- Jan 31, 2011
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I am doing business with a lot of nigerians these days, they are interesting people, once you get past the idea that they are going to try and send you several million pounds, you find most are hard working and religious, I had a long chat with a young man about god, he was a muslim, yesterdays dinner was still splattered on my t shirt, (spaghetti), and looking round at my shop, which was looking more messy than normal, I observed him taking it all in, we talked about god, although I do not think he thought god was in me, or my shop, his god, he maintained listened to him, performed miracles, etc etc, his god was there to listen to his wishes and make them true. Heaven was an important concept to him, as was hell, a bit like how people plan their retirement, what a wonderful concept, a god that you pray to for personal gain, material gain, emotional gain, it made my vision of a god that just stood for the truth, and that alone quite twee!
Having said that, I grew up in the west, I have spent years searching for my dreams, found them, lived them, and become tired of them, this young man did not have that luxury, amd this young man would not stay a young man forever, his god would grow with him, and would take him in a direction that only he and his god would know, it made me realise once more how one can never understand anothers journey, and should never try to either.
I do not have a personal relationship with god, and in some ways I envied him, I actually have no relationship with god, it doesn't bother me anymore, it used to, I used to wonder why I could not sing and praise, but we are all different, and my calling is good old fashioned sewa, on the whole, I love sewa, its so much easier than prayer, as a child I was always in the kitchen at gurdwara, it was not a chore, I loved it, I had two huge sinks all to myself, one to wash, and one to rinse, and you would keep going till the hunger in your belly drove you mad, and you had to stop and have langar, and that langar in that moment of hunger was the most wonderful thing you could eat.
I happily bow down before the truth, accept it as my god, follow it, and trust it (how could you not!), but I still feel that one moment in attempting to achieve grace with that union, is a moment wasted when I could be injecting some good back into what we call life
Having said that, I grew up in the west, I have spent years searching for my dreams, found them, lived them, and become tired of them, this young man did not have that luxury, amd this young man would not stay a young man forever, his god would grow with him, and would take him in a direction that only he and his god would know, it made me realise once more how one can never understand anothers journey, and should never try to either.
I do not have a personal relationship with god, and in some ways I envied him, I actually have no relationship with god, it doesn't bother me anymore, it used to, I used to wonder why I could not sing and praise, but we are all different, and my calling is good old fashioned sewa, on the whole, I love sewa, its so much easier than prayer, as a child I was always in the kitchen at gurdwara, it was not a chore, I loved it, I had two huge sinks all to myself, one to wash, and one to rinse, and you would keep going till the hunger in your belly drove you mad, and you had to stop and have langar, and that langar in that moment of hunger was the most wonderful thing you could eat.
I happily bow down before the truth, accept it as my god, follow it, and trust it (how could you not!), but I still feel that one moment in attempting to achieve grace with that union, is a moment wasted when I could be injecting some good back into what we call life
