How Rabi'a Made my Heart Laugh

The power of stories have a unique way of showing what we are doing.  There is a wonderful story about Rabi'a one night looking for a key outside on the street.  She was searching high and low and her neighbors decided to help her.  They asked that question which we all ask, "what does it look like... do you think you lost it here?"  She replied, "oh no, I lost it in the house."  Laughing they asked, "why are you looking out here if you lost it in the house?  That doesn't make any sense!"  She said, "there is more light out here!"

But it's dark in there!!

Then Rabi'a laughed and asks, "Friends, it is clear you are intelligent, so why is it when you lose your peace of mind, perhaps because of a failed relationship or a lost job you look for what is lost out there and not in here."  She points at her chest and says, "did you lose your joy out there or in here? Do you avoid looking for it in here because the light is dimmer or because it is less convenient?" 

This story strikes a deep chord for me.  Often I find myself looking at things outside of my spirit to stop pain from happening.  I can look at a way that a relationship isn't working and find myself a 10 year old again trying to figure out what fashion I should be wearing to fit in, or watching a quippy show on television, wondering what way I should be with these others.  I have even joined churches to fit in!  I developed this practice from moving from place to place, there is no solid anchoring into one culture.  What was acceptable in one region, was verboten in another region, and what was fashion forward in one place was entirely last years news in another.    Beyond fashion, also morals changed, churches changed, environment changed.  That part was really, really fascinating.  

So what does this have to do with Rabi'a?  I have been learning to turn back to God over and over again in order to be able to come back, point at my chest and say, "this is good enough here."  As I embraced God's view of us that we are holy, my own opinion about that has shifted too! There was a deeply ingrained shame about how my family did things.  We were in poverty, we were the "didn't mow the lawn, showed up to school without washed clothes, never went to the doctors/dentist unless a limb was severed" crowd.  This meant that my spirit as a child believed deeply that we were dirty.  

Or said a different way: untouchables.  The people no one wanted to be associated with. Somehow I equated a cultural disdain for poverty as there was something wrong with me as a soul.  My inner person was dirty!  

To have Rabi'a say to me "why are you looking outside for when you are struggling inside" at first was hard to grasp.  The story helped redirect this because up until I heard it that way, it didn't make sense to me.   

To look in the "garbage for a treasure" was the analogy that was set in place from MY cultural upbringing.  Everything outside of me was shiny and those things were what was right with the world.   How did I ascertain it was what was right?  People were smiling wearing those things, people wanted to hang out with those people, people wanted to be LIKE those others. No one wants to be like the poor, no one wants to be friends with the poor.  The poor don't want to be friends with the poor because it's painful to see yourself.  I related in my being to Rabi'a's comment about the "house is dark and dirty and uncomfortable" part.   

If you could have seen me, you would have seen my eyes got really wide and my mind chuckled a little.  She was right... why would I look for the lost key somewhere that I hadn't been yet? 

The strange thing that was the hinge for me was that we were not morally bankrupt.  My mother was very firm on morals, "don't gossip, follow your conscience (which is the voice of God), be kind to people even if they are mean to you, don't beat up your brother."  *grin*  And to the level as children and teens that we could, we did.  She had her own separation from the other neighbors because she wouldn't gossip or tell tales.  The stresses of poverty are very real, and getting through daily life can be a challenge with four kids sleeping in the same room, fear around whether we will have heat in the house (one time we burned cardboard boxes in the fireplace and sat and watched them as closely as we could), if we are going to be asked to leave our home because we can't pay rent, or we aren't the kind of tenants they were hoping to have. 

A surah in the Qur'an spoke to my heart: God shall make (me) understand the message of God in the farthest horizons to within (myself), and in other parts of the Qur'an it says "will you not see?"  

I felt like I saw for the first time.  Or I saw that I hadn't seen that this soul is the construction site for the work.  There isn't a magic remedy 'out there', a spell, or a right thing to swear, wear or say that is going to change the world around me to make my heart feel different.   I have to come in and find the key inside and stop avoiding what is uncomfortable inside.  Yes, I am going to bump into things, my knees might get bruised, my frustration will probably rise up... lots!  But the message that I hear in the Qur'an,  the Christian scriptures and the earth-based traditions is that God is Love, God is Mercy and that the stuff that is in us is what is also in infinity.    

Rumi says, "You know the value of every article of merchandise, but if you do not know the value of your own soul, it is all foolishness."   

So, that is my own story, how I kept myself from looking for the key to myself somewhere else other than in my own heart.  What is keeping you from deciding to find yours in you?

Much love!


Post thought: 

In this way, I deeply related to the Lego movie parting words:  whatever lego creation you create is good enough, and having someone else build on your invention is good, having it not be perfect is good, and having it not match everyone else... is also good.   

Because God is good. 

I cannot be contained in the space of the earth,

I cannot be contained in the space of the heavens,

But I can be contained in the space 

Of the pure and loving heart of my servant.

—Hadith Qudsi

My thanks to Jamal Rahman for his book "Fragrance of Faith, The Enlightened Heart of Islam."