So I made it to Spring Break. Whew. One things I like about teaching are the beginnings and endings and breaks now and then. With all the standardized testing, kids and teachers were really burnt out, so it is nice to have a week off. Here comes the snow for the break, at least a bit of it, although we'd had unseasonably warm weather this past month.
I cleaned house a bit, maybe I will do more of that this week. I still have work at Sylvan. Maybe I'll start/finish something sewing/quilting.
And, I got up this morning and found my computer dead. So I took it in to get a new power supply and a bigger hard drive and decided the computer coma/death meant it was time to upgrade (looking for an excuse, really). My parents' computer is r e a l l y s l o w so I decided to give them the one I've been using. I hope they will like it. I got good speakers with this one which makes me very happy - very cool to get good bass when watching TV at hulu.com (The Pretender!) or something like that. Plus I wanted iWork - Keynote and Numbers are sooooo much better than Powerpoint and Excel - seriously. I used Keynote this afternoon when a few coworkers came over to make some fliers.
The roots of conduct have four aspects: conduct with Allah, conduct with the self, conduct with creation (i.e. people), and conduct with this world. Each of these aspects is based upon seven principles, just as there are seven principles of conduct with Allah: giving Him His due, keeping His limits, being thankful for His gift, being content with His decree, being patient with His trials, glorifying His sanctity, and yearning for Him.
The seven principles of conduct with the self are fear, striving, enduring harm, spiritual discipline, seeking truthfulness and sincerity, withdrawing the self from what it loves, and binding it in poverty (faqr).
The seven principles of conduct with creation are forbearance, forgiveness, humility, generosity, compassion, good counsel, justice and fairness.
The seven principles of conduct with this world are being content with what is at hand, preferring what is available to what is not, abandoning the quest for the elusive, hating overabundance, choosing abstinence (zuhd), knowing the evils of this world and abandoning any desire for it, and negating its dominance.
When all these qualities are found in one person, he is then one of Allah's elite, one of His close bondsman and friends (awliya')
Bondage is an essence, the inner nature of which is lordship (rububiyah). Whatever is missing in bondage is found in lordship, and whatever is veiled from lordship is found in bondage. As Allah said,
We will soon show them Our signs in the universe and in their own souls, until it will become quite clear to them that it is the truth. Is it not sufficient as regards your Lord that He is a witness over all things? (41:53)
This means He exists both in your absence and in your presence. Bondage means ridding oneself of everything, and the way to obtain this is to deny the self what it desires and to make it bear what it dislikes. The key to this is abandoning rest, loving seclusion and following the path of recognition of the need for Allah.
The Holy Prophet [s] said, 'Worship Allah as if you see Him. Even if you do not see Him, He sees you.'
The letters of the Arabic word for 'bondsman' ('abd) are three; 'ayn, ba' and dal. The 'ayn is one's knowledge ('ilm) of Allah. The ba' is one's distance (bawn) from other than Him, and the dal is one's nearness (dunuw) to Allah with the restriction of neither contingent qualities nor veil.
The principles of conduct have four aspects, as we mentioned at the beginning of the first chapter.
Greetings on the Birth Anniversary of Imam Sadiq (as)
When I was a kid, at one point I was given a black and white TV set for my room. One of my fondest memories of that TV was finding strange things on the UHF dial. Sometimes in the 80-something channels or between two channels (no remotes, remember?) I would pick up one side of conversations. I eventually figured out that I was probably hearing half of phone conversations on cordless phones - something very new that my family didn't have or really know about.
Later, I got a shortwave radio and used to spend hours listening to strange programs fade in and out from all over the world. I still have it and still play with it sometimes - or listen to TV or long wave, etc. Then for awhile I had a CB radio handheld and thought about getting a Ham license but it was just way too expensive and more serious than I ever was about it - and an old boy's club.
Anyway, at ScanAmerica you can listen on your computer to local police, fire and state patrol scanners. Maybe someone else out there will think that is cool, like me.
