How to Find God Within Grief

It was fifty degrees today, and the smile of a boisterous sun drew me from my house and set me walking on a familiar path. The weather in DC has been somewhat bipolar. At times, it’s over 80 degrees Fahrenheit; at others, it’s under 30. The heat and cold are locked in push and pull like a tumultuous dance – each flourish to a greater distance spins back into a sudden embrace. The wind winds through undressed trees, turning branches to accompanying percussion of this waltz of warmth. And, under the perfectly azure sky that stretched past perception of the keenest eyes, I enjoyed the alternation of the cool breeze and warm rays of fading day.

I was never much of a walker, but I learned to enjoy these strolls in Istanbul. There is something so calming about the constant flow of the bright, blue water of the outstretched strait. I would collect my sorrows throughout the days and bring them to the banks of the Bosphorus, sip them with a cup of cay, exhale them into the breeze and feel them float in flight across the sea. I have learned since then to take my sorrows on long walks, let them seep into the depths of my mind, and escape my body with the constant tapping of my moving tasbih.

Today, like so many of these days, I brought with me my welling grief.

As the steps slowed into a steady stroll, my mind wandered into the depths of the cavernous words attributed to Imam Ali (ra) when he described taqwā (God consciousness) as follows: “fear of the Majestic; action upon revelation; satisfaction with little; and preparation for the day of departure.” My lips repeated continuously: qanāʿah bi qalīl – satisfaction with having little in this temporal existence. How does that lead to taqwā, especially when taqwa is given the metaphor of carefully collecting one’s garments while walking through a path beset by thorns to ensure that they are not ripped.

Taqwā is also coupled with two other concepts in the Quran: ṣabr (patience) and iḥsān (doing good). When taken together, taqwā is to avoid harmful and sinful acts, iḥsān is to do good acts, and ṣabr is the ethic necessary to consistently do both. How, then, is taqwā manifested by satisfaction in whatever little Allah gives us in this dunya? As I so often do, I found my answer in reflecting on my own sorrow – and, more importantly, the thoughts that cross my mind when I am beset by the pangs of grief.

My ghazals beautify all my grief
Like vibrant hues of a coral reef
My words have painted sorrow like
Autumn colors a withering leaf
I’ve tip-toe through my happiness
With glances of a sneaking thief
Some lives are like a bed of nails
On which we’re dragged without relief
Some lives are like the April rain
Where joy will peak for moments brief
The novel of my life has used
Disappointment as its motif
I’m hanging by a single thread
That breaks the day I lose belief

How many times in the tumult and toss of tearing, ripping, hurling grief have my lungs filled with lament that screamed with wailing words wondering why? Why me? Why this? Why now? Why? Why, after all this hope? Why, with nothing left to cope? Why should I dangle from a rope? Why does joy always slip like soap? Why is happiness beyond my scope? Why’s my heart in perpetual break? Why must I burn upon the stake?

Why is the fire that sets my heart ablaze. It burns, until the smoke of sin exhales from my lips, and the soot of disbelief piles within my chest.

I walked with grief tucked into my breast: solemn, slow, steady. And, then, the thoughts came together to remove the curtain covering explanation: “why” arises when grief is unembraced, unaccepted. Why is the remnant of hope aflame – as if finding the answer may revive the buried dreams we laid. What, instead, if grief is embraced: instead of “why,” recognizing what is, is, and nothing else can be. The “why” will not solve the “is;” only accepting that what is, is – embracing the inevitability of what is as what must be can begin to cool the flames.

What is, is. What is, must be. There is no future where what is will not be; no past where what is was never meant to be. What is, is. And that is all that is.

The hopes that failed; the loves that lost; the dreams that were buried; taqwā comes when I am satisfied with them all. Indeed, even before they fail or are lost or are buried; taqwā comes when I accept that the hopes and loves and dreams are less important to me than seeking the pleasure of my Allah. When I am prepared to fail and lose and bury, then I am prepared to avoid the sinful acts I would otherwise engage in out of desperation to avoid the pain of grief.

Taqwā is found in accepting grief; befriending grief; embracing grief. Taqwā is found when the pain of grief is less than the pain of displeasing Allah. Taqwā is found when the love of God is greater than the love of the creations of God. Love is found when the hope is not in Allah – when the hope becomes for Allah.

When all of this has come to end
I’ll see you once again my friend
I’ll see you when the this bank of mine
Has emptied of its love to lend
I’ll see you when I’ve used my pride
As currency to make amends
I’ll see you when the trumpets call
And hallowed books of deeds descend
I’ll see you with a tired smile
While reading what my deeds have penned
I’ll see you as the heavens part
And all the broken hearts ascend
I’ll see you where the roses grow
In gardens that the angels tend
If all this grief is the price for you
Then I’ll pay in full again and again

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