Have they themselves been created without anything – or were they, perchance, their own creators? Have they created the heavens and the earth? Nay, but they have no certainty of anything! Are the Sustainer’s treasures within them? Or are they in charge of destiny? Or have they a ladder by which they could ascend to ultimate truths and listen to what is beyond the reach of human perception? …Or do they think that the hidden reality is almost within their grasp, so that in time they can write it down?
Or do they want to entrap? But they who are bent on denying the truth – It is they who are truly entrapped. Surah 52:35-38;41-42
Unfortunately, many leaders throughout the world present themselves as though they have access to the treasures of God’s infinite power and knowledge, as if they themselves are the Throne, creating the heavens and the earth. They ignore Prophet Isaiah’s call to “learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17).
Instead, these leaders become, as the Qur’an describes (often sarcastically), the arbitrators of the Lie, which falsely states that they are in charge of destiny. They live safely within this Lie, because they are protected by the Great Disguise. They mask themselves as the Eternal Originator, the Font of Blessing, the Only Reality. They convince others that the secrets of the Universe are theirs’ to behold, hoping to take others with them down a torturous path, as they cut themselves off from the Sustainer of All, entrapping everyone into a living hell.
As we look at the world today, it is easy to identify leaders who rule behind the Great Disguise. And not just world leaders. There are leaders in all communities who can become seduced by power. Civil servants who get caught up in their own world view as the only view, who can be petty, impatient, rude, vindictive, even violent as they manipulate whatever power they have to be in charge, to feel safe, and to justify their actions as defending the good.
Unfortunately, this tendency to assure the power of one’s own manipulations, especially if our world leaders exhibit this kind of behavior, is part of the human condition; we are easily tempted.
How do we respond?
We are told by our Prophets not to devise evil in our hearts against one another. Jesus, the Anointed One, confronted the hypocrisy of the leaders of his day – he invited them to practice what they preached. And in the end, when war only produced violence, Prophet Muhammad resolved conflicts peacefully, citing compassion over conflict, unity over discord.
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When I was teaching in a boarding school, I also was a member of a nearby church as a supply priest, filling in or helping out when the church needed me. There was a young couple, who could not have children and were considering adopting. They were on their way to a “normal” adoption… when…
… A social worker came to them, talking about a family including three little girls, a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and a nine-month-old who were living in a tent, under a bridge that crossed the Saco River. The girls were cold and hungry. The parents were thinking of giving up – they couldn’t take care of their babies. There was one stipulation. If the parents were willing to let go of their parental rights, a big if, the sisters had to stay together.
After much prayer, and with lots of support from members of the congregation, the young couple decided to become instant family by fostering with future hopes of adopting forever these three little girls.
Two years later, the girls were baptized. There wasn’t a dry eye in the church.
After the baptism, I was invited to lunch with the family. As we waited for our meal, I asked the father what the process had been like – to adopt the girls.
“Oh, it was very difficult.”
“In what ways?” I asked.
“We just didn’t think we were strong enough. We felt so inadequate. We entered into a system that our privilege had protected us from experiencing. We had assumed life was fair. That if you followed the rules, showed up, did what was required, things would fall into their right place.
“Not true. Social workers were overworked, sometimes careless. Judges appeared arbitrary in their decisions, and people in authority were at times cynical, even manipulative, and seemed obsessed with power… the little they had.
“So many presented themselves as concerned civil servants, but their actions revealed policies that made no sense. We were vulnerable within the absurdity of what was presented as a legitimate process. Sometimes it got so bad, it was like some of the civil servants were “laughing and winking at each other” (Surah 83:29-30).
“We were also afraid of getting too close to the girls. We weren’t confident that in the end our commitments would win the day. Too much was going on that was out of our control. We were in the hands of people who assumed the worse would happen, as if that were normal. We were told to hurry up and then wait, fill out forms that were misplaced, and deal with the girls’ trauma that required training we never received. The lack of clarity and the tyranny of inconsistencies were maddening.
“I was also praying for the birth parents, which frankly was crazy-making, but I felt their pain; in the midst of their tragedies, their agony was real. In it all though, one day stands out for me. The eldest was acting out a lot. One morning, she peed in her juice cup and threw it into the dishwasher. I grabbed her, sat her on the kitchen stool; I was so angry, and I said, ‘Do you want to go back to where you came from? Where you used to live? To leave us? Is that what you want?’”
“Yes, I hate you.”
“I grabbed her, held her close, and said, ‘You are mine; I am yours, and there is nothing you can do to separate me from you…. Nothing; we are in this forever.’ And then she jumped off the chair and ran to her room, and I sat on the stool and sobbed.
“I didn’t know that I loved her so much. It was a gift, beyond me, yet a love so real I was shaking. I hadn’t seen it before, and I knew then that I was willing to risk everything to adopt the girls, even in a very broken system…. even if all proved to be for naught.”
Day 27: Reflection
In the midst of pain, confusion, war, instability, helplessness, and fear, remind yourself that we have been promised – death never has the last word. May receiving love, giving love, trusting in love not only nourish your soul, may it provide you with hope as your resistance.
