“Let our religions unite us for human kindness rather than dividing us on what we believe. Eid Mubarak”
Yesterday Alexa told me the weather. The rain would start around 11 PM and would end around midnight. That sounded a little too specific, but Alexa was right. I saw the raindrops on the storm door at 11:15. The rain was light so the dogs didn’t mind going out to the yard. They came back inside barely wet. When I checked at midnight, the rain had stopped.
Today is cloudy and warm but showers are predicted. We still have the wind but a lighter wind. The air is damp. I have an empty dance card. I do have a few household chores. I see dust everywhere, and it billows in the hall when I walk to the kitchen. Either I sweep or I close my eyes every trip to the kitchen.
Ramadan started last night. The month of Ramadan is for praying and fasting from sunrise to sunset. Fasting is a way of cleansing the soul and learning empathy for the hungry and less fortunate. I had several students who were Muslims. They would get up in the darkness of the early morning to prepare and eat food. But by the afternoon classes, they were hungry and had trouble concentrating. It was their sacrifice. I used to walk around the school compound after sunset. My Muslim students were sitting on the porches of the dorms preparing food. They always offered me some of their food, and I always refused in the politest way as I wanted them to have the food.
I remember the end of Ramadan called Eid al-Fitr. The festivities and the food started the day after Ramadan ended and lasted three days. Cannons, or at least they sounded like cannons, and guns were shot off from family compounds and from town. Food was shared. One year my school cooked a goat over wood charcoal. I was invited to the feast. I ate well.
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March 23, 2023 at 4:51 pm
Hi Kat,
Today is partly sunny and 84°. Tonight we are looking forward to a cold front accompanied by a line of thunderstorms. The storms are predicted to arrive around three in the morning and last through about nine AM.
My one issue with all religions is that the practitioners think that they are the only ones that have the keys to the kingdom and that everyone else’s belief is obviously wrong. And, even worse is that they believe that the deity commands them to proselytize their version of god to everyone else.
What’s even worse are those who are in political positions of authority who want to blur the line between religion and the government as separated by the, “Establishment Claus”, in the Constitution. I’m concerned that electing more MAGA Republicans will just hasten the time when we will no longer be a representative democracy nor a democratic republic. Instead these folks want to establish a right wing conservative Protestant autocracy. Wake up, it can happen here. The rule of law is the only thing that separates us from the fascists.
March 23, 2023 at 9:07 pm
Hi Bob,
It rained today. Tonight is damp and feeling chilly at 46°. The next few days will be around the same temperature though it will get over 50° one day this weekend.
I was never taught that I belonged to the one and only true religion so I guess the nuns did a bad job. I don’t think I knew much about other religions until college but then I learned about them historically. I met white fathers in Ghana. Some had spent most of their adult lives there. They weren’t fanatics.
I agree about what is happening politically in this country. Unless we’re careful we’ll be a mini Iraq.
March 23, 2023 at 11:06 pm
We could become something even worse than Iraq, a fundamentalist Christian version of Afghanistan.
March 24, 2023 at 12:14 am
I’d like to think that there are more of us than them.