought to most of the time, but they are a real luxury for refugee kids. Therefore, I was so excited to hear they had raised $1200 to buy shoes, and it had hit the local newspapers. This story kinda hits home for me, as my mother has often recounted to us of her own childhood where she and her brothers and sisters didn’t have enough money to buy proper school shoes. Masha’Allah , may the Beloved reward Dakhylina and Brynna and all those involved in the project, and may these beautiful little souls have a bright future!

(From the local Dandenong Independent newspaper)

NOBLE Park English Language School pupils have been ”clunking” around in their new shoes.

The school’s health and wellbeing officer Dakhylina Madkhul said many of her pupils, particularly from refugee families, had inappropriate footwear or shoes in poor condition.

She and her friend Brynna Rafferty-Brown came up with the idea of fundraising to buy shoes.

Last month, they raised close to $1000.

”It’s not that the shoes many wear are second-hand, but they are still
wearing them when they are broken, tattered and long past their expiry
dates,” Ms Madkhul said.

”For many of the children selected to be the lucky recipients, it’s the first
time they have ever worn a pair of new shoes bought just for them.

”Our students spent much time admiring how the new shiny black
shoes looked on their feet.”

But she said others had taken a little while getting used to their new footwear, and were still ”clunking around”.

Ms Rafferty-Brown said she hoped the children would now have healthier feet.

After weeks of blissful peace, I had another organisation moment last night. Things have been really wonderful in my spiritual life lately, especially getting involved with the sisters’ study circle, devouring al-Ghazzali, meeting some new friends etc., so apart from acknowledging that everything happens to me to teach me something, I just feel kind of ‘nooooooo don’t suck me back into the organisation-trap-warp againnnnnnnnn…..’

It started with a garbled message on the answering machine. I had a feeling it was about the organisation because I’d received an email from Temporary Secretary to say that there was a followup meeting with the National Head Honchos about an issue that had been on the table a few months back. I must admit, I’m surprised they’re still sending me these types of things.

Actually on second thoughts I’m not really surprised because one of the facets of pseudo-community is the voracious denial that anything might be ‘wrong’. My having resigned says “I don’t like the way you do things, I think you are an unhealthy organisation” which is a message they flatly refuse to hear. So the pseudo-community response is to deny that I’ve resigned because that way they won’t have to even hear “I don’t like the way you do things, I think you are an unhealthy organisation” let alone actually respond to the notion. (Just FYI: the other pseudo-community response is to say ‘Person X has resigned because he is the one in an unhealthy state, unlike us who are in perfect health’).

My personal opinion is that the fact that they actually *deny* I’ve resigned (to themselves or to others) is one of the clearest indicators of them being firmly entrenched in pseudo-community.

At anyrate, my first reaction was to say “if it’s important they’ll ring back”. But Hubby was curious about it and so I rang to find out who and what the message was about.

It was one of the National Head Honchos wanting to know if I would be attending the followup meeting. I replied no I wasn’t going to attend. When he asked why (not in so many words) I explained that due to the fact I had resigned back in August, it probably wouldn’t be appropriate for me to attend.

Now I must admit that was a bit of calculated planning on my part. With the last few phone calls I’ve received asking me about organisation stuff - I’ve usually not said anything and just given them Temporary Secretary’s phone number. But after the last one a week or so ago which was a bit strange (asking me if I was having trouble with the organisation etc.) I decided ‘enough is enough chaps, I’ve resigned and fine you can choose to ignore my resignation - that’s your perogative - but that doesn’t mean I should still have to receive phone calls and pretend I am just on leave!’

National Head Honcho sounded a bit surprised. He asked me if I would come in the afternoon so I said I would think about it. That was pretty much the end of the conversation.

I thought about it for all of hmmmm one nano-second. I’m still finding it difficult to say “no” face-to-face, or more correctly telephone handset-to-telephone handset in this case. I did talk about it briefly with Hubby but I really feel that it would be entirely inappropriate for me to attend for a number of reasons:

a) it’s organisational stuff and I have made it clear that I no longer wish to have any involvement with organisational stuff. (It’s not my fault that local organisation neglected to tell national organisation).

b) It wasn’t until I resigned that I felt mentally free to begin my spiritual journey again. I know that if I have to explain myself, the organisation’s administrators (most of whom are Stage Two-ers) won’t understand concepts such as meta-religion, pluralism, mysticism etc.

c) Having any involvement with the organisation feels like it will drag me back to a state of mind out of which I fought desperately hard to remove myself (frustrated, stressed, under duress etc).

d) I have actually resigned. No matter how much the organisation may want to deny it, or pretend they are giving me space, time or whatever… I have chosen of my own free will to disassociate myself from them as a collective. Individually I think they are mostly nice (if uncivil at times - aren’t we all) people, some of them are even really lovely, kind, warm, genuinely wanting-to-do-good people, however that is as individuals; the group consciouness on the other hand, sucks big time! If I attend I will be sending out a subtle, unconscious message that I haven’t really resigned, I’m just on leave or something.

e) It is perfectly clear to me that there is a *huge* gulf between spirituality, God, faith, belief etc. and ‘having to actively work in the organisation’. It’s like the difference between buying toothpaste and buying it through Amway! Whatever your relationship to the toothpaste, you don’t *have* to go through Amway to get it, even if Amway *say* they’re the only ones that sell toothpaste (especially when it is blatently clear that toothpaste can be bought at any supermarket).

The more I distance myself from the whole mess, the better. I’m just happier, more peaceful, less stressed, less frustrated, more spiritual when I am ex-organisation: which is almost a little surprising given the guilt trips I used to put myself through. The only thing I have to watch now, is that I don’t descend into negativity about the organisation (I will not dwell on the unpleasant things of life) because that won’t do either me or Hubby any good, no matter how tempting that may be. As it says in Surah al-Kafiruun:
“To you be your way of life, and to me mine.” 109:6