The Divine Mathematics of Love

Love for God is like the mathematics books we had when we were kids, where the answer is already on the back. But there is no understanding if we skip the working out to the right answer. Life is all about working out the solution which we ‘already know'.

But we don't actually 'know' because we say 'we have to love God.'. We don't 'have to' love our mothers and fathers, we don't 'have to' love our husbands and wives, we don't 'have to' love our children, and we certainly don't 'have to' love our girlfriends or boyfriends... We simply do. Like the rain, Love simply happens... So we can get on with our lives, our chores, our work and play, but at the back of our mind, and upon the Throne of our heart rules the Lord of all... looking at us, looking in us... and finding great unimaginable love in His Own Heart for us poor suckers... however forgetful, ignorant and negligent we are.

"How undeserving is humanity!", the Angels once complained... But God answered them - Shoosh you. I know what ye know not. (Or words to that effect. Quran 2:30. Below is a translation from Marmaduke Pickthall, may God bless his sweet soul)

And when thy Lord said unto the angels: Lo! I am about to place a viceroy in the earth, they said: Wilt thou place therein one who will do harm therein and will shed blood, while we, we hymn Thy praise and sanctify Thee? He said: Surely I know that which ye know not.

And I think that for standing up for us when His whole legions of Angels were arrayed in protest to humankind, that makes God most Lovely and most Loveable.

But that leaves a question unanswered - So what does God actually know about us that the Angels 'know ye not'? And you cannot find the answer at the back cover this time, sunshine. I think we have to work the answer out every day of our lives… but seeing God this way, I think that the spiritual exercise shall be worth every second we invest into it. It is the path to Love, to Mercy, to God.

Oh okay! You are twisting my arm, you are! I will give you the back cover solution. See if you can work out this equation to the right answer. I will scribble it down here…

Good luck, sunshine. I don't think you shall have any problem solving the equation. God bless you, and for my Christians, Happy Easter Sunday!

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Mikhail, Mathematics and his cousins - Pictures tell Stories

Mikhail'a cousins. From the left in gentle repose is Emina of Malay-Turkey stock.
Aaliya is an American here on holiday and comes from North Dakota.

She is here together with her 1+ sister, Jasmine. This time around they have decided
to bring their parents (Chad and Lin) along for the 23 hours flight from the cold of Bismarck, ND
to the hot and humidity of Kuala Lumpur.

I was a little curious why Mikhail was a bit slow in his mathematics when I
helped him in his homework. But it appears now that studying in the house is simply too
distracting. In his tuition class, Mika actually did decently. A little peer pressure is
useful sometimes. He came back very happy with his perfect score. "What are
you going to do with it?" he asked, as I looked at his answer sheets. "I will
blog it of course." I replied. Sorted.

I am looking at a vacant bungalow house lot abandoned by the owner. It doesn't
take long for nature to reclaim her own. You can still see a little of the perimeter wall.
I wonder why the owner did not go through with building the house. A little brook runs
down the hill slope just outside the property. This very green area is just 5 minutes from
one of the busiest suburb of Kuala Lumpur with its giant malls and shopping centres. 

To end this international posting is the marriage of this tall fella. He doesn't look
particularly native, and there is a reason. He is half Swedish. He speaks perfect Malay
which is rather astounding when I first met him more than a year ago. We were united
in our love for dance back then, so I am glad to see him this happy in connubial bliss.

No poetry today, sunshine. Just the poetry of life.

Pax Taufiqa.

God, Bill Bryson, You and Me. Books Connect Us - Prose of Ramadhan Part 48

37. Affections of the Master III

My Lord chose to make me!

He chose to make me!

He chose to make me!

In His never-ending Plan,

In His Sovereign Independent Judgment

From His Immeasurable Ocean of Choices,

From His Boundless Horizons of Possibilities,

He ultimately chose to make me!

And He chose to make you!

Happy Birthday to me!

And Happy Birthday to you!

I love Bill Bryson's writing. I have been reading his books, introduced to me by my friend King when he was working in Geneva I believe. He gave me an audio book of Bill Bryson's extremely hilarious work entitled "A Walk in the Woods". Since then I have been reading almost all of Bryson's writing, about his childhood days in Des Moines, Iowa, to his travel to England, then Europe before finally landing himself back in the US. In between he has had the time to write about Australia, science, the origin of words and invention in America as well as a short book about Shakespeare. His latest book is entitled At Home - A Short History of Private Life, which I am still reading, is like all of his books, very well research, thoughtful and funny.

Read this.

Bill doesn't believe in the existence of God. Because in his award-winning book entitled A Short History of Nearly Everything, his writing suggests so. In one particular chapter he wrote about the mind-blowing super-computer-brain breaking odds of you coming into existence. The fact that, just for one little variable in the flowing momentum of history and evolution, you and I, not to mention Moses the Cat, in fact all of humanity would probably not be in existence. No George Bush. No Lady Gaga. No Obama. He found this idea fascinating. I do too. But from here our common ground shifts.

The trillion trillion trillion trillion odds of you and I being created serves to prove to Bill the wonderfully amazing improbability of evolution and how lucky we all are to even be born. My belief, is just to change the last bit and say how blessed we are to even be created by God. Other than that, his way of thinking, his weakness and wit, his gentle humanity and thoughtful appraisal of our history is the sort of thinking and ideal that I myself would be proud to mirror as a writer and as a man.

Read this too.

So I have no interest to change Bill. I just thought it would be fair to tell you who inspired the recording of the above prose, written three years ago, also in the holy month of Ramadhan. Bill through his books has educated me, caused me to laugh and chuckle alone in a crowd, and made me fall in love with many, many things and many, many people I would not have known, had he not written about them. So I owe him quite a bit.

Have a wonderful Thursday. Just one more day, sunshine... then the weekend!

wa min Allah at-taufiq.

How Big is the Finite? - Prose of Ramadhan Part 27

How Big is the Finite? (Ramadhan Verses #15)

Two man was sitting in a room,

And between them, on the table

Was a glass of water.

One man asked the other,

“How big is infinity?”

To which the second man replied,

“Before I answer you that question,

You must first be able to supply

Me with the correct answer

To my own question.

Only once you have satisfied

Me with your answer shall I

Reply your own question.”

Then he pointed to the

Glass of water between them

And said, “How big is the finite?”

This is not a prose but a story, of which there is no end that I am aware of. How big is the finite? Is it correct for the first man to pick up the glass of water, and say "Well, this finite glass is slightly bigger than my hand..."?

But the point is that, only from the mortal perspective of our minds do size matter. The very essence of our existence, the oxygen that we breath, the water that we drink - all of them needs to be quantified for the sole reason that too little and we will die, but too much and we can become ill. We need the shoes at our feet to be just so, so we can wear them. Carpenters build their closets and cabinets of the right size, so it would be easy for us to store our goods, and retrieve them. 

But once we have laid to rest the superficiality of our mortality, and listen to our hearts more, then the rules change. What is once applicable to you, as a human being with reason, becomes an unacceptable hindrance in your understanding of not just infinity, but the finite itself. And therein lies the lethal ideal that God Himself has mentioned to those of His servants who would listen to Him - that All of Creation Cannot Contain Me, but the Heart of a True Believer can. People like to quote this in the context of God's Unquestioned and All-Loving Nature of Man, and how God has raised Man in the highest firmament of Creation. But to believe this is also to say goodbye to the simple idea of the right size and the right fit, the very basis of the space-time continuum that we exist in.

It is the beginning of a journey into the nature of the finite and infinite, of which the only safe guide is God. Upon this path, the Love of God must be felt with absolute certainty, otherwise you may find yourself wandering in the valley of confusion, where the Angels shall come to you but be of no help, asking instead... "Who let you in??"

Or alternatively, you can be like me - a coward and a sinner (with poor mathematical skills), clinging to the number One(aka God) with the desperation of a man floundering in a fog of incomprehensibly infinite numbers...

Pax Taufiqa.