Thomas Cole - The Course of Empire -The Savage State -1836
Source : Wikipedia
a continuity of things from the previous post.
This stories are ok if you are religious or a bit religious. If you're atheist or doesn't care about religion, then I'm sorry I might bore you to death.
For me, sometimes things need to be understood and felt at the same time.
3. Love
Some days before our visit to Kota Tinggi, I slept at my brother's house at Kajang, while my wife slept at her family's house at Cheras.
I'm now on talking terms with my bro, the relationship between us is fine.
So, the story goes, that some months previously, my bro found a helpless kitten after he finished his prayer at a surau nearby home.
The poor kitten was helpless, partly because she was blind. My bro named her Ema.
My bro went to few vets, she's fine now, yet still blind. My bro had a collection of photos and videos of Ema, which is told by vets, to be 5 months old.
I was chilling with my bro, practicing guitar of Metallica's "Jump In The Fire" together when Ema came, and my bro took her and fed her milk with bottle.
My bro's got boring and tired playing music maybe, so he turned on one of the preaches from the popular Dr. Maza, the Perlis Mufti / Cleric.
I followed this Dr Maza on Facebook, it was that time Dr Maza with Raja Muda Perlis was on a visit to the Rohingya's refugee camp in Bangladesh.
One story was, when Dr. Maza was asked to give a speech in English by Raja Muda Perlis to the Rohingya's refugees, and so he had to speak English as it was the only language both understood, and so he started with few Quran verses.
Dr Maza was surprised when he saw some of the refugees were moving their mouth when he recited the Quran verses, and yes, he was proved correct when he guessed there were some refugees who were actually Quranic Tahfiz. (those who memorised the whole Arabic Quran).
Dr. Maza later wrote life was bloody harsh and yet there are Rohingya people whom are Tahfiz, we Malaysians who never experience the same tragedy should take note and lesson of this.
I was reminded of this story, when I heard the preaches of Dr Maza on my bro's laptop, while watching Ema being fed, that led me to think of this.
My thoughts, can be described like this.
If you ever watched the poor mothers in Africa, holding their sick hungry children in their arms, do you know how they felt? Can you figure what the mothers felt?
Photo Source : https://www.cbsnews.com/news/africa-famine-experts-800000-children-may-die/
The poor mothers in Rohingya, who hold their children in a refugee camp, the destitute mothers somewhere in the bloody conflicts around the world, can you figure what the mothers felt?
I can think at least of two.
At least there will be two things the mothers would've felt.
One, is the mother's love to a child.
Second, is the mother's pityness to her child, that her child should not suffer this.
I think that, God, at least in Islamic view, is Ar Rahman and Ar. Rahim, which means love.
And somehow, God's love to you, is more great and more near, than those of the poor mothers I mentioned above, and my bro's love and pity to Ema, single or combined.
And so, don't delay for the Istighfar / asking for forgiveness, even if you felt you are a total loss sometime, because the magnitude of God's love you, is so great that I can't describe it with words, but only with emotional coherence.
This stories are ok if you are religious or a bit religious. If you're atheist or doesn't care about religion, then I'm sorry I might bore you to death.
For me, sometimes things need to be understood and felt at the same time.
3. Love
Thomas Cole - The Course of Empire = The Arcadian or Pastoral State - 1836
Source : Wikipedia
I'm now on talking terms with my bro, the relationship between us is fine.
So, the story goes, that some months previously, my bro found a helpless kitten after he finished his prayer at a surau nearby home.
The poor kitten was helpless, partly because she was blind. My bro named her Ema.
My bro went to few vets, she's fine now, yet still blind. My bro had a collection of photos and videos of Ema, which is told by vets, to be 5 months old.
I was chilling with my bro, practicing guitar of Metallica's "Jump In The Fire" together when Ema came, and my bro took her and fed her milk with bottle.
My bro's got boring and tired playing music maybe, so he turned on one of the preaches from the popular Dr. Maza, the Perlis Mufti / Cleric.
I followed this Dr Maza on Facebook, it was that time Dr Maza with Raja Muda Perlis was on a visit to the Rohingya's refugee camp in Bangladesh.
One story was, when Dr. Maza was asked to give a speech in English by Raja Muda Perlis to the Rohingya's refugees, and so he had to speak English as it was the only language both understood, and so he started with few Quran verses.
Dr Maza was surprised when he saw some of the refugees were moving their mouth when he recited the Quran verses, and yes, he was proved correct when he guessed there were some refugees who were actually Quranic Tahfiz. (those who memorised the whole Arabic Quran).
Dr. Maza later wrote life was bloody harsh and yet there are Rohingya people whom are Tahfiz, we Malaysians who never experience the same tragedy should take note and lesson of this.
I was reminded of this story, when I heard the preaches of Dr Maza on my bro's laptop, while watching Ema being fed, that led me to think of this.
My thoughts, can be described like this.
If you ever watched the poor mothers in Africa, holding their sick hungry children in their arms, do you know how they felt? Can you figure what the mothers felt?
The poor mothers in Rohingya, who hold their children in a refugee camp, the destitute mothers somewhere in the bloody conflicts around the world, can you figure what the mothers felt?
I can think at least of two.
At least there will be two things the mothers would've felt.
One, is the mother's love to a child.
Second, is the mother's pityness to her child, that her child should not suffer this.
I think that, God, at least in Islamic view, is Ar Rahman and Ar. Rahim, which means love.
And somehow, God's love to you, is more great and more near, than those of the poor mothers I mentioned above, and my bro's love and pity to Ema, single or combined.
And so, don't delay for the Istighfar / asking for forgiveness, even if you felt you are a total loss sometime, because the magnitude of God's love you, is so great that I can't describe it with words, but only with emotional coherence.
4. Miniatures
Thomas Cole - The Course of Empire = The consummation - 1836
Source : Wikipedia
At Kota Tinggi, during 1 night, I had a lengthy conversation with a younger cousin, about things in life.
He told his stories, I told mine.
At one point, this question was asked.
"God made creatures, both the devil and Adam, the man.
Both made mistakes, and both are \kicked' out from heaven.
But why the disparity, why is Devil so condemned without forgiveness but Adam, and the man that followed, some are blessed, some are condemned, but there are forgiveness for them until their moments of death?"
The answer was Takabbur, or Proudness.
You see, the Devil is so proud that he wouldn't "submit" to Adam, because he felt he was better created.
Adam in the other hand, made mistakes by lust, and by advice from the Devil too, but forgiveness is there who those who humble themselves.
The idea we had was, almost all sins and mistakes, the problems in this life, is actually created by our lust, but the most problematic ones are actually because the "feeling of being better".
Those who do scam, not only does it because of lust, but because he/she felt brilliant cheating others. There's that element of "I am better than you, that's why I do this shit on you because I am more clever than you".
Even in rape, not only lust, but sometimes the shit ego of making the other person subjected to serve his lust.
Stealing, yes, the lust is there, but there is also the element of choosing victim, they only steal from those they can overpower or escape with, there is the element "I can do this, somehow because that victim can't do back on me, because I am better than the victim".
Almost all mankinds shit came from lust, or lack of control of lust, and this Takabbur thing.
That's what we realised in our late night conversation.
5. Today
Thomas Cole - The Course of Empire = The Destruction - 1836
Source : Wikipedia
Today I read this https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/4442743. and also about the Adibah Noor being attacked by #KamiGengNajibRazak social media people after she voiced out about artist, dancers, volunteers not being paid for Sea Games finale.
Not forgetting the 29-year-old Datuk Seri who assaulted the 3 Rela members.
the source of this = "I am better than you" = the Takabbur thing.
I remembered some years ago when I was involved in a project, a shopping mall refurbishment project.
This shopping mall had this client team who was supervising this project. My company was doing fire fighting installation works.
One day, a fire broke out at the mall. I remember running frantically with a senior of mine, carrying a ladder to a nearby sprinkler main pipe to access the butterfly valve, to "open" the butterfly valve so that the water can flow in and help putting down the fire.
Yeah, during the construction phase, we had to "isolate", ie turn off the butterfly valve, so that the other contractors can do work, especially electrical contractor who do re-wiring, without having water sprinkled onto them by accident.
I remembered doing all that in the thick smoke (hey the area was burning that time), somehow the butterfly valve was a bit tight to be opened, so we take some time. I thought I might not make it to safety because the smoke was getting thicker. My senior also did.
So we gambled on trying to "open" that butterfly valve in the thick smoke, if we succeed the sprinkler will at least help and we could escape. And we did.
We ran frantically down the mall fire escape route. It would be a shame if we didn't memorise by heart the fire escape route since we had to install other fire fighting features in the escape route.
By the time BOMBA came, we had made it.
My senior, myself, plus a mall maintenance staff was with the BOMBA guys, when our boss came with the client. Everybody chit chatted. All the client team were there, with the Main-Con.
One Malay guy, from the client team, a young guy in his 20s, said something that made my boss's blood boil.
"Well this fire must have been planned and done by this fire fighting company so that they can claim more money", he said.
We helped, and almost got killed, and what you get? Insults.
Thomas Cole - The Course of Empire = Desolation - 1836
Source : Wikipedia