My energy levels are currently a little too low for actual thought (only 1 hour til Iftar). So instead I offer you some of Haroon Moghul’s insightful and lovely deliberations:
I’m standing about six rows back from the Imam, surrounded by mostly Afghan and Pakistani men, and during the very first cycle of the prayer, it hits me. Here I am, before my Creator, and the sudden awareness isn’t in my mind. It’s in my heart, where it should be, leaving me overawed and reduced. Each verse of the opening chapter of the Qur’an began to make that much more sense.
“All praise is due to God, Lord of all the Worlds”
Our eyes down in the presence of His Majesty, the opportunity of congregational prayer also a challenge: Can I live in the world—around other people, their fidgeting, their odors, their manners, their frustrations—and still put God first and foremost?
Read the rest over at Patheos.com
