(Circle3: On the touchy implorations by Imam Zeynel Abidin, continued)

Together with all of the fears and worries that this saintly person voices at his entreaties, he does not neglect to petition God with reference to divine beneficence and his heart changes rhythm with the excitement of hope. By behaving in this way, he presents an attitude that calls to mind the act of straightening up after bowing to God. For those who continue to struggle spiritually, he thus points to the ampleness of Divine Mercy with reference to the fact that “God’s mercy takes precedence over His wrath” [1]. One cannot help but remember the following words of a poet at this point:

“What would happen even if my sins were like the mount Qaf, O Majestic One,
Compared to Your sea of Mercy, it is surely a little thing”

He acts in accordance with this poetic idiom and spits in the face of sins and faults by imploring, “Please hold my hand to guidance, O God!” He places his head down on the doorstep of hope and petitions God once more by saying, “Mercy, mercy!” then he enters a mood as if he were sipping fresh oxygen and sighs on. Here are a few droplets from those breaths:

“O the One who responds with mercy as soon as His servants turn to Him, who never leaves their hopes unanswered, who saves them from the grief of falling apart from Him with the extra ways and disciplines that make them closer to Him, who covers up the defects of those polluted with sins and vices! O my most exalted Lord! As you never turned down those who turned to your door with hope and placed their head on Your doorstep empty handed, do not abandon this humble servant of Yours to despair either!”

With these cries, he makes petitions with a tone of fear and hope and thus gives the successors of his path signals for turning to that door with the feeling of hope. With a call to prayer, he lets the vastness of Divine Mercy be heard, even by unfortunate ones who have lost their sense of prayer direction. He calls to them to share his experiences and to hopefully inspire them to find their way. By presenting them with the most vivid messages woven out of hope and fear, he shows the ways towards a fresh revival with lyrics of resurrection after death; afterwards, like the archangel’s breath to initiate the resurrection, he blows life into them and turns them to the direction of the Divine they lost.

There are so many points I omitted from this profound session. With apologies to him and to readers, I would like to conclude with these diamond-like considerations. With other imploring groans special to his spiritual anatomy with heavenly riches, I would like to refer to some other life-giving points that sound like angelic melodies which he makes while his tears stream on. His tongue is guided by the heart, his thoughts beyond metaphysical realms, his sir (secret faculty) in citadels beyond and beyond, surpassing our comprehension. Here are a few droplets around the same theme as examples of those considerations, which deserve to be called a “legend of spirituality”:

“My God! Though I am without provisions, my reliance and submission to You is complete. In spite of this, when I think that my transgressions are boundless, I shake and fear from being subjected to Your punishment. On the other hand, when the ampleness of Your mercy comes to my view, my heart overflows with a feeling of optimism. So, when I am in that mood, although my sins make me groan with fear about perdition, my hope about Your pardoning gives signals of possible forgiveness to my soul.” What a balanced approach, which is found in those closest to God! What a profound blend of hope and fear! He continues to say, “Even though I came to Your sublime presence empty-handed, the consideration of the ampleness of Your bountifulness reinvigorates this servant of Yours and my eyes start shining brightly with Your beneficence’s promise of benisons. So much so that at the same moment when I am brimful with transgressions, my heart begins to experience changes of rhythm one after the other, with extra surprises of Your pardoning and breezes of proximity. Here I am at Your presence, O God! I let myself to the waterfalls of Your mercy and get away from myself as far as I can and turn to You with the entirety of my being!”

With a feeling of fear and insight of expectancy, he has an attitude of admitting failure to give his position its due. Then this great personage from those closest to God changes his orbit of prayer; virtually, with the idea that “worship is a result of blessings already enjoyed,” he once more takes into consideration the shower of Divine blessings that he has already received and begins to resonate with thankfulness by touching his face onto the doorstep of gratitude. He responds to God’s blessings beyond count and measure with thankful praises by giving his tongue and lips under the command of his spiritual intellect:

“My God! I do not know what to say before your immense blessings that come showering on the horizons of my perception consecutively. Before the Divine favors out of Your grace and generosity I remain spellbound and lost for words. When I consider Your very special blessings that come flowing like waterfalls and much beyond my deserts under the light of “Were you to attempt to count God’s blessings, you could not reckon them” (Ibrahim 14:34). Helpless to say anything, I double over with this feeling. Before those special bestowals of Yours, I feel manifold humility of indebtedness: My revival to life in the real sense with faith. Turning to Your door via Islam, with the honor and sense of duty of being sworn to worship only You, my head is down on the doorstep of munificence and grace, my hand on the knob of beneficence and bestowals, upon which I say “all of these are from You” and feel revitalized with thankfulness. Actually, even this feeling of thankfulness is from You. Whenever I offer thanks to You, given that thankfulness is another blessing of Yours – with such a virtuous cycle of thankfulness, I will never be able to offer due praise and thanks to You.”

If only we could continue our lives always on this course with awareness of these bestowals! Although we are not capable of thorough comprehension, I wish we could take what He has given as a sign of what He will give and thus take up the path to eternal bliss. It is especially important to remember this considering that this world is often compared to a carcass, without letting our hearts fall for this transient world. If only we could turn our backs to worldly status, fame, glory, wealth, corporeal desires, and thus always walk to the sun of suns without faltering. Alas! We fell for the attractions of this transitory world! With delusions of immortality, we were entangled with long-term worldly ambitions and suffered such losses on what could otherwise be a suitable ground for winning. Bediuzzaman put it so beautifully: “Alas! We have been deceived. We thought that this worldly life is constant, and thus utterly wasted everything. Indeed, this passing life is but a sleep that passed like a dream. This life, having no foundation, flows away like a brook.”

It is such a bitter fact that we fell for this deception, and at the expense of losing eternity. We were captivated by the passing attractions of these faithless desires and thus totally condemned the eternal realms to oblivion and thus darkened our futures. So much so that we were neither properly give the due of Divine bestowals and benisons nor were we able to comprehend them. To put this in the breaths of Ziya Pasha:

“We are the losers of this game once again;
For the loss is obvious, but I don’t know if we won anything at all.”

Actually, it was not possible for us to win. Because we led a carefree life as if we would never die and rendered this world—an arable field for the Afterlife—into a wasteland. By destroying the bridges extending to eternity on our course in the world one by one, we ceased the thoughts of the realms beyond and belief. We did not manage to come to our senses to see our miserable condition and turn to God.

Note

1. Bukhari, Tawhid 22; Muslim, Tawba 15.

Related Articles

• Facing Oneself
• Facing Oneself-2

The Example of the First Circle around the Prophet and Those Who Followed Them

(continuing from the previous issue)

Zayn al-Abidin (659-713), the son of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Husayn, was a deeply spiritual person who voiced his woeful sighs, hoping to gain God’s forgiveness and mercy. The following is some of his pearl-like prayers:

“O God, I am not the first person that has spent his life in rebellion and then turned to you with a sincere feeling of remorse. I have touched the doorknob of Your door of Mercy, and thus expected Your mercy, compassion, and grace; so many others bowed their heads before that door and none of them returned empty-handed.”

“O my most exalted Lord! I have come to Your sublime presence without any provisions; You are such a magnanimous Bestower; please respond to my prayers and implorations, and do not let me down in my hopes and expectations!”

These sighs and pleas resonate with those made by the people within the “blessed circle,” the group of Companions and family members of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) that knew him personally and were able to directly experience his radiance and spirituality. Thus, they offer these compositions of prayer from their heart to those whose hearts gave in to heedlessness and are astray from the course that they are supposed to take. Their goal with these heart-piercing prayers is to try and make the souls of those stranded on the path – like myself – feel what they felt. With lyrics from “the blessed circle,” and the tune from this angelic soul of Zayn al-Abidin who burned with a love of God, they express their opening up to God in the mode of adhan – call to prayer – and attempt to come to grips with their soul through prayers such as:

How can sleeping heedlessly be becoming for the humble servant,
while the All-Beneficent calls out with compassion at nights
(Ibrahim Haqqi)

Such prayers resonate with the heartstrings of those who understand and – if they are not in complete spiritual death – rise and come running with the hopes of getting closer to the Almighty. May God enable us, too, to be awakened with those sincere invocations and come to our senses!

Zayn al-Abidin does not suffice only with opening up to God, and thus wishes to turn to Him in every way that he can spiritually. To be of guidance to those coming from behind in how to face oneself for sincere repentance, he places his head down at the door of Divine beneficence and mercy, and this time offers a different prayer:

“My God! My wrongdoings and sins – as if he were someone who ever committed sin (FG) – enshroud my soul with despicableness. I have become separate from You and I am clad in misery. Sins have utterly darkened my heart – what a profound self-supervision it is! (FG). I am at Your door, my head bowing on the doorstep of compassion; O the solely worshiped and besought one! Please do accept this beseeching and repentance of mine! Once more, I have turned to Your most exalted court. With my head humbly bowed down, I obediently stand in Your Supreme presence and wait for a decree of my forgiveness. If you expel this servant of Yours from Your door, whom can I turn to; whom can I seek refuge with?! O Almighty Lord who forgives even the greatest sin and dresses up injured hearts in disorientation. I wish from You to forgive my shameful wrongs and regard them as null, and to screen all of my sins. In the realms beyond, do not deprive me either, of Your graces to those whom You love and of that refreshing climate of Your favors, bounty, and beneficence!”

By presenting one more different picture of imploration with these words, he attempts to drink from the fountains of forgiveness, repentance, and sincere penitence. In direct proportion with their vast horizons of spiritual knowledge, they grieve so deeply that it would be easy to mistake them for sinners. Even though we may not be aware, such sighs are in fact prayers of glorification and actually belong to the horizons of those closest to God; they are a call to prayer to warn the ignorant ones. No matter what a person of that level of spirituality says, I think that that monumental personage actually did not even socialize with evil temptations even in his dream. On the other hand, he still kept praying and asking for forgiveness, which was an outcome of his exceptionally close position before God; this is a lesson and serves as spiritual counsel for us.

“I am at Your doorstep,” says he constantly and keeps petitioning to God with his head humbly bowed down:

“O my exalted God! Do not ever let me be separated from You and fall into sin. Do not allow me to drift into rebellion, which is like an all-consuming sea. Save this servant of Yours from drifting to things to incur Your displeasure! Here I complain to You about my distressing carnal soul which makes me run after never ending worldly ambitions; my carnal soul that keeps whining against troubles and misfortunes, which credits itself for every good thing and is always inclined to futility. Inflicted with heedlessness and oblivion, my carnal soul makes me ever prone to sins, and tempts me to delay my repentance to You until ‘tomorrow’ with each passing day.”

I do not know what this pure and innocent soul, who already rests on the horizons of contentment with God, means by his “carnal soul”? He goes even further seeking refuge against Satan and whirlpools of fancies:

“O God! I complain to You about this dead heart of mine, captivated by various evil whisperings and hardened with rust, and which forgot the meaning of being in fear and awe of God…

Can those among us who has been in oblivion of tears and shudders of the heart now for centuries, those who have reduced faith to outward rituals, those who are described in the Qur’an as “donkeys loaded with books” (Jumu’ah 62:5), those who are not aware of what they are carrying, can they make sense of these prayers?

He still does not suffice with this and turns to the horizons of awe and reverence of God, and to the essential elements of human perfection and virtue in the shade of the truth “the beginning of wisdom is awe of God.” He groans, as if voicing the following lines of the poet Mehmed Akif, and once more he humbly bends before the Truth:

What gives loftiness to character is neither wisdom nor the conscience,
It is a fear of God that evokes the feeling of virtue in us
If fear of the Almighty in hearts were to disappear,

Wisdom or the conscience would not have any influence anymore
Life would fall to an animal level; no, even lower than animals! (M. Akif)

This is the thinking of Zayn al-Abidin and with such thoughts he inspires others to become true humans. He expresses these feelings through prayers of fear and reverence before God. Beyond the peaks of consciousness of being seen by Him, he groans like a reed flute as if they are brought before God and have a vigilant attitude. Here are a few bunches of fear and awe from him in different patterns and hues of hope:

“O my exalted God, the eternal sovereign of mercy and compassion! Are You to throw this loyal servant of Yours who turned to You into the fire of being without You? Are You to deprive me of Your forgiveness and not pardon this helpless one whose misdeeds can only be purified by Your immense seas of mercy? No, a hundred thousand times no, of course! You never let down in disappointment those who turned to Your divine court.”

As if he remained breathless here, he groans like a heart resonating with the strike of a plectrum of awe:

“If only I could know that You included my name in the book of fortunate ones and honored me with Your closeness! If I only knew this, so that my eyes and heart too would light up with joy. O God! Do not shut Your gates of Mercy against those who know You and believe in You even only to some extent! As I hope and believe, please do not let down the hearts You have revived by letting them feel Your exalted existence into the misery of being without You—You never did so—and thus do not let us down into the fires of separation and Hell! My God! Save me, Your servant from Your displeasure and due sufferings!”

One can feel his deep concerns in the following words:

“Save me from the torment of Hell on that toughest day when good and evil will be distinguished, when people will be at their wits’ end, when souls engaged in good acts will be enraptured with the rejoice of closeness to God, when unfortunate ones who misspent their lives will shake with the grief of remoteness, and when nobody will be subjected to the slightest degree of injustice.”

With the feelings of an utterly sinful one Zayn al-Abidin sets about most heartfelt implorations. With the awareness that “two fears and two assurances” do not coexist, he passes from one petitioning to another. He constantly implores God with his open hands at the door of His Mercy and teaches those who are believers on the outside, but not in the inside, and those who are deprived of awe and reverence of God.

Read the previous article: Facing Oneself

The Example of the First Circle around the Prophet and Those Who Followed Them

So much so a source of blessings was the Prophet Muhammad, according to the Islamic tradition, that he always had followers who embodied the same spirit and devotion. Those who had the opportunity to be close to the Prophet and witness his person with their eyes and hearts lived in a constant state of rapture with this delight. They walked in his footsteps with the excitement of being imbued with that state, and they always made sure this path that led to him was filled with travelers. Hundreds of thousands have taken wing towards him, their eyes always eagerly fixed on this first “Circle” around the Prophet, and their hearts willing to behold what lies beyond. Watchful for the furthest horizons, they have taught the manners of this journey to those who staggered on their way.

For those who are on this path, faith in God (iman) is a lively source of excitement in hearts. Knowledge (marifa) and love of God (muhabba) are as a sparkling torch in feelings and thoughts. Their eagerness to meet the real owner of everything sheds light on their way as a projector that brightens up the roads extending to eternity. They have walked without falter to the beyond with eagerness for reunion with God (liqa‘ullah), which is a never-fading source of energy in feelings and thoughts; their hearts always beating with the excitement of beholding the very horizons of those in the Circle. They ran in the direction of this Circle without fatigue, but with an insightful perspective of what they saw, with a resolution for journeying in the realms beyond the horizons by means of their mechanism of conscience, their hearts permeated with the awe of this state and the entirety of their physical and spiritual anatomy in full resonance.

Their faith and spiritual knowledge are of the deepest kind. They are thoroughly equipped in both material and spiritual senses, and they entirely leave behind worldliness and materialism. They disregard dirty urges of the carnal soul and its temptations. Though they soar in heavenly realms, their hearts still keep quivering in fear. They keep groaning as if they were the sinful ones in this world. They question themselves with the deepest concerns day and night, and they always have considerations as expressed in:

If the All-Merciful One weighs my sins as they are,
I fear the scales on the Day of Judgment will break.

They keep sighing night and day out of fear, as if they have committed some wrongdoing despite their already glorious spiritual rank. Humility is at the core of their existence. They feel disgusted by receiving appreciation and applause. They hate glory, prestige, and pomp. They always behave as an ordinary person among other people. Acknowledging that all goodness, achievements, and extraordinary qualities come from their Creator, bowing is no more enough for them to show their gratitude, they go down to prostration in reverence.

I am a slave who is not worth all this grace,
I wonder why I am favored so bountifully. (M. Lutfi)

With these feelings, they continue to be relentless in their self-criticism, and are immersed in expressions of humility and self-effacement. They adopt the following important principle of the Qur’an as a part of their character: “(O human being!) Whatever good happens to you, it is from God; and whatever evil befalls you, it is from yourself” (4:79). They do not forget their single mistake or lapse which weighs so heavily on their shoulders, even after many, many years. They forget or disregard the good things that they made or accomplished which may have helped thousands of people. Even if the thought of crediting themselves for a dazzling accomplishment or triumph crosses their minds, they dismiss such thoughts and acknowledge all success to be from God as a grace for people’s collective work and solidarity. These are the character traits of the devoted souls walking on the path of the All-Truthful One, and such is the constant state of monumental personages whose hearts are completely oriented with the ones in the Circle, seeking God’s approval.

Now, with broken statements of mine, I wish to narrate examples of facing oneself from some loyal servants of God, whose eyes and hearts were with the members of the Circle. My words can only represent a few drops from their immense ocean.

As one of the radiant fruits of the blessed tree of the Prophet’s family, Imam Zayn al-Abidin (659-713) was a prominent person of sublime virtues. His father was Husayn (the Prophet’s grandson), his grandmother was Fatima (the Prophet’s daughter), and his grandfather was Ali, the prince of the chivalrous, and his great grandfather was the noble Prophet, peace be upon him. Zayn al-Abidin was a fortunate person who opened his eyes to the world in such a bright ethos and flourished with heavenly water of life, had his heart and spirit always set on God so much so that his path never ever crossed sins even in his dreams. Wherever he turned his eyes, he was enraptured by a view of the Circle. He kept soaring high towards that source of blessed inspiration with a desire and eagerness of reunion with his noble family.

He was always permeated with such feelings and thoughts; he always desired and aimed to be on that blessed course. Yet, he always committed himself to the Divine, assigned no worth to himself, and constantly engaged in self-effacement, a state of being which Seyyid Nigari describes in his own way as follows:

Can one who seeks the Beloved care about his own soul?
Can one seeking to live be concerned for the Beloved?

And thus Zayn al-Abidin kept seeking God and completely closed his eyes to all else, because he was in a state of constant exposure to the Circle, with the sight of both his eyes and heart. His heart would beat with the excitement of being under the same light with them, and he would live with a zest for servanthood to God. Among his prayers constantly offered are the following supplications, which I do my best to convey here, but do so by focusing more on the meaning rather than the exact wording; I do not constrain myself to vocabulary limitations. Instead of rendering all of his supplications here in full, what follow are his heartbreaking cries which I occasionally interpolate with short phrases to offer my personal take on some of his words, so hoping that his inner groans are better internalized first by myself and others like me:

“My God! The wrongs and sins I have been committing have put a mantle of abasement on my soul. By remaining apart from You (O Imam, have your ever been apart? FG) I have found myself in a state of poverty. The gigantic wrongs that I have committed (no way, a hundred thousand times no! FG) have darkened my heart. I seek refuge in You, God Almighty, my only Besought and Beloved! Please accept me as I turn to Your door with serious repentance, and bless me with a fresh revival as if I have been revived after death (if you are not alive, then how should those unfortunate “walking dead” like myself wail? FG). I swear I never knew anyone but You (O God), and in spite of everything, here I submissively expect to be forgiven in Your presence. If you expel this slave of Yours, which door can I ever turn to and with whom can I ever seek refuge? If I am expelled from that door, I will utterly be in a pitiable and shameful condition!”

O dear Imam Abidin, we have studied you and others like you in the literature of the Prophet’s life, and have come to recognize you with your humble face turned down and with your heartfelt supplications. If the cause of your wailing is the temporary fog that occasionally seeps into your imagination during dreams, if this is the factor that triggers your groans, how fortunate you are. And how pitiable are unfortunate ones of our time such as myself who live their entire lives in that fog and smoke, and the so-called theologians who assume themselves to be religious!

Zayn al-Abidin does not suffice with his above prayers. Below he opens another page in his compositions of wails:

“O the Exalted Lord who even forgives the greatest sins and embraces stricken hearts with compassion! I wish and beg You to pardon my disgracing sins and hide away my shameful wrongs and forgive this slave of Yours, in the warm atmosphere of Your forgiveness, along with those whom You saved with Your clemency and mercy.”

I wish it could be possible to find at least a hundredth of these wailings in the spiritual world of those who spend their life in places of worship, who put on airs in Sufi lodges, who waste their lives in nests of heedlessness appearing to be religious schools, and those so-called believers whose faith does not pass beyond imitation and who spend their lives in self-glorification saying “I did this, I did that.”

Zayn al-Abidin continues to open up to God, his yearnings now reaching a peak:

“If repentance and penitence are titles for a heartfelt remorse, so I swear I repent a thousand times for all I committed! If asking forgiveness from You is a means of being absolved from sins, so I cry with truly heartfelt remorse and wish You to forgive this poor servant of Yours!”

With my full respect to him, I skip some of his expressions of sigh and wailing and jump to the following one:

“O God! You are the One who has opened wide the gates of sincere repentance for Your servants and informed us with this glad tidings. You decree “O you who believe! Turn to God in sincere and reforming repentance” (Qur’an 66:8) and thus summon us to the chamber of Your oneness. Those who turn to this door You have opened will hopefully find what they expect, as a result of Your grace. Sins and wrongs certainly are not becoming for servants, but there is no doubt that You are so magnanimous at forgiveness and clemency.

Let us add the following to that:

Bestow on us, O my Sovereign, do not deprive the poor of your bestowals
Is it becoming for the Munificent Bestower to stop bestowing on His slaves? (M. Lutfi)

Yearning souls always presented their petition with this gist of imploring. If it will not be disrespect against the Almighty, I also share these considerations.

The man had only fallen unconscious, but his family thought he had had a heart attack and brought him to emergency. The initial diagnosis was that his artery was almost clogged up due to cholesterol, and the doctor on duty decided to follow a clean-up procedure. This would be my seventh time in a similar operation, so I was not really nervous. But in the eyes of the patient’s family, I saw panic. Their eyes were screaming for help, and watching them made my eyes almost deaf when I finally managed to throw myself into the surgery room. Oh my comfort zone: staff only.

As the operation started, the serpentine cord that carried the visualization instrument gradually made its way towards the patient’s heart. The walls of the arteries were covered with black remains, fatty tissues were hanging down here and there, and minor clogs were built up at sharp turns. I remembered my dad, who was a plumber. Many times, he was called into the “staff only” rooms for clogged pipes. In contrast to my love for them, the “staff only” rooms were his nightmare. “Poor dad,” I thought, pitying him, even if it was thirty years later.

“Go on,” came an unknown voice, waking me up from my childhood memories. “Where,” I asked in my mind. Then I realized that the camera was showing inside the heart. Looking from within, it only made sense that the man fell unconscious. How could such a heart support the demands of a body?

“He probably hasn’t had a refreshing breath for a long time, and certainly wasn’t able to run with his grandchildren,” I murmured.

“He never did that anyway, so that he should suffer from not doing it now!” answered the unknown voice.

“This is not the time to critique. He is in our hands waiting for help,” I replied.

“Well, do what you can. Even if you can fix the entrance, you won’t be able to fix me. By the way, would you like a drink?”

Wasn’t that a kind heart? Learning who my host was, I rejoiced despite the stress. With the heavy illumination in the surgery room, I was in fact terribly hot at that moment – as if helping my mom while cooking in the kitchen. “Yes, please, a cold drink would quench my heat,” I accepted.

“I am sorry, but I only serve hot drinks here. Cold drinks are served in dead bodies,” teased the heart. “Here is your energy drink.”

“WHAATTT?” I spat all that was in my mouth, and threw the cup towards the heart. The same instant, I received the words of disdain: “Did you just make a heart attack?”

“You are, sir, sucking the man’s blood,” I replied in anguish.

“That is what’s available in here,” answered the heart teasingly. “I have production wells extending throughout his body, and I drink this warm energy drink constantly. Without it, I cannot live. If I cannot live, he cannot live. So it is a win-win situation, you know what I mean?”

“Wait a minute, aren’t you the embodiment of love and compassion? Aren’t you supposed to give without a return?”

“That is true, indeed so. But there is another condition on the same agreement, which says that I have all the rights to defend myself if my carrier denies my rights of privacy.”

A heart defending its privacy from its carrier! I was as bewildered and as silenced as a fetus going through birth. The heart took my confused pause as a request for explanation.

“My carrier developed a habit of welcoming thieves as if guests into me, and they kept robbing me,” the heart cried, collapsing. “After a while, I decided to separate myself from him, even if that meant the end of my life. The first thing to do for winning my independence was not to use his blood. So, I started narrowing the artery that was feeding me. After all, I was doing something I was familiar with: giving without taking. That rendered me weaker; but he became weaker, too. With his health gone, no thieves were interested in him anymore. And I was safe from both my carrier and the thieves.”

Strained between anger and affection, my breaths became deeper and stronger. For relief, I turned my head around. Then suddenly, I started shaking from what I happened to see. “What is this door,” I managed to ask at last.

“Don’t you see the sign? It is a room for staff only.”

“Staff only!” I smiled as if I had found water in the desert. But after realizing that I wouldn’t be able to go in there, I went through a storm of sentiments: outcast, unable, sad.

“You feel distanced, right?” asked the heart, to which I nodded.

“That sign is there so that the grown-ups don’t enter. If you were a child, you would not be able to read it, and would directly rush in without asking.”

“Why children only?” I inquired.

“If you can go through this door in your heart, you can get out into the heart of another person. And if you are a grown-up at that moment, you are going to be treated like a thief in that heart. But if you are a child, you are going to be welcomed as a guest.”

I listened to the heart, waited in front of the door. I thought about the people in my life, especially those with whom I wanted to be closer. This door could be the key. I raised my hand, held the door knob. But then I thought about what I was going to face on the other side. Was I entering as a child? Or was I an ambitious adult who was going to be treated as a thief? It was also possible that my grown-up state could trigger the heart on the other side to react to its carrier just like this one; and that would mean trouble for one of my loved ones…

I certainly was not staff… I stepped back from that door for staff-only, as if waking from a pleasurable dream that I did not want to leave. Then, the heart gently told me: “Go upstairs to the kitchen, now; you are expected to open a clogged pipe.”

No matter how fast or how far a person runs, the horizon will always be beyond them. This being the case, the real distance and depth of the horizon is inside a person, it is in their mind and perception…

A race I will always remember

Not too long ago, when I was still a little boy, I found myself running from my father’s village to my mother’s, and from my mother’s to another and to another, in the hope of catching up with something that was neither a ball, some other toy, nor a bird, but rather the point, the line where the sky seemed to touch the earth. We call it the “horizon.” That line, that “place,” first presented itself to me hiding right behind the trees to the left of my father’s house. I started out that day walking rather leisurely because the distance between me and the horizon seemed so short. When I observed that the sky had moved, or rather seemed to have moved further away, I hastened my steps. Then I noticed that the sky moved further and further away. Well, being determined to reach the place where the sky certainly touched the ground, I kept walking faster and faster until I found myself running.

I ran for quite a while until I realized that “there”, where the sky and the earth met, was still further away, that it would take me more time and effort than I had thought. I went back—I had to go back—to my father’s village, back to my usual village life because I saw that perhaps much more was involved, that maybe much more effort was called for in order to achieve what I desired, namely, to get to the point where I could touch the sky, where I could climb the sky. I went back to the ordinary, the normal life and experience of the village and of my people. But I did not tell anyone, I did not discuss the experience with anyone, even though I did not stop and could not stop thinking about it. I thought to myself that perhaps a week, a month, maybe a year would suffice for me to reach the place where the sky and the earth embraced. I was absolutely certain that right there in front of me, over there, not too far away, the sky touched the ground. And I thought that perhaps all I needed to do was keep walking, keep running, and keep racing forward, without stopping, without interruptions, without distractions in order to get to where the sky kissed the ground.

Today, thirty-five years later, I have realized that I was not wrong. I was right. The sky did touch the ground. It touches the ground all the time. You may ask “but where and how?” The sky touches the ground in our perception. Look across from your window into the distance. What do you see? Or, go outside and look in the distance. What do you see? The sky is right there, over there, touching the ground, the road, the houses, the trees, the mountains, the sea, and remaining there. But keep in mind that this is all happening in our perception. In perception, things are the way they appear, the way they seem. No rigorous, critical thinking is involved. And this happens so many times, and in fact is happening now; it happens every time that we are not thinking deeply, with attention and effort. It happens every time we fail to allow other perspectives, other possibilities and other possible interpretations to emerge.

The sky touches the earth, embraces and kisses the ground, right there in a fixed position, as long as you do not move. Once you move, it moves. And when you run after it, it too runs, not towards you though, but rather away from you. If you stand still, it stands still. If you stay where you are, it remains where it is. If you move even an inch, it will move. It will never allow you to catch up with it, to touch it; it will never allow you to possess it, to tame it; it will never allow you to take possession of it. And yet, it is always there, “putting everything into perspective.” By that I mean the horizon enables us to see, for without horizon one cannot see much of anything. Think about it! Everything presents itself in horizon. Everything dwells in the horizon, everything is within the confines of the horizon, and depends more or less on this phenomenon. And if I may borrow an expression from Saint Paul’s speech at the Areopagus (Acts 17:28) and be at liberty to use it as I see fit in this context (just as some scholars say he himself was at liberty to do with the same expression from the writing of Epimenides of Knossos (6th Century B.C.)), one can say that “that in which we live and move and have our being” is the horizon.

Standing still, remaining in one fixed position is not in the nature of the horizon. Its every stop (or what appears to be its end, its boundary) is temporary and transitory, like a pilgrim’s stop on a journey whose destination is still far away. It keeps moving, and it invites us to keep moving too, keep working, keep meeting people, keep exploring, keep digging, keep sowing, keep cultivating, keep harvesting, keep looking, keep reading, keep writing, keep thinking, keep talking, keep wondering.

We hear, not infrequently, the expression, “on the horizon/in the horizon.” What does it mean? It means in view, in the possible future, in sight. That which is in or on the horizon appears close, and seems to be approaching; it is as if it’s right there among the things that one hopes to do soon, as something squarely within one’s reach, among the things that one’s abilities can handle. What is in the horizon, then, is something that appears “present” and seems quite achievable.

What is a horizon? And what does it do?

A horizon is inseparable from a living, perceiving human being who is in the open or in the frontier of the open. There are no horizons in closed spaces, closed places. The distance between a living human being and the line where the sky and the earth meet is very wide. It is infinite. It is far, far away. You can only measure it with your eyes, your mind and your soul. You can figure out how long it is only to the extent that your eyes, your mind and your soul can go. An application of any other measuring device will only frustrate you because the moment you start going after it to measure it, it will recede. But the truth is that what you are actually seeing of the horizon is only a small part of it. The bigger part is on the other side of the horizon. Every horizon has at least two parts: a front and a back. The front of the horizon consists of the part you are seeing, and its back consists of the part hidden from you because of the hills and mountains, the earth, the road, the trees, the sea. In fact, the line where the sky seems to touch the earth is really only a perceived curve or a perceived point of contact, but the horizon really goes far and farther away, without end: it stretches into infinity.

All the things we are seeing are in fact standing in the way of the horizon. Similarly, all the things we are thinking right now, all our thoughts and ideas, everything that is presently on our minds can be an obstacle to a deeper and fuller understanding and appreciation of the horizon. We have to let go of all of these things in order to begin to have an idea of the depth and richness of the horizon.

For now, let us focus on the part of the horizon that is visible to us. It is a world, the world that we live in or would like to live in. Normally, it consists of people, people of different religions and/or of no religion at all, people of different languages and cultures, different experiences, different states and walks of life, different situations and aspirations, people driven by different desires, values and visions, people of very deep opinions, inspirations, beliefs and deep convictions other than our own, people heading in a thousand and one directions. This world, this visible side of the horizon also includes animals of many different types and habitats, which eat different kinds of food and have different spans of life. It also includes many different trees, bushes and flowers, and different types of grasses, etc. Mountains and hills and valleys too, rivers and big oceans, streams and creeks, are all part of this side of the horizon. Small and big houses, low and high buildings, shelters and palaces, mud houses and ghettoes are all part of this side of the horizon that we are seeing. But we do not actually see everything that we know is out there, that is all around us, that is over there in front of us…

How do we even know that there is anything out there, that other people are out there? A long walk, travels, meeting people, doing business with people, education, etc. confirm that there are other people out there, other lifestyles, other ways of thinking, other ways of doing things, other attractions, other things that people consider as very precious and worth dying for. We read about these things, have actually met and seen them with our own eyes, have lived with people of different orientations and values, have had some great opportunities to exchange ideas with them. But neither our reading and studying nor our investigative and explorative eyes can exhaust the visible side of the horizon because even the visible side has its own invisible aspects and invisible faces. Let us take for example persons, situations and objects.

From time to time, a person whom I have known for many years, not only surprises me, but also seems to be a surprise to herself/himself whenever s/he says something or does something I could never have thought or imagined her or him doing. And people of this nature are not uncommon.

How about situations? They are similar. Even the most familiar situations often have aspects that are new and different, which we can see if and when we look with more attention and care. And the moment we become used to these, even newer different aspects of the same situation emerge. The same goes for things such as books, clocks, chairs, doors, and so on. A book often presents us with information that we did not see the first time we read it. And if you read it again, you will again see something you missed the second time you read it. If you wish, you can read it again and again, and you will see something new every time. The book will never fail to make you see something new and/or think something new.

Can a chair or a door do something similar? That is, can a chair or a door make you see something new or think something new every time you encounter them? Let us see. A chair, unlike a book, seems to have no generative power. It seems mute and sterile. But can a chair speak and make us think? The answer is yes, it can speak and make us think. No one would disagree that the chair of Pontius Pilate, the chair of a Court Judge, the chair of Saint Peter, and so forth do have a powerful message. Although these chairs I have cited are special, every chair can say something to us and really make us think. For example, chairs for children and for adults make us think different thoughts, which by the way, make us give children appropriate chairs and to adults what is suitable for them. If we did not think differently of these chairs, chances are we would give adults the chairs meant for children and vice-versa, or give the same kind of chairs to everybody, children and adults alike, seriously compromising comfort. And some chairs would even fall apart (that is, if children’s chairs are given to heavy people like me to sit on).

Doors too make us think. For example, the Door of No Return in Goree Island in Dakar, Senegal, and the Door of Hope in Johannesburg, South Africa, makes every visitor think. But again, although these specific references are special, every door, including those that may seem unimposing and insignificant, can really make us think. Every door has a message.

The bottom line is that even the most visible side of the horizon can have aspects that may not be totally obvious and immediately accessible. Therefore, the visible, that which seems completely clear can still make us think because it often has layers, folds, dimensions, messages that lie beneath its surface. There are always other meanings, other messages behind the obvious. And the moment we finish harvesting one message, the moment we finish reading one meaning, the horizon presents us another one, and yet another, and so on and so forth. Inexhaustible indeed, this horizon can constantly give new meaning, hope, color, shape, style, texture, depth, taste and strength to our lives for endless joy and delight, even under very difficult circumstances. Why? Because the horizon has power to liberate us from the present, the immediate, the obvious. As it draws back, so to speak, that is, when we attempt to respond to its invitation into the open, when we dare to go after it, go with it into the deep, when we allow ourselves to move with it and flow with it, then it can open new doors, generate new ideas, launch new beginnings, reveal inroads, illuminate new bridges, disclose exits, uncover new faces, make terrains of other possibilities visible, make cooperation and collaboration possible, make teamwork possible, bring along other solutions, other fertile soils. With the horizon, there are no closed doors, no human being is a finished project, no done deal, no finished once-and-for-all discussions, no insurmountable barriers. The horizon’s open field stretches into infinity.

All of this is but an invitation to read between the lines, i.e., “to resist simplistic interpretations that dogmatically ascribe fixed significations to [things]” (G. Weiss, Refiguring the Ordinary, Indiana University, Bloomington, 2008, p.58).

It is about the need to go on researching other possible meanings and interpretations of a text, to go on searching for other possible answers to certain problems, to appreciate the expanding limits, and to devote more time and energy to the lifelong project of exploration of self and of the world (and of God) (see P. Okogie’s “Horizon: the birthing world” in the Journal of Horizons of Horizons, Vol. 1, no. 1, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, 2012, p.10).

Rev. Dr. Okogie is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Bioethics, University of Saint Anselm, Rome, Italy.

Love is like Solomon, Borne aloft on the heart, its throne.[1]

The heart is humanity’s most essential feature and its greatest treasure. It is the expression of our spiritual existence, the source of our feelings and beliefs, and the pathway to our soul’s ultimate depths. Those who walk on the path of the heart will not experience any darkness, and those who soar on the wings of their hearts will surmount any obstacle. Human virtues are cultivated on the hillsides of the heart; faith, love, and spiritual pleasures are the fruits of its garden.

If your heart is like a desert, your thoughts and feelings will inevitably wither and fade. In our history, human reason enjoyed its golden age when it submitted to the rule of the heart. Under the heart’s guardianship, reason left behind countless immortal works. In those times, matter was melted and re-forged in the furnace of our spiritual essence. Then our experience became a fairground of the hereafter, this world intermingled with the next, and the treasures of the transcendent realms were on offer here. It is according to the measures of the other world that the objects of this one become priceless. In those times, the sugar was separated from the cane, the bud was pregnant with a flower, and the soil was imbued with the lights of the other world.   Things of this world found fulfillment and were perfected. The tulips and lilies of the earth began to dance in the presence of the heart, and the charms of the next world were felt in every corner.

But we gave our minds to idle gossip and our reason gave way to deceit. And as the tongue of conscience and the melodies of the heart fell silent, the earth became like a graveyard, and our homes like coffins. Life became a drudgery, and our spirits were stifled by the smog of our misplaced longing. In such malaise, carnal feelings and corporeal thoughts ambush our souls like bandits. They present us with various poisons, and we become a deluded crowd: a mob that cannot hear the voice of conscience and is closed to reason, that contemplates and understands nothing.

Today, we yearn for the stories of the heart, for in them we feel the reviving breaths of Jesus.^[2] Since the beginning of the world, the people of the heart have always been the fortunate ones, traveling in the realms beyond the heavens with wings like angels. These heroes transcend the limits of the bodies to hold the reins of both worlds. While others beg from door to door, they live among the blessings of Paradise with contentment. The dust and the grime of this world do not blacken their horizon, nor does the colorful attraction of the hereafter distract them from their purpose. In every deed, they enjoy the friendship of God; thus their devotion is the most profitable trade.[3] In this way, they faithfully realize their heart’s purpose in a way that befits humanity. These fortunate ones sing of their love in the eternal melodies, raising their voices to the furthest galaxies.

The heart is the intersection of God’s grace with humanity’s essence. Therefore, with the seal of the Sovereign on it, the heart unifies the spiritual and material worlds. Our inner and outer beauties are in fact different dimensions of the life of our heart, and the radiance of our appearance is intimately tied to our inner life. When a word is spoken from the heart, the mind is ignited and our consciousness glows like the corona of the sun. At this moment, when the spirit turns its face to the secret voice of the heart, our feelings begin to resonate as if they had been plucked by a mysterious plectrum, and our conscience begins to whirl like a dervish in joy and respect. We feel the fire of love on all sides, and tears of joy quench the suffering of our longing.

When we lose our self and our will in ecstasy, we may temporarily lose our balance, but the heart always remains humble in the presence of God. When we travel in the realm of the heart, we are neither perplexed nor inhibited. If the hero of the heart halts with fright or struggles in his way with difficulty, love succors him like Khidr, holding the reins of his horse and carrying him swiftly over the pits of hesitation.^[4] Our senses, inner and outer, are soldiers at the heart’s command; they are moths fluttering around its brilliant light. The heart speaks with the highest authority, and all our senses submit to its rule. Like the pole star, it orbits only itself, chanting the name of God, while all other senses turn around it, prostrate.

All of us are guests in the house of the heart. Let us sacrifice our hearts to the One whose sovereignty is felt in this house. We are determined to offer our souls to the Sovereign, and we await His judgment. Since the day He breathed life into our hearts, our longing for reunion has bound us to Him, and we have diligently tended to our love as to a great weaving. Our soul trembles with excitement when we feel the nearness of the Friend, but we wait patiently for Him to open the door, with our heads bowed in respect.

As we walk on this way, singing the ballads of longing and love, the heart is our gracious guide. Until our last breath, we promise to follow this blessed guide.

[1] Muhammed Lütfi (d. 1956), Turkish Sufi poet.

^[2] According to the Qur’an, Jesus revived the dead with his word or breath. (See Qur’an, 3:49)

[3] A reference to the Qur’anic concept of the spiritual “trade” mentioned in the verse: “Those who recite God’s scripture, keep up the prayer, give secretly and openly from what We have provided for them, may hope for a trade that will never decline.” (35:29)

^[4] Khidr is a spiritual personality and a man of wisdom in Islamic tradition, who lives in an angelic way, serving God to execute divine commands and succoring people in hard conditions.

She might as well save her breath. After carrying water in pails and plastic bins from the first to the fourth floor of the building where we live, I know better than to waste a drop of it.

Moms love to warn though, so there she goes again: “We have so little left. Use it sparingly. Make it last until evening.”

In the evening my sister and I will start our summer ritual-water carrying-like the rest of our neighbors who don’t live on the first floor. The town’s water reserve level drops so low in the summer that the water pushes itself up the pipes to the first floor, but no further. On the first floor the water flows from the taps while in the higher floors it carries only growling sounds, like a monster in a bad mood.

So we use it sparingly, only when strictly necessary.

In winter the water runs through the taps of the whole building, not discriminating on the terms of the floors, three times a day for an hour and a half. Every household is busy filling every useable container in their possession during that time.

In the summer our survival grimly depends on the mercy of our first floor neighbors. Twelve families, three for each floor, carry their water up four flights of stairs, utilizing pails, bins, bottles, even cauldrons for this vital cause. Children are the most diligent carriers.

The clock on the wall reminds me that I need to get ready for the water’s evening course. The water won’t come for fifteen more minutes, but I must get in line at my first floor neighbor’s door to be ready.

I grab a pail and two bottles in a plastic bag. I run down the worn smooth stairs.

Soon, other neighbors join the march.

I am third in line.

The first is our next door neighbor, Auntie Jazja. She handles the ordeal quite normally. “I have seen worse,” tell her eyes.

Lina comes second. She lives in the fifth floor, above us. Three years older than me, but not much stronger, she holds an aluminum pail with a blackened bottom. Who knows how many times it has been used to heat water on the stove?

Behind me, fourth in line, is my best friend, Dita. She is restlessly switching hands with her glass bottles clinking noisily. She will break them sooner than she fills them with water. The line grows longer each minute.

Everybody talks with those nearby. Lina and Dita are chatterboxes. I am caught in the crossfire of their words.

I worry that our buzz will annoy our gracious first floor neighbor and she will shoo us away.

When the water starts gushing in we fall silent, listening in reverie. It is proper to wait ten to fifteen minutes for the household to fill their share of water, before the first in line is urged to knock.

I am glad Auntie Jazja is to do that today. A senior lady is always hard to turn down.

Soon enough she goes inside, greeting and blessing the benevolence of the neighbor who seems unpleased opening the door to a bunch of thirsty people. As we hear the water fill Aunties Jazja’s glass bottle, we let out a breath of relief.

Meanwhile the chatting resumes. We talk of anything but water.

Lina runs inside with her pail when Auntie Jazja calls her name, letting her know that she is almost done.

Auntie Jazja comes out carrying four one-liter glass bottles, two in each hand. A thin layer of condensation has formed on them. I think that is the picture of perfection. Those drops forming and dripping on the transparent glass refresh my soul.

Lina, shouts my name. It’s my turn. My heart beats in panic for fear that the moment I place my bottle under the tap, the water will stop flowing. Instead, I will hear that horrible whistle which I dread so much.

I enter, greet the lady of the house and head toward the bathroom. Lina is filling her pail, keeping a short hose in it. The water is forming turbulence, increasing in level, making me feel dizzy a bit with impatience.

When she withdraws her pail, I very quickly put my own under the hose, not wasting a drop of water or a second of time. We have to race with time as well, you see. There are people in line waiting.

I fill my container and call my best friend who appears in a second by my side.

I thank my neighbor, although I will return for more water in a few minutes. She knows that a pail and a few bottles of water are not enough for a family of six. I will make two more rounds if the time permits.

As I go up the stairs, I see a trail of water drops. Lina’s pail must be leaking. How silly! By the time she reaches home, half of the water will be gone. I look behind me to see if my pail is leaking, too. I am glad it is not.

At the second floor I feel my arm tighten. Warm numbness creeps up to my shoulders. The pail is heavy; my limbs stretch while my back complains. I put down my burden and I notice a fine red line forming in my palm by the handle of the pail.

I feel hot, and sweat is roller coasting down the bones of my spine. I will drink half a bottle of water to quench my thirst.

I take a deep breath, grab the pail and the bottle and step up the stairs. A frightful thought invades my mind. I had heard from Lina that carrying heavy weight was extremely harmful to young girls. It could badly damage the back, and also be disabling in childbearing. Although nine times out of ten I don’t believe what Lina tells me, this time I worry. Could it be true? My breathing becomes heavier and my muscles tenser. Tears swell around my eyes. I decide not to worry. Why have children anyway? To send them downstairs to carry water until they break their backs?

As I approach the third floor, I come across my little sister hurrying down the steps with one-liter plastic bottles under each arm. She smiles. I remember once when I was her age, I fell on the last steps of the fourth floor. I hurt my knee and my bottles rolled down, mercilessly spilling the water. I couldn’t stop crying, pretending that it was my knee that made me cry so much when it was the waste of water that broke my heart.

I leave the pail and the bottles in front of my door and as I catch my breath, I listen to Lina’s mother scold her daughter for carelessly spilling half of the pail on the stairs. It’s not her fault. The pail is leaking. But I would rather not interfere.

I ring the bell. Mom appears with a worried look. A shade of pity lingers on her face as she takes the full containers inside, and with an air of apology hands me the empty ones. “My poor girl” her eyes lament. I have noticed that the more I go up and down to make Mom happier with the abundance of water she could use, the sadder she gets. That’s when I feel most miserable.

As she closes the door, I overhear her curse the incompetent government, blaming the infrastructure for our misery. I know the government blames the lack of rain. When the rain vindicates itself in fall showers the government will blame it again, this time for the flood. You see how hopeless it is?

I go down the stairs, this time with two plastic pails. I feel so light that I wish I would never reach the first floor, but I do. Lina is again in front of me. The chatting continues as intensely as the flow of water.

Lina produces a photo from her dress pocket. A young man poses in front of greenest garden I have ever seen. The blue of the sky and the whiteness of his teeth contrast attractively, but I can’t take my eyes off the vast lawn behind him.

“This is my cousin, Alban,” Lina says. “You remember? He immigrated to France four years ago. He is doing quite well. He works in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris,” she says proudly, as if her cousin had become the mayor of the city.

I am busy sorting out something confusing though. Isn’t Luxembourg a country in Europe? Then what business do Luxembourg Gardens have in Paris, the capital of France? I doubt Lina has any idea where France or Luxembourg is, so I keep my peace.

“Do you know they water the grass in this humongous garden with sprinklers that turn on automatically?” she asks.

And before I express my admiration, she goes on about her cousin’s high salary, the car he drives, his clothes and the gifts he sent to them last year.

“I envy him, you know,” she concludes. Her eyes are daydreaming.

“I envy the grass,” I think to myself, but I don’t say it aloud. I would break into tears if I pronounced how worthless I felt, and then I would have the whole line asking what was wrong. What is it like to lie under the sun and be sprinkled with thousands of silvery droplets that replenish every cell of your being? What makes the grass of Luxembourg luckier than me? A surge of envy fills my heart.

Lina counts with delight all the things her cousin has, unaware that she is counting all the things we lack as well. She gets on my nerves. I am saved only when her name is called. She goes in, leaving me with pails full of despair.

I did five rounds of water carrying today. Some neighbors had gone out of town leaving the line, ever so graciously, to us. After dinner I fell asleep listening to the news anchor woman explaining that this year’s drought was the worst ever.

With her drought-warning words echoing in my head, I dived into the world of sleep, and I dreamed. I saw my town was flooded. Angry rivers of water carried furniture, cars, and trees floating in the streets. Among them I saw a body floating, undisturbed. Then I recognized that it was my body. My eyes were closed peacefully. I looked like I was sleeping. In dreams you can do anything, even sleep on a flood’s current. A radiant smile of intact elation lingered on my face. I remember thinking out loud, “I don’t know whether I am dead or not. Yet, no doubt I am happy. So happy that I don’t envy the grass of Luxembourg anymore.”

Mirkena Ozer is pursuing MA in women studies at the University of Georgia, Atlanta. 

You see, Auntie Kristina (that’s what a girl with manners should call her) was a friend of my family. She had visited us more times than I could count, but I had never been allowed to visit her, because her husband was unwell (and, I thought, probably couldn’t stand noise). They had no relatives in town. Their only daughter had married and moved to a distant city. So they lived alone in our small town, where everyone else had been there since Adam. It seemed to me that as outsiders they really appreciated the friendship of my parents. Also my father would fix any electrical appliance that broke in their house, free of charge. I guess Auntie Kristina and her husband loved my father like the son they had never had.

Auntie Kristina had the strangest ability to mend clothing like no one else could. She could patch a hole or sew a tear so that it was no longer there, as long as you had extra fabric. You couldn’t detect where a patch had been, even with my grandpa’s glasses on. Ask my mom if you don’t believe me.

So, I was ready to sprint toward her house when my teacher delivered her final instruction. “Be careful. Don’t drop the trousers anywhere. They are very expensive. And,”-that’s when my heart froze-“tell her these are your father’s trousers.”

You might have asked why, but I didn’t. I knew the reason. Auntie Kristina had stopped doing this kind of work for quite some time now. She had turned down such requests lately because the job put a strain on her aging eyes. But there was only one person she wouldn’t turn down: a dear friend asking a favor. And that was my father. If you wonder how my teacher knew that, then I suppose you’ve never lived in a small town full of gossip.

Yes. I knew it was a lie, but after having had this same neurotic teacher for 3 years, a teacher who had pulled my hair in first grade for writing crooked letters, I knew better than to say no.

I lowered my head and dragged myself out of the school. As I watched my shadow slide over the stones on the dusty road, I tried to think of a way out. The first scenario that played in my head was telling Auntie Kristina the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

“Auntie, my teacher sent me with a pair of trousers which have two holes, one big and one small on the left leg. These trousers belong to my teacher’s brother-in-law, who is our ambassador in some far away country and who burned them accidentally during a reception. (No, I am not making anything up. I overheard my teacher talking to her assistant during recess.) Since these trousers are far too expensive to throw away and since it is very, very important that the representative of our glorious country doesn’t go around with holes in his trousers, would you kindly repair them, please?”

She would politely decline and I wouldn’t blame her. Why strain one’s eyes to save the fancy pants of a careless diplomat?! However, this kind of answer would spell disaster for me. I abandoned this scenario and switched to the next.

I would go to her house; pretend I had knocked till my knuckles hurt, then turn back to tell my teacher that the seamstress wasn’t home. My teacher would believe me because: number one, I hadn’t lied before, and number two, she believed that the child who could lie to her had not yet been born. (She told us this herself, but if you can keep a secret, I will tell you-she is wrong. Two of my friends lied to her once, and they didn’t even flinch when faced with her lie-detecting stare.)

Anyhow, I would try, if it would end my misery. Yet, I knew like two plus two equals four that she would send me again the next day and then the next until I found the seamstress home. Chances are she would send another envoy with me after the second attempt. Then, I would have to convert that classmate into an accomplice, which was about as easy as swallowing a bull.

As I swallowed my saliva and wiped my sweaty forehead I realized that I had arrived at Auntie’s house. Standing in front of her door with my fist raised to knock, I couldn’t think of a way out of this dilemma: Shall I lie to my teacher or to Auntie Kristina? To tell the truth, the first seemed a lesser wrong but with greater consequences. I would have the same teacher for another two whole years.

I knocked twice, wishing hard that Auntie Kristina had moved to another city without letting anyone know, or had gone to see her daughter long enough for his Corpus Diplomaticus to go back to that far-away country. Have I told you that I am not that lucky? Well it’s time you knew.

Auntie Kristina opened the door with a big smile that made me blush to the tip of my ears.

“Hello Auntie! My parents send their regards to you. My father’s trousers need some repairs.” My voice trembled like I was begging for food. “Some extra fabric is in the bag.” I handed the bag to her with shaky hands. As soon as Auntie saw the shiny, high quality pants she looked at me over her spectacles, perplexed. She inspected the holes and fell silent. The longer the silence lasted, the hotter my face got. Auntie Kristina, who probably knew how many fillings my father had in his mouth, could quite easily guess that my father, a modest electrician, would more likely land on the moon than own those fancy trousers. I lowered my head and waited for a shame-on-you slap but instead I got:

“O.K. Come and pick them up tomorrow.”

Tomorrow? I was worried. I will have to go through all this again my mind protested.

“Yes, “she said. “I don’t have time today.”

“Tell your parents I said hi,” she reminded me. I nodded. You would expect me to take a deep breath once she closed the door, right? Instead I felt like I was choking and there was only one way for my lungs to get air: let the tears that were knotted in my throat flow. And I did. I didn’t care who might be watching. I hated my teacher. I detested her mindless brother-in-law. I loathed pant-burning cigars. I hated myself. I was a bad girl. I was a liar. I continued to cry to my heart’s content, until my eyes were dry and I could breathe again.

The next day my teacher’s face brightened up when she examined the repaired trousers.

“Unbelievable!” she exclaimed. “One thousand witnesses are needed to prove that there was a hole in these pants.” She turned to me with a smile and said, “Well done.” Her praise, rare as rain in the desert, didn’t make me at all happy this time. In fact, it inflamed my guilt which was burning holes inside me. All I could do was to wait for the flame to die out.

Three weeks later, when the fire of my guilt had somewhat subdued, something happened that blew the ashes away and exposed the embers. It was the day of my older sister’s wedding. As I was busying myself, getting into everybody’s way, I heard Auntie Kristina’s voice greet my father. I jumped out of my skin and hid behind my bedroom door. Peaking through the keyhole, I saw her hand Mom a wrapped gift for my sister. Only for a split of a second did she scrutinize the outfit my father had on. Although it was his best gray suit, it stood a hundred light-years away from those fancy trousers.

She smiled at him and proceeded to the sitting room. She sat on the sofa exchanging pleasantries with both my parents while her coffee was being made. I glued my ear to the wall so that I could hear and started to reconstruct the puzzle of their conversation from what I could hear. When she asked where I was, suddenly finding a hiding place was more urgent than hearing what she had to say next. If I knew one thing about my mother, who stuck to the rules of manners like no other, it was that she would be looking for me in no time. It is considered rude for children to not greet guests, especially when the guests deigned to ask about them. I wasn’t mistaken. Mom rushed into my bedroom calling my name. I was sweating in my closet, hiding among racks of clothes. Did Auntie tell? Is Mom angry? Am I in trouble? I wondered. I could sense she was annoyed and impatient. Somebody called Mom from the kitchen with urgency so she stopped looking for me. I stayed inside until I heard Mom thank Auntie for coming and say goodbye.

I couldn’t spend my whole life inside a closet, so finally I decided I had to come out. On my way to the front yard, Mom called: “There you are! Here, take this. It’s from Auntie Kristina. She said you are a good girl,” Mom related with satisfaction. I don’t know why, but parents are really happy when their children are praised. “Isn’t she a nice lady?” Mom asked. Without waiting for my answer she hurried to greet another guest standing at the door. My mom had placed a bag of candies in my hand. My eyes welled up, but I pushed the tears to the corners. Something that felt good was happening inside me. The holes of emptiness were being patched. My soul was being mended.

“Yes,” I whispered to myself. “She is a nice lady, and the best seamstress of all.”

Mirkena Ozer is pursuing MA in women studies at the University of Georgia, Atlanta.

Serve my spirit chants from the tongues of beyond.

Do so and quench the storms that besiege my heart,

Just like You lend your hand to the hopeless.

You are that compassionate one; to me

Allow a gift and join my way to your land.

In every obscurity, a brightening sign from your presence

Send to my heart; cover my poverty with your gift.

I am spiraling down from one exile to another,

Let the day shine, end the time of darkness,

You are the owner of this grieving heart of mine,

Appear to me, please, like You do to everyone.

As I wait in excitement for a new reunion,

Let the joys of your compassion descend to my heart.

Have my spirit take wings with the flood of your love,

Soothe my afflictions of separation.

Let me feel the moment of your appearance

My perspectives all colored with eternity

I shall see the time when ardor converts to reunion

It matters not if I am engulfed in flames

Let me burn, for that state is my water of life.

Matter dissolved in the bosom of metaphysical

Spirit lies in my heart to ambush your appearance.

Mesmerized sentiments on the horizon of vision.

As nothing can be heard but Him

What reaches ears is the composition of emotions,

Clocks know not tick-tock, nor days rise and fall.

Time and space are the mysterious geometry of the unknown.

Translated from Turkish by Sermed Ogretim

They took their muddy shoes and heavy coats off. Dad, looking very sad, sat down on the sofa while my mom whispered something quickly to my sister before vanishing to her bedroom. I could only catch some ominous words like, “…dead…. wake…. we got to go.” My sister did not ask any questions. In no time, Mom came out of her room dressed in black, kissed me on the cheeks, and left. Dad, who up to that moment had been silently gazing at the brown carpet, robotically stood up and followed her. On his way out, he reminded my sister to lock the door.

My sister turned the key twice as if the Big Bad Wolf might knock on the door in a minute. Then she turned off the TV-custom dictates that there is no music or laughter in a mourning house. We sat there looking at each other in silence. My sister looked pitiful, so I gave her some time to digest whatever Mom had whispered to her. Meanwhile, I started to decode what my little radar had caught.

Someone is dead-no doubt about it. Since the news was given sotto voce, it had to have been a shameful death like committing suicide or being shot while stealing. Or, God forbid, it might be an awful death like being crushed by a train or chopped to pieces by a revenge murderer. Since my parents were grieving, it probably involved somebody significant to us. Could it be one of their coworkers? A relative? At this point I grew so anxious I knew I would explode if I did not ask. “Who is dead?” I asked in a trembling voice. “Dad’s stepmother,” my sister answered matter-of-factly.

The answer took me by surprise because I did not know Dad had a stepmother. I knew he had lost his mother suddenly at age six and had lost his father ten years later. I sensed a mystery concealed before me and I could have sworn my sister knew more. The question was how I could fish out the secrets my sister’s heart held so faithfully.

My sister, an ordinary eighteen-year-old, was nice to me most of the time except when I asked too many questions and messed up her drawers. She would never repeat what she knew about her friends and acquaintances, so at times I felt my sister was a mysterious person and I imagined her heart was full of secrets.

“Dad’s stepmother?” I repeated it in my mind over and over trying to define what it meant to me. I knew of only one stepmother, a pretty infamous one for that matter: Snow White’s stepmother. She was mean and cruel. Some people would rejoice at such a person’s death. Yet, everybody was sad. I made up my mind to go ahead and ask my sister no matter what the consequences. My assumptions were taking me nowhere. “Where did she live?” I asked, expecting to be hushed. “In our town,” my sister answered. “Is she nice?” I asked, then corrected myself. “I mean, was she nice?” My sister nodded. Seeing her handle my interrogation calmly, I was encouraged to ask more. Mercifully, my sister spared me all the sweating by revealing the story on her own.

“Dad was six years old when his mother died. Grandpa married again right away so that somebody would take care of his little boy. He chose to marry a close relative of his first wife. Apparently, everybody was surprised that an attractive man with a high standard of education married someone so plain and uneducated. But I guess he only cared that a relative of Grandma would treat his son nicely. He had three more children with his second wife, two girls and a boy.”

I stood there all ears, almost forgetting to breathe, listening to this astonishing revelation. Not only had I a step-grandmother, but a step-uncle and two step-aunts as well. I forced myself to stop wondering and focus on my sister, who, after taking a deep breath, went on:

“Grandfather was right. She took care of Dad so well that she didn’t make any difference between her own children and him. She continued to be good to him even after Grandfather died ten years later. She never remarried. She worked hard to make ends meet, and Dad, because he was the eldest child, helped by dropping out of high school to work full time. That was when he took evening courses and learned to be an electrical repairman.

“At twenty-six, Dad married Mom. I heard that his stepmother loved Mom and boasted to her neighbors about what a fine lady her son had married. In the beginning, everything was fine and they all lived happily together in the same house. After a while, Dad started to give less and less to the family budget and spent more and more from his pay on gifts and movie theater tickets. Mom and Dad used to like to go to the movies every week in those days.

“One night Dad’s stepmother apparently complained. She reminded Dad that she was having a hard time paying the bills. Dad accused her of being interfering and jealous of his love for his wife. His stepmother must have felt humiliated because she vowed that unless he apologized and changed his ways, she wouldn’t speak to him again. Dad insisted he had done no wrong and saw no reason to apologize. Both of them must have gone to bed feeling sore and angry at each other.

The next day, when his stepmother came home from work, most likely hoping that the new day might have helped him to see things in their true color, she found that Dad and Mom had packed up their stuff and moved out. She must have felt betrayed. The sting in her heart, I reckon, made her swear an oath that she never broke. She sent word to Dad telling him that from now on she would have nothing to do with him and warned him never to come back.” My sister stopped her narration and it felt as if time had stopped, too.

“This is too awful to be true,” I mumbled in disbelief. “Did they ever speak again?” I asked, hoping against hope. My sister shook her head. “Neither she nor her children ever spoke to our parents.” My sister continued, “They saw each other almost every day on the street, in the shops, at the stadium, at the hospital, at the post office, you name it. But they changed paths or ignored each other.” She shook her head. “Pride is such a terrible thing sometimes,” she concluded, and I could not have agreed more.

“You know, you met her once!” My sister startled me with this exciting remark. “I did? When? Where?” I impatiently looked into her eyes. “Remember the day when you hurt your knee in the park and when we were on our way back home, and you were limping, two old ladies stopped us in the middle of the road?”

“Yes, I remember,” I interrupted her. Although it had happened almost five years ago I recalled the incident clearly because that peculiar encounter had made quite an impression on me. The intensity with which one of the old ladies looked at me, the way my sister looked around as if she did not want to get caught doing something wrong, had naturally not escaped my curious eye.

“I remember, one of the old ladies kissed you on the cheeks. Then she looked at me and asked her friend, ‘Is this his youngest daughter?’ Her friend said yes and then the first lady hugged me, wiped tears from my face with a tissue, and gave me two candies. Then you pulled me away. You said we were late and our parents would be worried. I followed you but I was looking behind, waving back at the nice lady because she made me feel so special. Later, when I kept asking you who she was, you hushed me. You were angry and sorry at the same time. I even saw you wiping your eyes. I thought you were crying because she didn’t give you any candies.”

“No, silly,” my sister tried to laugh, though I sensed that the same mood of anger and sorrow had overtaken her. “I was crying,” she explained, “for all the things we missed. Every day I came home from school with our neighbor’s son, passing by their door, stopping by just to breathe in the wonderful smell of baking bread and to envy the big smile of his grandmother, knowing quite well that a cold and empty home was waiting for me to turn the key. I was angry with Dad because his pride was depriving us of a God-given right-the wonderful presence of a grandmother. Why did everyone in town just stand by and watch this tragedy? Everyone was pretending to mind their business. No one had the courage to intervene and bring it to an end.”

My sister started crying and I felt pity for us my eyes watered too. Who knows what beautiful bedtime stories she might have known, who knows what delicious meals she could have prepared, and whether she would have had the ear to listen to me-the ear my mom, who worked full time, never had.

“But why did she kiss me twice and give me two candies?” I asked, almost to myself, fearing that my sister would reprimand me for such a stupid question. “She…,” my sister sniffed trying to collect her voice, ”she worked in the only day care our town had. So she practically took care of me and our big sister and big brother as a part of her job for four whole years each. When you were born she had retired. I guess she was sad that she never got to hold you as a baby.” I could hold the tears no longer. Her soft kiss on my cheeks and her compassionate, intense look lingered in my mind. She would have made a wonderful grandmother.

The doorbell startled us, and we hurried to open the door, wiping the tears on our way. Surprisingly, my parents had returned in much worse shape than they had left. Usually close relatives of the deceased stay at the wake until dawn. My parents had been gone for barely an hour. This time Dad, soaked to the bone with rain, his face swollen red from crying, went straight to their room. Mother looked distressed too. She sat on the coach and took several deep breaths.

“What happened?” asked my sister when she realized that Mom was not going to tell us without prompting. “We were not wanted there,” Mom managed to say before she broke down in tears. I shivered as I imagined someone yelling at my parents, “Get out of here!”

“Who told you that?” my sister demanded.

“Her son,” Mom said. I could not help but note that “her son” would have been our uncle, had all this not happened.

“He shoved us out,” Mom continued, sniffing. “He told us that it’s useless to honor the dead when we had shown her no respect in her lifetime.” That made sense to me as much as I wished it did not.

“What did Dad do?” asked my sister. I was becoming annoyed with Ms. Detective. I was afraid of what was coming next. “What could he do?” Mom took a deep breath. “Your Dad stood there speechless for a few minutes. He couldn’t confront his stepbrother. No one at the wake came to his defense, so we left the house in humiliation. He wept all the way home,” Mom said breaking into tears again.

A deep sadness flooded my heart as I realized that our step-grandmother had taken with her to the grave any chance of reconciliation and that I would never come to meet my uncles and aunts. I left Mom to my sister’s questioning and went to check on my dad. The door of their room was ajar. He was sitting on the bed, his back bent, his gaze fixed on the floor. I wished I could read his mind, but more than anything I wished I could console him. But how could I?

There sat my dad, a middle-aged man, proud father of a son and three daughters. There sat my dad, a diligent follower of politics who never missed the evening news in the election season. There sat my dad, a faithful patron of the coffee shop, and a big fan of soccer who could never get enough of the Brazil team at the World Cup. There sat a man sobbing like a child with his head between his palms. I wondered if he felt like a loser. For some unknown reason I could not side with him, although my heart was breaking with pity. And suddenly, I realized that I had spent the whole afternoon utterly fascinated by my sister’s account of my parents’ sins. Immediately, I felt sick and afraid. Did disloyalty flow in our veins? Was that to be the inheritance in our family?

Right at that moment Dad raised his head and looked at me with an expression pleading for something neither I nor anybody else breathing on earth could grant him: forgiveness. Avoiding my reproachful look, he raised his fists and started hitting his graying temples, shouting painfully to himself, “Ungrateful, Ungrateful!”

I could not stand watching him any longer. I backed out and closed the door. And at every rapid beat of my heart I prayed to God to have mercy on us all for what we had done to our parents and to show us a way of atonement.

Mirkena Ozer had her major in Turkish language and literature. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.