Friday 29 October 2010

People lost at sea all need a direction in which to swim, some just find the right one

Blair's sister-in-law's recent announcement of embracing islam, has unleashed a fairly generous amount of media banter. The repetitive debates and fiery opinions which reappear - women in Islam are oppressed, or that she became a sympathiser of a political cause or the less overtly stated one; she's another hippee looking for the latest new thing.

Well I can't pretend to know what exactly went through Lauren Booth's mind before she took the religious plunge, but from what she describes as some sort of spiritual rush, it seems Islam for her just felt right. We live in times, lets be brutally honest here, where we all seeming to be swimming against some sort of tide.  The way we overcome the tide is dependent on the amount of thinking we do, how much of reality we really see and whether we really find the strength and guidance to plunge our arms in the right current of water.

There is never the same discovery people make when they find Islam, but one thing is true for considerable amounts of women in the west - there comes a realisation when they live deep within the luring and luxurious riches of liberalism that a place where anything you wish for goes, is no place to wish for at all.

This isn't simply about the ritual stab at western decadence, for the sake of it. This is about living intertwined amongst wanting to fulfil all your hearts' desires, and realising that sometimes the consequences of which provide no warmth to the heart at all. In fact it's about realising that a culture of doing whatever one pleases is indeed what makes men leave the mother of their kids for the younger blonde with the pokey studio flat as the only baggage with the relationship, or what makes some men feel they can treat their lady whatever way is fitting for them at whatever time having no accountability to no one - only one's kicks at that time. Or even what drives big businesses to feel it's okay to make women feel their exterior is the only measure of who they are, and that whoever they are their exterior will never measure until they buy the latest daydream or magic concealer, just to ensure they sell sell sell.

It has been freedom to do what one pleases which has plagued society to a degree that it does little to please and care for all. Instead people are being pleased robbing, knifing, swearing and breaking up families. This is no model the rest of the world should lap up.

So do you still ask why. Do you still want to know why people don't want to be enslaved to the desires of the base human who instincts and needs are no different to that of any other mammal seeking to survive on a sahara plain.

Islam, throughout the last 1400 years, provided a heart-exhilirating liberation from slavery to the human heart, to slavery to the Creator of all human hearts, and limbs and minds.  The Creator who has obligated on the human heart to care for those close to us, and far from us, those vulnerable, those ill. To care about what happens around you, instead about what happens within your own blockaded life.  It is this accountability to Him in everything that you do, in the way you treat others and how you look after society, which liberates us.

This is the easiest swim and the calmest of tide to flow through. And this is why when you find this route in the ocean, you will never let it go.

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