Preventing spiritual flabbiness

(A version of this article was carried on Art Dubai’s Ramadan blog series)

Last year, one of my most-thoughtful readers commented on a piece I had written about the spiritual benefits of incorporating fasting into my life throughout the year, rather than solely during the holy month of Ramadan.

For the past two years, I’ve tried to fast at least one time a week on Mondays or Thursdays. This approach, which is rooted in Prophetic teachings, has helped me try to achieve equilibrium in my life. I fast exclusively for God as a symbol of my gratitude and appreciation. It is a practice that, when combined with regular prayer, giving charity and remembrance of God, nourishes my soul throughout the year.

Regular fasting also enables me to get ready for Ramadan, a rigorous month-long spiritual exercise that involves refraining from food and drink, spending more time in prayer and reflection, giving thanks, dispensing charity and being more aware of our actions, words, thoughts and deeds.

In loving memory

(A version of this article was carried by The Huffington Post)

One of my favourite pastimes while visiting British Columbia during my summer holiday is taking morning strolls down the meandering gravel trail that stretches alongside the Fraser River situated about 10 minutes from our house in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver, Canada.

A walk along the pathway in the early morning isn’t particularly elaborate; its beauty is much more unassuming and steeped in nostalgia. The gravel path glides along an untrimmed shoreline of marshes, scattered clusters of wildflowers and trees both drooped and willowy. A backdrop of sounds combine the crunch of the gravel, singing birds, lapping waves, the occasional seaplane landing and the imbued silence and freshness of the open air. On the river’s edge, one may find a man sitting on one of the rocks or wooden logs resting against the slanted cliff of the waterbody, his fishing rod dunked into the freshwater in hopes of catching a Pacific salmon, trout or flounder. A family of ducks, meanwhile, may be gliding its way across the water nearby.

An elderly couple may be standing at the edge of the riverbank, performing tai chi as the water behind them stretches out into the Pacific Ocean in the distance. When the skies are clear, as they often are in July, it can be difficult to distinguish the horizon where the blue of the ocean ends and the sky begins. The couple will remain intently engaged in their martial art as residents pass by, alone or in pairs, jogging, walking or cycling across the multi-kilometre trail that stretches much of the length of the city. Almost everyone is ready to greet with a friendly ‘good morning’.

This winding ecological trail is evidently teeming with life, and yet across the length of it are reminders about death embedded on a sequence of wooden benches situated all along the pathway, overlooking the waterfront.

The whole world in one place

Once again, I’ve travelled to what feels like the edge of the earth. From Dubai, my sister and I made the day-long trek to Canada’s West Coast, where my mom, older sister and nephews were waiting for a long-overdue reunion at the house we bought just over a decade ago.

While arduous, the flight from Dubai over Europe, across the Atlantic and through Northern Canada to Vancouver, on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, does succeed at disconnecting me from my daily life in the Arabian Peninsula. With a time difference that literally spans night and day, I’m able to appreciate the holiday, far away from my hectic work schedule, that I will spend with those dearest to my heart.