when you're the one to smell the rose...

Salaam,

The other day I was wowed by something Lex Hixon wrote in the beginning of "The Heart of the Koran". His friend smelled roses when they made the spiritual pilgrimage to Mecca. It made me wonder what this might have to do with how often I "smell flowers that aren't there" in recent months. This morning, while listening to some great music, it happened. I smelled the rose. When stuff like that happens, I feel myself leaving this world and how hard it would be to exist in both worlds at once. God has helped me though to find a place where I can touch Love and have another drop of It spilled into my heart.

Probably not too many people expect to dance with God. We don't think God would choose us for a dance. Just like our first dances at school and our first cases of puppy love, we're wondering if we might not be special enough to be wrapped in His arms and led on the Dance floor. That's the only thing that stands between ourselves and God, thinking we're not special enough. We think God only goes to the prophets (Peace Be Upon Them) or the saints or the mystical poets like Rumi.

I don't mean the type of special that replaces humility with gluttonous pride. True Love of God fills the humble heart. The proud heart is my personal jihad. My pride, not my lack of it, causes the lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. I fight with it constantly, but there has been some tiny spark yearning to glow and grow inside my heart. This is the flame of Love that lives inside every heart. Sometimes it is buried under so much junk, it feels like it's not there.

But...God is...the most Merciful. If Allah forgives, we can forgive ourselves for the error of the junkyards in our hearts and start decluttering with a sincere desire to repent. This means to humble (not humiliate) ourselves before Allah who knows how hard we struggle. God made us; She knows what we are up against yet She also gives us the power to reject desires that lead us to sin.

Just ask; God will listen.

Know that even we , the average man and woman, can smell the rose that appears not to be there. Just one bit of advice: God knows even glimpses of pure Love could make us too drunk to walk for the rest of our lives. So God gives you and me what She gives us drop by drop until we can handle the amazing world as Muhammed (PBUH) described for God in the Beautiful Quran. Bury yourself inside the fragrance of the rose and praise God for leading you to it. You can do it. We can all do it!

Al-hamdu lillah! Praise God!