RAMADAN MUBAARAK from AIC
AIC BULLETIN
RAMADAN KAREEM
Among other luminous lessons, Ramadan represents God's active intervention in human affairs, an intervention that begins for us with the revelation of the Qur'an, an intervention that intends to disrupt our worldly status quo, restrain our destructive tendencies, and reorient us to all that is life-giving. Ramadan thus comes as a reminder that we are theocentric beings and that our happiness and peace can only be realized when we cleanse the ka'ba of our hearts and hollow out a place for God in the very heart of our lives. A beautiful, if sometimes difficult, reminder.
That said, there is no way for us to ponder all of this without facing the atrocities unfolding before our eyes. There is a great deal happening in the world that cries out for disruption. Starvation and deprivation of the most basic necessities of life are being used as weapons of war; whole multi-generational families are being wiped out; refugees who were driven from their homes decades ago are being brutally displaced again; emergency surgeries and even amputations are being conducted without anesthesia or sterile conditions; women and children are being slaughtered by the tens of thousands; preventable disease and famine are being allowed to spread; and the shocking, sickening language of ethnic cleansing and genocide is everywhere - not in reference to historical crimes against humanity but in reference to events happening right now while the world watches...
May the Divine lights of mercy, compassion, justice, and healing illumine us. May the Divine light of strength fortify us and enable us to actively resist and overcome all forms of oppression and evil -- within our hearts and within the world -- and may we join the caravan of hope that embraces the prophetic call to that which gives life (rather than that which demeans, devalues, and destroys life). The morally blind carnage and destruction must be called out and halted, and the suffering souls must be rescued from the darknesses of dehumanization, persecution, violation, starvation, wrongful incarceration, torture, and trauma.
May this Ramadan mark our delivery from these vicious hells of our own making and bring us to a new reality in which real justice and peace are possible and forgiveness, healing, and happiness can be experienced by all. Of course, the journey to such a place begins with an immediate, lasting ceasefire and the immediate flow of food and medicine to desperate people on the brink of starvation and death. Let us begin our Ramadan fast with a fast from violence and acts of inhumanity and a fast for a better, more just and more humane world.
In peace,
Dr. Timothy J. Gianotti
Presdient
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