on strategy

advice in cover image written by @pat.radical.therapist on Instagram.

——

search Qur’an for “mirror”: no results found ❌
search Qur’an for “reflect”: 15 results found ✅

Allah, You are giving me the parts.
The multidirectional mirrors that expose an impulse to change at one glance and lead the impulse to change in another.
I just need to integrate.

Breathing is our impulse, and to inhale is to trust that you are safe to receive. Underwater I cannot inhale.

To exhale is to let go of your life force trusting its return. We, humans, don’t expect death.
The breath leads the mind and the mind leads the body.
How does the soul figure into it?
We are always on a path, being led by mortal breath for some time, and Divine breath for eternity. 
When we are lost, there is dissonance between the breath and ourselves.

The birds are in gentle frenzy.

They are picking up bread around the treecestor.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un.
To God we belong, and to God we return.
The bread has not been supplied by any human, that I can see.
The supply seems enduring, a detail I could have easily missed.
The wind carries their excitement.
The wind directs my breath.
The wind is described in the Quran as a herald of Allah’s mercy.
Brutality is the absence of mercy.

What part of me resists sharing Palestinian pleas for help?

I think the people pleaser in me.
As if their compelling requests, and their judgement of those not honoring those requests are negatively imposing on others.
The perfectionist in me who aspires toward exceptionalism.
The exceptionalism weaponized by tyrannical so-called arbiters of humanity. 
I’ve personally resolved to not provoke the shame of others.
Shame certainly is a powerful weapon.
Maybe for my siblings experiencing genocide it is a last resort. 
Though it may be a jarring strategy, I believe that they are telling the truth in pledging to complain to Allah.

“Shame from believing we are the worst can, ironically, make us unable to listen to people close to us and respond to their requests, because we are stuck in thinking about how bad we are.” 
- Dean Spade, Love in a F*cked-Up World

But sometimes you just need to create an opportunity for donation.
Don’t be ashamed, Aime.
Their choice to look still remains.
Sometimes you just need an opportunity for a voice to be heard.
Don’t be ashamed, Aime.
Their choice to listen is their own.
Sometimes when building, the items to be acted upon just need to be laid out first.
Don’t be ashamed, Aime.
Acting isn’t the most intuitive thing.

“What promises to save you from dehumanization? Sophisticated degrees. The money in your bank account. The willingness to forgive. An unassuming gaze and unthreatening demeanor. Connections to the magazine editor who slanders your neighbors. At the bar, he asks his friend in the military to release you from the cell, as a favor, to go easy on you. You are worldly and politically correct. You are a prodigy—unlike the others. But what about the others? The others who suffocate under this shrinking definition of humanity? Those who were not privileged enough to go to a five-star university or be born into a line of feudal lords? What about those without halos, the angry men who wander the streets with mouths full of spit and venom, the children whose shoulders are burdened by the straps of rifles, the women who choose an explosive path? What about the poor? What about those who are cruel with the occupier and cruel with their kin? The not-so-gentle fathers? The reckless in our midst, those who would furrow the eyebrows of Europeans: the sister who “found her rage / in the kitchen drawer,”10 and the sister “learning the anatomy of the gun”.
- Mohammed el-Kurd, Perfect Victims

Our existence is the weapon.

We must normalize the witnessing and digesting of this conflict as it happens. 

Using fear as a strategy.

I’m scared of being disrespected, meanwhile You, Allah do not get scared.
At least, that’s my assumption.
You are capable of everything but from my understanding You do not have weaknesses or vulnerabilities.
You do not become damaged like I would from disrespect.
So when I’m scared I should invoke You.