Moses – Looking Within

“I used to rule the world / Seas would rise when I said the word.” – Coldplay, Viva La Vida

A post by a fellow blogger has inspired me to write about the importance of looking to God for validation and looking inward rather than constantly seeking the approval of others.  I want to approach this topic by exploring the Biblical/Quranic story of Prophet Moses, peace be  upon him. His story is filled with ups and downs and it should remind us that while popular opinion fluctuates, our values should be rooted in solid foundations that do not shake.

Moses, Moshe, Musa, or Moyses, depending on the language one uses, was born to the Children of Israel when they were enslaved in Egypt. The Egyptians thought so little of the Israelites that they slaughtered their male children.  They used them like beasts of burden in building their temples and pyramids. So Moses began life with no status.

But Allah inspired his mother, whom the Jews called Yocheved, to place the baby Moses in a basket and place him in the Nile. One etymological theory suggests that Musa got his name from being brought out of the river near a stand of trees, “mu” being a word for water and “sha” trees. The Nile carried Moses to the wife of Pharaoh, known to Muslims as Asiya,  who chose to adopt the baby as her own, not knowing he was an Israelite. The baby deemed worthless suddenly became part of the royal household in the most powerful empire of the age.

When Moses grew up, he discovered his true identity as a Levite, a member of the family of the Hebrew priests.  He went to see how the Israelites were being treated and he saw an Egyptian accosting one of his tribe.  Moses must have felt conflicted, knowing that he was Egyptian by upbringing but Hebrew by blood.  He struck the Egyptian and killed him. Moses was facing an identity crisis to which many people throughout history could relate. He didn’t know who he was, whom to trust, and with whom to identify.

When the Egyptians discovered what Moses had done, they wanted to execute him for murder. After being tipped off, Moses fled. He wound up in Midian where he encountered a family of herders. The patriarch, Jethro or Shueyb, had several daughters. Moses was kind to them and they repaid his kindness by welcoming him into their family, allowing him to marry Zipporah, one of Jethro’s daughters. Moses knew that Egypt saw him as a wanted criminal, a murderer, but he knew he was better than that. He did not become mired in self-doubt and depression, but instead found a way to do what in modern parlance would be called “reinventing” himself.

Moses would later be exalted with the unique honor of speaking directly with God. God told him to return to Egypt and lead his people out of oppression. Again Moses experienced a head-spinning change in status, going from wanted criminal to messenger of Allah. Yet Moses stayed remarkably placid through whatever he went through. He was also empowered to do miracles, at one point, parting the Red Sea, recounted in the Coldplay lyric with which I began this post. Even after speaking to God, he never acted arrogant or proud.  He stayed true to the values of kindness and equity which guided him through his struggle.

There is so much to say about Moses and I have only scratched the surface. What I hope my readers will take away is that life has ups and downs. One will get jobs and lose jobs. We find love and we get our hearts broken. People we love are born and they die. One will be loved and be hated. We will be lost if we allow these events to break us. Yet if we can remain strong in our faith in Allah and cherish the best virtues within us, we can succeed in this world and the next.

Am I a Foodie?

Am I a Foodie?

I’ve been wondering lately if I fit into the category of people known as “foodies.” When I see the word, “foodie” my gut reaction is to define it as a person who enjoys food. But that definition is unsatisfying because then wouldn’t everybody be a foodie? Who doesn’t enjoy any food at all? Of course there are exceptions, anorexics and fast-aholics come to mind.

Does one have to enjoy cooking food to be a foodie? I don’t think it’s a requirement, but it does make the case for one being a foodie more convincing. There are a lot of Food Network stars that I would consider foodies – people like Tyler Florence, Bobby Flay, Giada De Laurentiis, and Rachael Ray. (By the way, I think Rachael Ray is delightful despite what her detractors say about her.) These are people who are passionate about food. I’m not that into it, but I have had some great experiences in the kitchen. One dish I’ve been making since I was a child is spaghetti with meat sauce. My brother and I would often split the work. I would boil the water and cook the noodles. He would add the sauce at the end. Good times.

I wonder what the correlation is between being a foodie and weight. One might think that foodies love food so they tend to be overweight. However, a lot of people who are overweight put on pounds because they don’t care about what they eat and thus consume a lot of junk. Foodies who cook for themselves can use fresh herbs and vegetables to stay trim.

I guess I am a foodie because I care about food and I like to cook. But if that puts me in the company of Giada De Laurentiis and Tyler Florence, I think I can live with that.

I welcome your comments. Are you a foodie? Are you an anti-foodie? What are your favorite meals?

Song Analysis – “The House Wins” – OK Go

Fingers blistered from the nightly scratching at the window which won’t open far enough to let air in
The house wins
Oh, the house always wins

[The beginning describes a guy struggling to open his window.  The window is a repeated image that appears in this song a few times. He seems to be annoyed and I think there’s a crescendo of rising tension. The saying “the house always wins” comes from gambling in which it means that a casino manipulates the games so that it has an advantage and will ultimately turn a profit.]
Feral cats are screaming at the clouds beneath the window with the cracks so small that nothing gets within
The house wins
Oh, the house always wins

[A feral cat is a cat that is wild or undomesticated. I don’t understand why the cats are screaming at the clouds.]

You don’t have to be alone to be lonely
You might as well give in

[This is a powerfully true statement, that one does not have to be alone to be lonely. One can be alone even when surrounded by others if one does not feel a connection to those people or if one feels like an outsider. Yet I cannot understand how this connects to the earlier stanzas. How are blistered fingers, screaming cats, and loneliness connected?]
Telephones are howling at the cats out in the alley and the window offers nothing in the din
The house wins
Oh, the house always wins
[ How does a telephone howl at a cat? Are these cellular phones or wired phones? The part about the window offering nothing makes sense to me. I think it is saying that the window provides an ineffective barrier to the loud noises outside.]
Clouds uncage the car alarms to chase the cats and telephones
Fingers rake and rasp away there skin
The house wins
Oh, the house always wins
[This is a cool image. I didn’t realize it, but heavy rain can set off car alarms. Then there’s a slightly disturbing image of fingers tearing away skin. It seems when the speaker talks about the house winning, it means that evil wins or perhaps our darker sides win.]
You don’t have to be alone to be lonely
You might as well give in
Yeah you don’t have to be alone to be lonely
You might as well give in

Ice age upon catastrophic ice age of selection and only one result has trickled in
The house wins
Oh, the house always wins

[Ice ages tend to result in species loss and here the house seems to be death. Ice ages play a role in natural selection because they kill off species that do not adapt to the cold.]
If evil were a lesser breed then justice after all these years the righteous would have freed the world of sin
The house wins
Oh, the house always wins

[This is the most interesting part of the song to me because it touches on the very important philosophical topic of the problem of evil. He’s arguing that if evil were much weaker than good then good should have defeated evil a long time ago. So he’s saying that either good and evil are equally strong in our universe or that evil is actually stronger than good. My counterargument is that the righteous have not defeated sin because sin and evil are part of God’s plan and He knows that they both have roles to play in our world.]
You don’t have to be alone to be lonely
You might as well give in
You don’t have to be alone to be lonely
You might as well give in
You don’t have to be sick to be dying
You might as well give in
You don’t have to have lost to be lost
Oh, give in
You don’t have to be alone to be lonely
You might as well give in

The Opened Eyes

[This poem has been accepted for publication in Poems of the World. It's about the nature of teaching.]

The Opened Eyes

Show me the way

Be my eyes when I am blind

Teach me the mystery of the initiated

 

You have sight and open eyes

The road is not at your feet but in your soul

There is no mystery for the ones who know

 

I have not come to play games

Your duty is to guide

If you cannot show me, you must not know.

 

Ponder why you have come

If I carry you on my back,

Your legs will never know the joy of running.

 

I feel as though I know nothing

I see you have nothing to offer

But I am here waiting

 

Now the learning begins . . .

Song Analysis – “All Along the Watchtower” – Bob Dylan

[Part 3]

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view

While all the women came and went, barefooted servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,

Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

[I think this will be the most challenging song analysis I have yet written. Even though this is a short song, its lyrics are mysterious and heavy with meaning. Those of you familiar with the song may have already noticed something odd. The lyrics are out of order here. Or are they? On the website SongMeanings.net, a user named "eyeland" cites an article in Crawdaddy by Paul Williams that compares this song to a Moebius strip. The first part that we hear begins, "There must be some way out of here." However, in terms of the story the song is telling, the beginning is actually the third part, which begins, "All along the watchtower."

Another user on SongMeanings, "belteshazzar" claims convincingly that Dylan was alluding to the Parable of the Tenants, a story found in the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 12.

Here is the Parable of the Tenants, copied from the New International Version of the Bible:

¹He then began to speak to them in parables: "A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. ²At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. ³But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. ⁵He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.

    ⁶"He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, 'They will respect my son.'

    ⁷"But the tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' ⁸So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

    ⁹"What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. (Mark 12:1 - 12:9)

The landowner – represents God

The vineyard – symbolizes the Kingdom of God

The tenants – represent Israel’s religious leaders and all who reject Christ

The servants – symbolize God’s prophets and faithful believers

The beloved son – represents Jesus Christ, peace be upon him (Note: I am not in any way supporting the belief that Jesus is the son of God. What I am saying here is that Christians believe he is the son of God.)

The princes that the song refers to could be any people with wealth and/or power. Women and barefoot peasants pass by. Some have argued that this refers to the Vietnam War because many of the Vietcong were poor farmers. Also Americans killed civilians, even women, during the war. However, I think there is no specific detail here that is exclusive to Vietnam and that this could refer to any society with upper and lower classes.

[Part 1]

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief,

“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief. Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth, None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.” 

[If one looks back to the Parable of the Tenants, it is the son who comes to the vineyard and sees men taking advantage of the situation. The joker here says "my wine" and "my earth," so he seems to be playing the role of the son. Therefore many critics have concluded that the joker here is Jesus, peace be upon him. The thief could be the criminal who was executed along with Jesus in the Biblical story of the crucifixion.]

[Part 2] “No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke,

“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.

But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate,

So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”

[The thief tries to calm down the joker. He speaks of people who feel life is meaningless. One could call such people existentialists. The thief seems to think that many peopke have an existentialist phase but some mature out of it. He deems himself and the joker to be the kind of person who has grown beyond existentialism. If we are to believe that the joker is Jesus and the thief is a criminal, this exchange is quite unusual. The criminal is actually teaching Jesus a lesson rather than the other way around. He is trying to remind Jesus that even in the face of suffering, life has meaning. It seems odd for a criminal to be saying this to a messenger of God or even the son of God.

The last line here says, "the hour is getting late." It makes more sense to end with this line than to end with the last line that comes in the song about the wind howling. This line makes the most sense if one interprets the joker as being Jesus. Interestingly, the thief says, "Let us not talk falsely now . . ." The obvious implication is that Jesus was lying when he spoke earlier about people stealing from the vineyard. But I don't see a lie in his speech. The missing lie is one of the mysteries of this song. An entirely different theory of the song says the joker is Dylan himself and the thief is Elvis Presley. It is much easier to swallow that Dylan lied as opposed to Jesus lying.

Finally, when the thief says "the hour is getting late," he is saying that the two of them are about to die.]

Song Analysis – “The Beloved” -Yusuf Islam / Cat Stevens

“The Beloved” – Yusuf Islam – An Other Cup

 

His wisdom flowed from heaven’s book

Just like threaded pearls,

Just like threaded pearls

 

[This song is about Prophet Muhammad, salla allahu alaihi wa sallam (peace be upon him). The first line suggests that the song is about a prophet since “heaven’s book” must refer to a book of scripture, in this case the Quran. Also in the background of the song one can hear the Arabic phrase, salla allahu alaihi wa sallam, an Arabic formula Muslims only use for Prophet Muhammad.

 

Prophet Muhammad’s wisdom originated from the Quran. Hadrat Aisha referred to him as “the living Quran.” His words were like threaded pearls because they had great value and they were arranged in a systematic order. Part of the beauty of Islam is in its intricate order. There is a process for getting married, a process for recording transactions, a process for writing a will, and so on.]

 

He left his self to flee to God

And God sent him back to Earth

 

[Here Yusuf Islam may be alluding to the Miraj, the Prophet’s ascension into Heaven. Or he may be speaking generally of the life of the Prophet. He was a very giving, generous man. He kept very little for his self. He did not indulge in self-glorification. He constantly purified himself to make his soul beautiful in the sight of Allah.  But Allah wanted him to be human, to live among humans, and to love humanity.]

 

He was born to be the beloved

A will of the Divine

He was born to be the beloved,

He was born to guide

 

[The refrain speaks of how the Prophet was destined to be God’s Messenger from the beginning of his life. A thorough study of the biography of the Prophet, the sirat, shows that every event of his life contributed to making him the pious and kind man that he was. He was a shepherd as a young man and it is said that all prophets were shepherds. Being a shepherd teaches one how to guide others and provides plenty of time for contemplation.]

 

He prayed all his nights alone

And stars and angels sighed

And in the day he led the way

With blazing words so bright

 

[Prophet Muhammad (S) devoted his days and nights to the service of Allah. He spent many nights in prayer, even though he knew he was guaranteed salvation. The song speaks of angels and even inanimate stars being moved by his beautiful prayers. But he was no monk and he forbade the monastic life for his followers. He preached that believers must engage in the human world. He taught people to seek knowledge. He urged people to care for orphans. He stressed the importance of obeying one’s parents even if one’s parents belong to a different religion. Interestingly, this sets him apart from leaders of many religions and cults who have told their followers to divorce themselves from their families.]

 

He was born to be the beloved

A will of the Divine

He was born to be the beloved,

He was born to be kind

 

He taught the people to worship

Bowing to one God,

Bowing to one God

 

[The essence of Islam is to bow before one God and no one else. Islamic worship has a unique serenity and a quiet dignity. Masjids are relatively open spaces, free from pews, altars, idols, and stained-glass windows. They are places of sujud, of prostration, where people bring their heads- the seat of thought and intellect – low down to the ground, showing that even the best in us has an infinitesimally small value in comparison to Wisdom and the Power and the Glory of Allah.]

 

His mercy stretched from East to West

To every man, woman and child

 

[The Prophet had many names as shown in the following verse of poetry:

hadha habibi hadha adibi hadha tabibi hadha dawa’i

this is my beloved, this is my teacher, this is my physician, this is my cure (This translation may be inaccurate. If you can correct it, please leave a comment.)

 

The Prophet was also called “mercy to mankind.” Out of His Mercy, Allah sent Prophet Muhammad to guide people toward truth and salvation.]

 

He was born to be the beloved-

A will of the Divine

He was born to be the beloved,

Nature Sublime

 

[The adjective “sublime” is not uncommon in English, yet I doubt that many English speakers could define it. The word means “elevated” or “lofty.” The Prophet had an elevated nature. He was not concerned with money or possessions. What concerned him most was the perfection of the soul.]

 

He opened up the doors of love

For every heart parched with thirst

He was a mercy to the worlds

And unto the universe

 

[This is perhaps the most beautiful stanza of this song.  It talks about the Prophet’s love for the people of the world. Perhaps some of you are wondering if this is the same Muhammad that you have heard about. The Prophet was a commander of armies. He killed people and ordered others to kill. But one could make an analogy to George Washington. He also killed people but no one seems to have a problem with that since they believe in what he was fighting for. Prophet Muhammad had a profound love for humanity. He was fighting for religious freedom and for the betterment of mankind.]

 

He was born to be the beloved

A will of the Divine

He was born to be the beloved,

He was born to guide.