Saturday, March 24, 2012

Don't count your chickens before they've hatched.

My mom taught me that one. And it's been good advice. Complacency usually leads to a big fat failure you didn't see because you were too busy bragging about all your new chicken-babies to keep the warming light on. On that note, we'll do Islam first today.

ISLAM

As you may know, I am studying for an Arabic final tomorrow that includes reading and translating Quran and reciting four different ahadeeth or sayings of the Prophet (Peace and Blessings be Upon Him). We are using Imam an-Nawawee's 40 Ahadeeth, revised and published in May 2008 by Tarbiyyah Publishing.

Hadith #4 is the one I have yet to memorize. Thankfully we only have to know about 1/3 of it for tomorrow because it's pretty long (for me). In the video below, I have to recite it up until minute 1:08 if you want to know.


This hadeeth is excellent for so many reasons. It proves the prophethood of Mohammad (salli allahu alayhi wa sallam) when he lays out the stages of fetal gestation and their durations over 1,000 years before most scientists even vaguely understood how babies were formed. Did I mention he was illiterate? Yeah. Take that, skeptics!!

It also gives an important warning not to get comfy with your assumption of where you will end up after death. You might be the best person on the planet for your entire life and then, oops! You commit shirk (associating partners with Allah/disbelief) and sorry, game over. Or, you could be a grade-A sinmonster for 75 years, saying terrible things about Allah and generally acting a fool, but on your deathbed have a change of heart and become one of the people of Paradise. It can happen!

I don't mean to bum you out, but I went to yet another janazah (funeral prayer) today for a Thai sister with hardly any family here. Allah knows what state she died in, but I know these deaths in our community are a reminder to the living to get with the program and contemplate our own demise.

May Allah cause me to die in the state of Islam and grant me Jannah al-Firdous (highest station in Paradise). I'll let you know how the Arabic exam goes tomorrow night.

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EXERCISE
Cleaning is exercise. Yes it is!! I know because I get sore the next day. Also, it involves stretching, lifting, and sweating, so there. 

Today I cleaned out the cat box, vacuumed the whole place, emptied and filled the dishwasher, did a load of laundry [Can someone get that out of the dryer?! Oh, I live alone? Great.] and thought about cleaning the bathroom but didn't. C'mon, it's Saturday! All-in-all, I feel good about my level of activity and it did take well over 20 minutes so we're done here!
This isn't me. I would never wear embroidered clam-diggers.
Health Tip of the Day: Go outside for an energy boost! Here's some medical mumbo-jumbo about serotonins and negative ions etc, courtesy of RealSimple.com to back up my tip. But you don't need to read that—the benefits of the outdoors should pretty obvious those of us who don't live in Seattle.

And no, keeping your windows open from February to October doesn't count as going outside, but that doesn't stop me from doing it. Hooray, air!!

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