As Ramadan Approaches

The month of Ramadan is a thirty day intensification of life in this world. Each day, the pendulum swings back and forth between privation and plenty: ordinary wants and fulfillments are experienced with the intensity of boom and bust. Day becomes night and night becomes day. Fasting is followed by feasting. The margins are pushed to the center in a way that is felt, bodily.

The point? Reflection and, ideally, a renewed commitment to gratitude and compassion. Gratitude for all of the things one typically takes for granted; compassion for those less fortunate, those for whom the exceptional privations of the month are facts of daily existence.

"Truly, with difficulty [there is also] an easing of difficulty; truly, with difficulty [there is] ease." Qur'an 94: 5-6.