99 names: al Mumin - the Inspirer of Faith ii

inspired.

inspired by truth, those who tell the truth like peppermint...she was so honest it hurt to look at her... almost every other friend i had was always lying. i was...atleast i was...

was lying soon as i stepped into kindergarten. noticed the woman who dropped me off looked nothing like the women of the white and black and brown mothers who dropped their kids off. ammu wore a green sari full of the patterns of noakhali...canoes and ektaras decorating the borders of her blouse. 

i turned away...

first day of school, ever, i spoke like i knew english. soon enough forgot bengali, and apologized.

apologized for my moms nose-ring, and bindi, and bracelets and silk cloths that covered her in a modesty so deep - not even a speckle of leg - that it was anathema...

apologized till i was rewriting my story to fit in, to squeeze into the generationally hurt, and morally destitute, the prostraters of the golden calf in the form of madonna, michael jackson, george michael, run dmc, 

replaced the One-ness my grandfather, the hakeem, taught me to bow down to, for gold ropes and pumas and the chicks who loved them (which seemed like all chicks). 

ironically, for all the racial tensions that i walked into, between white and black (brown and red and yellow held little vocabulary/visibility/interest from the lens of the hegemony of white and black, then n still, now...), both of the unequal binaries - caucasia (white america and all the polish, irish, and sometimes turkish, and arab, etc immigrants who exchanged their cultures for skin to pretend something they were not) and black america (and all the caribbean and african and sometimes latino, arab, and sometimes east indians, who traded in their cultures and complexities, for blanket statements, and a pretending for a contorted-minority-power of being americans) seemed to bow down to the same god of stuff.

white and black america were prostrate to the god of small and big and shiny things that were bought and sold and shot for and mugged for, and made fun of for if it was past the line of trend.

white and black and brown and yellow america were in worship of the golden calf and i had to too, if i had any hope of getting in the doors of the party.

decades later this golden calf of the consumerism that moses condemned the israelites for, continued to be a source of inspiration in my brooklyn cool.

surrounded by fashionistas - artist men and women who spoke and wore revolution in the language of vogue and gq and details and left their footsteps like Hollywood boulevard - i became a pose again...click, click, click, click...

through the Inspirer of Faith as revealed through the trees, rivers, sun, air, through the legacy of the teachings of the guru muhammad, n the enlightened who've walked the earth with hands over face when the cameras of cool come out, i've learned to quiet a little bit, to take it down a notch. 

through my encounters with You in everyone i come across, in every morsel of food and every ray of light, in every drop of rain and in every movement of body...i am learning to worship, and alhamdullilah...

thank You, thank You, thank You, thank You for inspiring faith in what seemed impossible... thank You for the teachings of the guru muhammad, for the Guidance of structuring my life in the material-ephemeral to ascend to You, the  Always...thank You for inspiring me to be clearer on this path of the Great Surrender, to filter and weed, and keep it on a levitational...all praise is due...