The Knot of Love vs. the Scissors of Hubris & Hate - Divine Parables in our Children

1. Belaian Manja Tuhan
(God's Sweet Affection)

Between your child and you,

Are parables to be learnt

About you and God.

And in the intimacy

And affection which

You have with your child,

As God has with you,

So if you shower your child

With life, love and gifts,

Has not God been so to you?

And when God is near

And He wishes to bestow

His attention, His love

And His affection on you,

Do you not hear Him?

Can you not see Him?

Has all these occurred

While you are being unaware,

Awake but in truth asleep?

How sad and lonely for you!

Of course I do not actually 'hear' or 'see' God. But if I cannot hear God, I still hear His voice in the gratitude expressed by someone. In the husky 'I love you' sighed by a lover. In the patient teaching of a tutor, "This is how you do it, boy..." In the comforting words of a friend when my mother passed away, "She was a lovely woman. She is at a place of loveliness now..."

Houston, we have lift-off.

And if I cannot see God, I still see His beauty in the cheeky grin of my son. In the smiles of my brothers. In the daily grind of my friends all hard at work. In the petals of a white rose. In the sky and in the gentle stream of a hilly retreat. In the rising of the sun and its setting behind clouds of golden hue.

But there is perhaps no parable more Godly than in the relationship between parents and their children. Have you not gazed upon your son or daughter and feel this powerful and intangible surge of love, that seems to come from nowhere? After all, Baby is not doing anything fascinating or terribly news worthy. Baby is just lying there in her cot, dribbling over her pacifier. But oh boy... isn't she quite something? Just look at the twinkle in her eye and that mischievous smile! You know the feeling. And if this episode is repeated again and again, multiplied by the seven billion souls that inhabit this planet, then really, how can it be that we are strangers? How are you different from me? How are your father and mother different from my parents? On the surface, our colour may be not be the same and the prayers we recite different, but Parables of Divine Love is the knot of love that binds all of us together. It is the scissors of hubris and hate that is forever seeking to cut our ties to one another.

So many of our brethren are asleep to this simple fact. I know you are not asleep, sunshine. I know you are awake to this Truth.

wa min Allah at-taufiq.