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Once in the past, I asked a bird “In what way do you fly in this gravity of wickedness?” She responded, “Love lifts my wings.” —Hafiz
This is the truest love of all, when two people must wait and build up great ideas about each other until the passion becomes so unbearable and deeply rooted that they must have each other. That is how love becomes the most desirable and lasting.
He taught me to practice my religion in action—not just in thought. He was adamant that a true Muslim didn’t kill other people in order to force their religion on them or hurt other people in a business or personal dispute.
The years between 1965 and 1978 were the times of the greatest democratic and modern reforms in the history of Afghanistan.
Ahmad Shah had explained to me that Parcham was a communist party that believed Afghanistan should have a socialist revolution in the same way Russia had their revolution. From the way Padar and Mommy spoke about them, I knew they were opposed to their socialist revolution, like so many others in Afghanistan.
There existed two completely different Afghanistans. The official version was that of a progressive country marching forward into a bright future as a modern nation. My sisters told me of another Afghanistan, of fighting to force the government to stop changing the textbooks in the schools to ones that teach atheism and socialism.
the mujahideen, the freedom fighters in the mountains.
The Soviets had taken over the government and forced the Afghan army to fight with it against the mujahideen, who were primarily conservative, traditional folk of the countryside.
The government wanted to turn Afghan society into a socialist state overnight, wiping away centuries of religious thinking and tradition. They had already changed the textbooks in all the schools, taking out any reference to Muslim faith.
They even changed the national pledge that each child recited every morning to include loyalty to the socialist state of
Afghanistan. They arrested the popular teachers, administrators, and professors who refused to change. These purges and demands only fueled the discontent of the people, which spilled over into protest. Kabul settled into a state of unrest, wi...
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“One cannot exist with a heart torn in half between two loves, two decisions, or two worlds, because it will eventually break in two.”
We thought of America as a paradise, a place with freedom and safety to be yourself. A model of what Afghanistan could have become if the democratic reforms had not been stopped by the Parcham.
The beautiful table with all the lavish food made me feel odd. Eating such delicious food when there were so many people with so little to eat, people I knew by name, whose faces I could see clearly in my mind, seemed wrong. I set my fork down; my discomfort was so overwhelming.
My body was here, sitting at this beautiful dining table, but my soul couldn’t forget the country we had just traversed. I couldn’t get thoughts of Mina out of my mind, and the freedom fighters struggling for their lives in the freezing mountains.
I had witnessed up close how rude and violent men were determined to force their version of love and safety on others using guns and blood. It didn’t matter what the men called it, political order or religious fervor, it was all from the same place—the hellish dark side of man that is motivated by hate.
Hate is not from God. People who use religion to hate can’t love God. It is impossible.
I believed we existed in the hands of God. He evidently carries us with a light touch. He does not clench his fist around us and force any of us to hate or love—these are choices.
Pray Somewhere in this world— Something good will happen.
‘This place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you.’”
“God means for us to be here, suffering?” “He does not mean for people to do terrible things. Soldiers kill and murder and do harm because they are evil. But God knows we have come to this place, that we have things to learn so we can grow as human beings, as spiritual creatures. It’s not enough to have all the things you wish for to make us comfortable. We must have much more.”
Once in the past, I asked a bird “In what way do you fly in this gravity of wickedness?” She responded, “Love lifts my wings.”
“You must observe nature carefully, Enjeela. Most people think birds fly because of the wind. What they don’t see is that there is something more powerful than the wind that lifts them. That is what lifts us as people as well.” I wasn’t certain of his meaning.
It’s this love that lifts us during dark times like this.”
“Look at the plants, how close they are to each other. Yet they give room
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for each other. They don’t fight or complain. If you look close, you can see love everywhere.”
“What you see is what love looks like. They can touch each other, yet they don’t irritate or enrage each other. All throughout the world, love speaks to us, what it means to cherish and be kind and to respect each other. If we miss the message, we will get lost. We will lose out on what’s important.”
That was the meaning of this whole journey to India. To be a family. To be together.
I saw for the first time the meaning of the trees touching and getting along.
