And they who have attained to faith and who have forsaken the domain of evil and are striving hard in God’s cause, as well as those who shelter and succor them – it is they, they who are truly believers! Forgiveness of sins awaits them, and a most excellent sustenance. Surah 8:74
Faith is expressed in many ways, as devotional, as ritual, as travel into unknown lands, as a walk in the woods, as helping a neighbor in need. Prayer, too, can come in many ways, often as a sigh, sometimes snatched through moments, like waiting in line at the grocery store, or while stuck in a traffic jam, or between discussions with too many doctors who are taking care of your loved one whose health is failing. Faith. Prayer. Sometimes we don’t know how we have attained our faith or to whom we are praying; worry not, God knows.
What matters is that we recognize we are not alone. The only thing we really need to understand is that we are understood by the Grace of All Life and that we have been created with good hearts.
Secluded within a cave on Mount Hira, near Mecca, in the year 610 CE, Muhammad, 40 years old, was deep in meditation, alone, beyond dusk. With the winds blowing and the trees bowing, Angel Gabriel appears, just as he had with Mary, mother of Jesus. Angel Gabriel commands Muhammad to Read: Iqra. The first word of the Qur’an is being revealed.
“But I am unable to read,” Muhammad responds, confused. By his own account, and recounted through many of his biographers, Muhammad thought he was being told to actually read something. Yet, there was nothing, not a stretch of parchment within his reach. He was overwhelmed.
Angel Gabriel seizes him, embraces him mightily, two times, and commands him again, “Read in the name of thy Sustainer, who has created – created out of a germ-cell. Read for thy Sustainer is the Most Bountiful One who taught the use of the pen – taught man what he did not know!”
And Muhammad tells us more, “Then he seized me and pressed me to himself a third time; then he released me and said, ‘Read in the name of thy Sustainer, who has created – created man out of a germ-cell! Read – for thy Sustainer is the Most Bountiful One…'” (The first Revelation is Surah 96:1-5).
Unable to comprehend what had just happened to him, except to realize how frightened he is, Muhammad runs home and as he crosses the threshold on his hands and knees, he asks his wife, Khadijah, to wrap him up and console him.
He is trembling with convulsions, terrified that he has gone mad. Immediately Khadijah throws a cloak over him and holds him tightly in her arms, sheltering him. The man, visited by the eternal glow of Angel Gabriel’s presence, is becoming the Prophet. He just doesn’t know it yet. He weeps as he tries to convey his encounter in the cave. Despondent and feeling humiliated, he believes he had been visited by a jinni, a desert spirit who was up to no good.
Khadijah had no doubt that her husband had received a revelation.
“This concern of yours cannot be true, my dear,” Khadijah replies, stroking his hair. “This was no jinni; God would never play such a cruel trick on a man who has served him so faithfully. He knows your truthfulness, your great trustworthiness, your fine character, and your kindness.”
To further support her husband, Khadijah goes to her Christian cousin, Waraqah ibn Nawfal, who was well versed in Hebrew and Christian scripture, and Waraqah recognizes the experience Khadijah describes as revelatory. He is ecstatic, jubilant! “He is the prophet of this nation,” Waraqah reassures her. “Bid him be of good heart.”
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I grew up Catholic and as a young child, I loved learning about Mary’s life… Angel Gabriel announcing to Mary, God’s will for her life, the birth of Jesus in the manger, the flight into Egypt, her seeking for Jesus when she couldn’t find him, and her strength as she stood at the cross as her son died.
One day in Catholic school, in first grade, my teacher nun, whom we all called Sister, handed out crayons, strips of torn colored construction paper, glue and told us to create a picture about Jesus. I had no intention in following her directions. I had a plan, guided by Mary.
On one side of my artwork was Angel Gabriel with large wings descending from the corner touching the crown of Mary’s head. Earlier, Gabriel had visited Zechariah with news that he and Elizabeth would become pregnant with a son, who would be named John. Now, six months later, Angel Gabriel was coming to Mary to announce her pregnancy, a pregnancy not caused by man, but by God’s will. At six, I didn’t know what all that meant, except that I loved Mary.
On the other side of the drawing, with torn strips of a construction-made design, in the foreground, was Mary glued down, fully prostrate on the ground with a small crayoned-colored cross in the far distance. Sister came by, knelt at my desk, and asked me what I had created.
With no hesitation, I said, “My Story.”
Day 10: Reflection
Today, may you think about all that we have in common, even amidst our different religious and philosophic outlooks, cultural life experiences, gender identities, and economic realities. We are so diverse, yet even in the midst of all our stories, one Story emerges: We succor and shelter each other because we have been created within beauty, with so much capacity to be of good heart. In our own ways, we, too, can become prophetic through our life journeys.
