How do you weave the tapestry of gratitude into your heart so that your limbs lead the way?
I could answer, but answering would be worse!
Gratitude sitting in the mind,
is lesser than;
gratitude sitting in your heart;
is lesser than gratitude sitting in your limbs;
is lesser than gratitude acted out.
W.E.
The heart can dry up,
even the most moist tongue,
uttering litanies of thanks,
uttering wanton prose of need,
is quietly begging rainfall,
to stir the seeds that lay dormant,
because we have a desire to be content,
and we know we can’t get it with stuff.
I’ve thus found it easier,
fought myself at both ends of my wit and found,
it’s not hard to be wet with contentment,
when you’re bathing in gratitude,
when you’re drowning in gratitude,
Alhamdullillah, wa shukr lillah
W.E.
I see you from a mile away.
What’s wrong?
Your husband isn’t Don Juan?
His money not romantic enough for you?
You utter chameleon,
you’d no sooner be in love with another man,
than you’d divorce the idea of him too,
when he doesn’t praise you,
nor your narcissist need for approval.
Be grateful,
learn gratitude,
and to do that,
you need to learn of plenitude,
and how it will drown you for seeking it,
so walk to solitude,
away from the ego keeping you from rectitude.
Your erratic moods,
are brattish cries,
self perpetuated lies,
a call to be viewed.
But you can’t handle indifference,
a refusal to fight,
and my reluctance,
to be your muse.
Where in that head of lies,
did you ever think,
I’d be your interlude,
the between man of your fantasies,
and finger food,
a socialite, who’d pander,
to your disquietude?
Look at the mess you’ve created inside,
and outside yourself,
oblivious to the idea,
I can’t be pursued.
Ah you poor thing,
victim-hood has bought you many things,
given you a lifestyle to be dreamed of,
but you’re stuck in me-world attitude.
W.E.
Art by AJGIEL
-oblivion
if God speaks to us
in language
ever so eloquently
it bewilders me
to think we’d reply
in anything but poetry
-W.E.
we think so grandly of ourselves,
that we’re walking to Him,
the truth is we’re stagnant,
it is He that has come rushing to our aid,
over and over,
and we think the carpet is not red enough,
the pedestal is not high enough,
the crown is not big enough,
it’s never enough,
but He is there,
irrespective,
of ingratitude,
irrespective,
of our oblivion.
W.E.
Part of an earlier piece I thought deserved to be on it’s own.
Always, and ever, anything I write is a conversation with myself first and foremost.
If any of you get benefit out of my conversations, I have a favour to ask.
Pray for me, wish well for me, even if you despise me. Even if you disagree with me, even if you don’t believe in God, think well for me, hope for me I remain true to the station of gratitude.
The only way this has manifested in my life is by the luxuries being removed and now when they are re-introduced, I am ever so grateful, and when they are removed again, it increases me even more.
And I am grateful for your prayers, your well wishes.
-W.E.
Only a miser, won’t open the door to gratitude.
-W.E.
The sign of a good host is to always have their doors open
The Prophet Muhammad conditioned faith, to honouring of guests.
He said, “Whomever believes in God and the last day, should honour their guests”.
What uglier trait is there than a host who is annoyed at their guest.
What pungency exists in their heart that they think they own their dominion.
The very dominion that had it been willed, would have someone else’s title on it.
And you want to keep that door closed on the most gracious of guests?
One that will fill your soul with what you want?
Love cannot exist in your heart, prattle as you may with words of prose, if gratitude does not precede it. Gratitude even for the wounds inflicted on you, even by the very guest you allowed inside, even if it were gratitude itself inflicting the wounds, be grateful even for them.
-W.E.
Patience and gratitude
A reflection of attitude
Contentment of multitude
Adornment of plenitude
Calm of certitude
The seal of aptitude
Elevation of altitude
The souls amplitude
-W.E.
This was inspired by the previous post which was a quote from the infamous Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, but that’s what reading a quote from a heavyweight does to you.
It leaves you with an ocean of thoughts and inspiration.
Reading their whole works drowns you.
Maybe that is why I haven’t found much comfort in fiction.
I can’t digest three hundred pages of a person trying to take you on their journey with little prose, little wisdom, little truth. If you can’t satiate your reader with boundless meaning in a line, then you need to work more on reading non fiction poetry and works of masters.
I’ve never read a great writer who didn’t bathe in works of these masters.
-W.E.
If patience were a camel
And gratitude were a camel
I would not care which one
I ride on
– Omar Ibn Al-Khattab
I wish people truly internalised the significance of this saying. I wish it didn’t need explanation for the majority of people. Some will take the superficial beauty and run with it. But it is so much more. I wont explain my internalisation of it, that’s mine alone but I encourage you to spend more than a minute. Spend an hour with this quote and read it over and over again until you find it.
-W.E.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me homeless man,
For even though you appear to have nothing,
The world beams out of your hand.
As for me? The ingrate!
I have all possessions in the world,
But it is I, not you with demands.
From a very young age, my mother taught us a tradition of the Arabs. The Arabs, – and I’m talking about the very traditional ones with rich history and wisdom of the ancients, not the modern media hystericism’s stereotypes inexperienced people have come to believe – were never ingrates. Being people from nomadic desert areas, they were an environmentalists delight, respecting the land and water, they were a humanists friend as no ethic or moral was left unturned, they were philosophers muses as they could relate life issues so enchantingly it would silence the staunchest of opponents and they were the scientists assistant, their arts and sciences taking them to the peak of unified experiences across the world.
They understood the blessings of whatever it is they had, be it a plentiful harvest of fruits for the season or a single goat that they drank milk from. The tradition my mother taught me was never to leave bread on the floor or allow any piece of food to be on the floor for that matter. But it went one step further, we were to pick it up, kiss it and put it on our forehead and that would show God we were utterly appreciative of what we had and we’d never look down on the tiniest and most taken for granted of things. That action made the food magically ok in our little minds, we’d eat it. Of course I am going to get many of you conjuring images of germs and bacteria, that is not the point. The point is forging gratitude into a child’s utter being and letting it run course through their veins.
We grew up never forgetting this and we have passed it on to our children.
All of my five children have this wonderful trait of gratitude and empathy with those less fortunate but one in particular is moved by it. When you ask all seven years of him what his aspirations are, he’s quick to quip in his partly Australian, partly American, somewhat European accent with strangely Turkish-European-Mongol-Philipino looks, warm dark eyes that he wants to open a burger shop and he’s somehow convinced his older siblings to forget their previous aspirations and to join him, his ultimate aim was to feed the homeless.
For the last few weeks though it seems to have amplified. He has been bringing his own pocket money wherever we go and takes it out and gives it all to destitute people wherever he sees them. He empties his whole little velcro wallet into their hands. When I ask him why, he says “It’s ok, I have more at home and can get more later but they have nothing”. Broke my big alpha male heart!
Sometimes if he forgets his wallet, he asks of us to give him some money, always offering to pay us back. Not that we need his money of course but to see that he is that conscious of the act and how it’s intention should be, is inspiring.
The latest of his actions had his mother crying in the middle of a super market. She looked behind her to try and find him as she noticed he wasn’t near her after entering the store. Finally he came walking through the doors crying profusely like he was in pain. My wife was shocked and thought someone had hit him or he fell over and asked him why he was crying. His reply was, ” I feel so bad for the homeless man outside, why are there so many homeless people?”
This is a seven year old who has been taught to kiss bread and put it on his forehead, ask yourself, how do you teach kids gratitude? Prattle your tongue as you may, you have to let them feel it in their bones.
Always let them see and talk to the less fortunate so they never learn to forget that they are humans like them.
As my teacher would say, ‘The world is still in spin and we never know where we may end up.’
-W.E.
Rust etched and squeaking gates, long before galvanisation became so available.
The same front gate my younger sister stood at throwing rocks at that snot nose piece of shit kid who’d been tormenting me.
Playground gravel so loose you could run and skid with your velcro laced Adidas shoes on.
That’s where I planted those shoes, dug my heels and swung for the fences.
The smell of hair sweat, children’s sun-composting lunch in bins and bottle brush natives.
But all I could smell is his fear as my arms helicoptered past his face.
Gum tree wooden castles enamoured around wise, white oak trees growing out of broken asphalt.
He couldn’t hide behind it for too long as he became the centre of attention of the whole lunch time arena.
Blonde streaked light brown hair with hardened brown eyes, thick pink lips that would turn to smiles as he beat on me.
This time, my fists were landing on them and all he could do was try and step back to save face in front of the crowd that had gathered to see him go down.
That was my first experience with bullying in my life. I was only eight years old, never dreamt of hurting people because I was raised with stories of the ancients, of love, of hardship of longing and despair.
My mother would recite to us stories of Prophets off by heart, magical Arabic folk tales of princes and princesses who found each other and engulfed us in poetic soothing prose until our eye lids were too heavy to hold any more beauty.
That was the last time he touched me. After that year, he wasn’t at that school any more. You never push the quiet ones, they’ll become the loudest ones when they erupt.
I was always reserved and quiet. A part of me enjoyed the inner life but a part of me also longed to be seen. Eventually the former took precedence and I was never the type to be psychologically challenged by it. It is what it is, my introversion has otherwise served me well in retrospect.
My next experience would be in first year high school. It was another area altogether and I was the odd one out. If it weren’t for my name, they wouldn’t have known as I’m odd even to my own cultural background. So I sit in this maybe he is, maybe he isn’t zone.
1990 and the cicadas burn the air with their choir. For some reason the Sex pistols and Dead Kennedys are logos on mustard canvas bags. The two metal buckle kind you took to with a black permanent marker to show what you were into. This kid took it one step further, all thirteen years of him. Razor shaved sides, and a mullet half way down his back with puffy short Led Zepplin top. His teeth were already nicotine stained and his heart already full of hate as he wore his walkman blaring Sepultura to show how dangerous he was.
No sooner had his racist taunts gotten in my face that I had him pinned up on the second story balconies ledge ready to throw him over. The kids all rushed, screaming grabbing me, grabbing him, but my hands were firmly around his Adams apple controlling his every movement, where the head goes the body goes as self preservation kicks in and your spinal cord sends messages back to your brain to go with the flow. I released him when I saw his soul leave him. No, he wasn’t dead, just coughing his ego on to the floor. You never push the quiet ones, they’ll become the loudest ones when they erupt.
I remained who I was, an introvert, quiet, happy in my own world, never wanting to hurt a fly but that was the last year I spent there. They didn’t even know I did anything to the boy but fuck that school, its stories I will tell another time.
Fast forward to 1992 and I have found my haven. A spiritual place to exorcise my demons through the physical. I had always loved martial arts. Mesmerised by the old Kung-Fu classics and the prowess of the philosopher come supreme martial artist, Bruce Lee. He wasn’t just and actor, he was a hope for people like me who saw beauty in words and violence, my choice, Muay Thai.
1995, I had been training for a few years, mostly quietly. Only two or three close friends knew.
Swaying and creaking basketball backboards. The thud, thud of kids trying to jump and hit the board as an attempt to increase their vertical leap, the squeaks of tearing soles on bitumen and smell of sweet gatorade breath of all things alpha.
My bag had gone missing. I was offended to say the least as I took my work seriously. Carefully margined books with four unit calculus and trigonometry equations laid out in perfect sequence. Lines of essays and speeches meticulously written out and reviewed over and over with my teachers to perfect them. Assignment notes on history’s greats and photo copies of information from books that I had spent hours trawling through in the library when there was no such thing as google.
There it was, tangled up into one of the basketball rings, carefully woven into the net holders ten feet above me. What’s worse is he taunted me, told me he did it with a tone of What ya gonna do about it? as he put his face in mine. I don’t know what got into this guy, peer pressure perhaps to pick on the quiet guy but he fell victim to my hands and feet. Two years my elder, I beat the pulp out of him, doing what other kids didn’t do. I kicked his legs until he buckled and punched his face so long as he kept coming. And he kept coming! He wanted to save face after instigating the fight and not being able to finish it.
The cheers were sickening me. A cocktail of testosterone so strong you could squeeze it out of the acne faced kids.
I humiliated him in front of everyone in a fair fight, mono e mono. I humiliated him further by making him untangle my bag as his friend held him on his shoulders with blood streaming down his face and legs too sore for his friend to hold on to as he tried to stabilise him. Never pick on the quiet ones, they’ll become the loudest ones when they erupt.
From that point on, a reputation followed me wherever I went. I don’t know how but people just knew not to fuck with me even years after I left high school. I didn’t feel comfortable with such a preceding reputation but it was what it was.
Perhaps it kept me safe from ever getting into trouble, so in that sense it was beneficial but the first feeling of being bullied has lasted with me thirty years later and I rise to defend people wherever I see them trodden on.
I filled out, grew bigger and stronger. Six foot two, broad shoulders, thick strong tree trunk legs and athleticism, I kept active but I chose sport. I fought professionally because I enjoyed the challenge against myself and against like minded people. People who had to destroy their ego whether they liked it on not to engage in such an arena. It’s impossible to fight with an ego, you get pulverised quick! I don’t know of a single fighter that is a bully.
This is the reason why I teach my sons fighting arts. Intimate grappling to all out punching and kicking, all taught in a balanced and gentlemanly manner. They have surprised me to say the least with their reservation in times of measure.
Their little hearts are empathetic, sensitive and caring and despite their abilities they have never hurt another child.
All children should learn how to fight. All children should be taught in a balanced manner how to inflict pain on another human being as it raises their awareness immediately that there is someone just like them who can inflict damage. Self knowledge is knowledge of others. There can be no understanding of other people and their temperaments if you do not understand yourself.
As mentioned, the feeling has never left me of what it feels like to be bullied, but the confidence to stand in the face of any man has grown and left me able to transfer the confidence into other areas of my life.
From business to family. From dealing with clients, customers, laypeople in the street or aggressors, I don’t fear anything or anyone. I won’t be intimidated by a government body, law enforcement or corporations and I have fought them all and beaten them. I don’t fight them for anything other than standing up for my rights as a human being. I’m nobody’s doormat and will never succumb to intimidation tactics.
Children need to learn how to fight because it is the first and easiest way to develop confidence. You can talk as much as you want, lecture, teach and prattle words until you’re blue in the face, it doesn’t work. Children don’t learn theory effectively until they are eight to ten years of age. You have ten years to prepare them otherwise. The only way is the physical. The only way is to pound their bodies with so much labour, training, exercise or sport until their spirits are alive with conviction that they can defend themselves.
-W.E.
lonerloaner 