Just Because Stories

Faith.

Turning points are what punctuate one’s life, they said. ‘It is born of the recognition that you are failing in your attempt to organize your life successfully.’

She’d been thinking of starting a blog. A medium to express her own opinions. Her voice in the sea of many. It’s been a week since she opened her account. Apart from a few petty reposts, there was nothing of significance that she’d posted. Nothing truly hers; nothing she could proudly call her own. Although she started out with much zest and fervor, thinking about them in particular made her opinions seem largely mediocre and mundane. She’d given up.

It was a few days later that she’d hit upon an idea. A worthy debut. How relevant it was, or how significant a thought; she did not know. All she knew was that it was hers, and it was true. That was all that mattered.

‘Faith’ was an apt name, she decided.

Smiling to herself, she started on her very first post.

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'Faith.'

[DISCLAIMER: I solemnly swear that all of the below mentioned information is the truth, the entire truth, and nothing but the truth. If any of it were to be fictional; or even remotely cooked up by my over-active imagination, I gravely accept and validate the resulting disgrace.]

“Religion is for sissies!” We’ve all had that phase, have we not? We weren’t born as blessing unto this fair planet, perfect angels who instantly believed everything we were told about the Lord’s supernatural existence. Heck, I bet we’ve had all of them; shout out to the Bieber phase, the One Direction phase, the YOLO phase, and the atheistic phase. If you’re an exception, then kudos to you; cause as for me: Guilty as charged.

There has been many an instance in my life where that tiny little voice in my head has gloated, “HAH. Where’s your God Now?!” I’ve questioned the Faith I’d been assigned time and again.

To my fiercely hormone charged brain high off self-indulgence and immature naivety, the idea of an omniscient power in the sky creating and control all of THIS [dramatically flails arms about, indicating all of matter in existence;] had been a bit too much to take.  Well, what can I say? If I were to be offered a ride in a time machine at any point in my life henceforth, I would gladly accept; if only for the sole purpose of having the pleasure of going back in time and smacking pre-adolescent me in the face.

 Even with the annoying little moron imposing itself on all the free space in the ball-room of a mind of mine, I was adequately familiar and sufficiently steadfast in my faith, I suppose; thanks to my familial background. What I lacked was the driving force; the motor engine, if you will; the absence of which left me abysmally drifting aimlessly about this endless abyss we address as ‘Life’ for convenience.

I was born into the Islamic faith. Although I lacked the conviction, I never failed to be deeply incited, sometimes a tad bit over dramatically; every time anyone so much as questioned or dared challenge the faith I belonged to. It was this tendency that would later on make all the difference, although I was as oblivious to the fact at the time as the metaphorical frog stuck in a well was of the big, wide world outside.

Said incident went as such:

One fine day, yours truly was stalking her Facebook newsfeed, seeking out potential prey for her narcissistic online persona to feed on, when along comes a post on the virtues of Hijab, courtesy a relative of mine on the maternal side. “Hm.”, I think to myself. “Typical, typical. [Insert sophisticated flick of hand.] Nothing to worry myself about..” When the number in tiny font on a side of the post indicating 23 comments happened to catch my attention. Intrigued, I flip through them. Surprise, surprise! The post was graced with the expected criticism worthy of every post addressing controversial topics as such. The heroic side of my vastly idiotic nature wasted no time in jumping into action, wherein one thing lead to another and I found myself neck-deep in a profound argument with a cousin of my mother’s whom I endearing address ‘uncle’, and who to this day holds that grudgingly against me. Him being more-or-less an atheist and me an ‘indoctrinated, brainwashed little child’ of seventeen years (his very words), the banter was quite amusing; or so I was told.

[WARNING: Any chance of said relative being portrayed as a black-cape-wearing, light-saber-toting super villain is purely coincidental and extremely regretted.]

The squabble regarding the faith I’d so religiously (pun intended) been trying to follow was getting quite tepid, wherein my dearest uncle I cherish most passed a little remark which went something along the lines of “If you hold this very same mentality ten years from now, you will have earned my respect.”

Well, as anyone who is familiar with me can tell you, I can be quite mule-headed and exasperatingly obstinate if the situation arises; which would be more of an understatement in this context. As my very own mother so eloquently put it, I was ‘A bit stubborn; needed to learn how to own up and give in; and needed to stop making excuses in self-defense.’

Anyhow, my pigheaded reflexes already being set into motion, I promptly resolved to prove him wrong, and planned the thousand ways I could wave this gleefully in his face ten years from now. Perhaps a rather stale victory, yes. Alas, tenacious adamancy knows no reason. I went so far as to actually plot a ten year long calendar, I kid you not; an extensive countdown, a month at a time, to my imminent victory by the next decade. Gloating over this gave me an immense sense of gratification, as I must shamelessly admit. Ladies and Gentlemen, let us take a moment to appreciate the immense levels of maturity and level-headedness I so obviously possess.

One fine night, as I was offering my Isha’a prayer, my thoughts drifted (cause let’s face it, we hardly ever dedicate our undivided attention to the task at hand; also, I was young and stupid. Well, mostly stupid, but I shall use youth as an excuse.) to the scrap of paper wedged into my personal diary of sorts, my private written haven. As I thought about it, I realized that it had actually indirectly been a sort of drive for me; pushing me forward, fueling my resolve. “Wow.” I thought humorously, “It’s nice to have a purpose, for once.” While I still pondered over it, I realized that in retrospect, the answer; the one I’d been seeking; had been there all along, staring at me in the face.

What is faith, if not an ultimate purpose for Life? All the activities we indulge in, every single thing, has no major significance otherwise. Those exams you oh-so-diligently prepared for? Good, so you got a distinction. And then, what? All those efforts in vain, merely to be forgotten in a matter of years, except when admonishing a younger sibling regarding their academic lethargy. Yay, so you got married to the ultimate love of your life, or you bought the car of your dreams. Nothing, none of them actually matter in the long run. To the Earth we must all return one day. All temporary gratifications to keep us momentarily occupied in this vast and lonely world. What then was the actual purpose of this existence we drag ourselves through? The ideal solution, some of you may say, would be an idle empty survival; an uncommitted existence of sorts to while away the time. But this hardly solves the problem.

Faith gave us a sense of purpose; a hoop to aim our basketball of a life towards. The way an artist swishes his paint-laden brushes in swift strokes at a blank canvas, hoping to produce a masterpiece as proof of his efforts; or as a gardener would tend tenderly to the delicate sapling, all the while envisioning the majestic fruit-bearing tree it would one day grow to be. All the empty actions, the blind jabs into the dark, the vain punches thrown at the air; everything would ultimately be in vain and would mean nothing.

Faith is a beautiful thing, I realized. It cannot be confined inside the fences of reason we so wish to entomb it in, nor is it remotely possible for any of us to understand it’s mysterious hold on human minds. It was meant to run free amongst us, a savior in times of despair; the proverbial candle in the darkness of dejection. It always has been.

That night, once I concluded my prayer, I sat in silence on my prayer mat. I sat in silence, and I cried. I cried for everything I’d been missing out on till then, I cried for the meaningless shell of an existence I’d been seeming to lead till that point. No torrents of unending waterworks were released that day, though; and no wild beating of one’s chest in apparent anguish. They were but a couple of tear drops, two light streaks of liquid that flowed from the corners of my eyes across my cheeks, where they pooled for a moment before falling unto my lap. Two insignificant drops which at face value did not signify much, but held within a whole world of meaning to me.

Of these tear drops, I write today. Of the meaning I got back, of my trust in God, of my restored Faith.

I am grateful.

I am indebted.

And, I Believe.

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A slight smile played across her lips as she clicked on the icon that said ‘PUBLISH’.