The Other Side of the Lake

One doesn’t love in order to do what is good or to help or to protect someone. If we act that way, we are perceiving the other as a simple object, and we seeing ourselves as wise and generous persons. This has nothing to do with love. To love is to be in communion with the other and to discover in that other the spark of God. You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen. Every day, God gives us the sun – and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven’t perceived the moment, that it doesn’t exist – that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention in their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the...

Along the Road I walked a mile with Pleasure She chattered all the way; But left me none the wiser For all she had to say. I walked a mile with Sorrow And ne'er a word said she; But oh, the things I learned from her When Sorrow walked with me.   ~ Robert Browning Hamilton  ----------------------------------------------- If you your lips would keep from slips, Five things observe with care; To whom you speak, of whom you speak, And how, and when, and where. ~ W.E. Norris  

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and, by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dre...

I often wonder: suppose we could begin life over again, knowing what we were doing? Suppose we could use one life, already ended, as a sort of rough draft for another? I think that every one of us would try, more than anything else, not to repeat himself, at the very least he would rearrange his manner of life, he would make sure of rooms like these, with flowers and light ... I have a wife and two daughters, my wife's health is delicate and so on and so on, and if I had to begin life all over again I would not marry... No, no! I don't think there can really be a town so dull and stupid as to have no place for a clever, cultured person. Let us suppose even that among the hundred thousand inhabitants of this backward and uneducated town, there are only three persons like yourself. It stands to reason that you won't be able to conquer that dark mob around you; little by little as you grow older you will be bound to give way and lose yourselves in this crowd of a hundred thous...

'Do people think that they will say we have faith and they will be left alone and not tested.' (29:2) 'And Certainly We shall test you with something of fear, hunger, loss of wealth, lives and fruits. But give glad tidings to the As-sabirin (the patient ones) who: when afflicted with calamities say, Truly: To Allah we belong and truly to Him we shall return.' ~ Al Baqarah Courtesy: SAK

The future shrinks Whether the past Is well or badly spent. We shape our lives Although their forms Are never what we meant. ~ Dana Gioia from Interrogations at Noon

We stood on the rented patio While the party went on inside. You knew the groom from college. I was a friend of the bride. We hugged the brownstone wall behind us To keep our dress clothes dry And watched the sudden summer storm Floodlit against the sky. The rain was like a waterfall Of brilliant beaded light, Cool and silent as the stars The storm hid from the night. To my surprise, you took my arm A gesture you didn't explain And we spoke in whispers, as if we two Might imitate the rain. Then suddenly the storm receded As swiftly as it came. The doors behind us opened up. The hostess called your name. I watched you merge into the group, Aloof and yet polite. We didn't speak another word Except to say goodnight. Why does that evening's memory Return with this night's storm A party twenty years ago, Its disappointments warm? There are so many might have beens, What ifs that won't stay buried, Other cities, other jobs, Strangers we might have married. And memory insi...

The gods throw the dice, and they don’t ask whether we want to be in the game or not. They don’t care if when you go, you leave behind a lover, a home, a career, or a dream. The gods don’t care whether you have it all, whether it seems that your every desire can be met through hard work and persistence. The gods don’t want to know about your plans and your hopes. Somewhere they’re throwing the dice - and you are chosen. From then on, winning or losing is only a question of luck. The gods throw the dice, freeing love from its cage. And love can create or destroy - depending on the direction of the wind when it is set free. For the moment, the wind was blowing in his favor. But the wind is as capricious as the gods - and deep inside myself, I had begun to feel some gusts. At last, as if fate wanted to show me that the story of the Other was true - and the universe always conspires to help the dreamer - we found a house to stay in, with a room with separate beds. My first move was to bath...

I’ve met a man and fallen in love with him. I allowed myself to fall in love for one simple reason: I’m not expecting anything to come of it. I know that, in three months’ time, I’ll be far away and he’ll be just a memory, but I couldn’t stand living without love any longer; I had reached my limit. I’m writing a story for Ralf Hart - that’s his name. I’m not sure he’ll come back to the club where I work, but, for the first time in my life, that doesn’t matter. It’s enough just to love him, to be with him in my thoughts and to colour this lovely city with his steps, his words, his love. When I leave this country, it will have a face and a name and the memory of a fireplace. Everything else I experienced here, all the difficulties I had to overcome, will be as nothing compared to that memory. I would like to do for him what he did for me. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I realise that I didn’t go into that cafe by chance; really important meetings are planned by the souls long bef...

When I was young, I used to go fishing to the lake with Jojo on Sundays. Everyone, including the doctors, engineers, and Mister said that there were no fishes in the lake. The water is too contaminated for the fishes to survive. But we still liked to spend our Sundays fishing around. We had all sorts of fantasies about the other side of the lake. We used to imagine the kind of world that would exist across the other side. The people, how they lived, what they did, how they did it. But every one told us to quit visiting the lake. They said that there are no fishes in the lake so it’s useless to go there. All this useless talk had made us very sad. So, one day we put dead fishes in our rods and hung them down the lake to prove that there were fishes in the lake. And just when we planned to pull the rod out and make a big fake fuss about it, Mister arrived to take us back home. "Still looking for fishes", he smiled. "Just wait and see, we will at least catch a dozen fishes ...