Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah!

I have had a few crappy days lately: illness, tough times at work, and celebrations past, present, and impending have been wearing on me. I've gotten better about indulging in self-pity, however, and tried something that I hope may help you: when I'm having a bad day, I've sought out extra opportunities for kindness: offering a seat on the subway to an older/pregnant/parcel-laden person, making sure I've extra change for my favorite homeless folk, that sort of thing. It gives a lift to the spirits like nothing else, and it's free, for whatever I loan to God through charity will be repaid. And the promise of the Lord is true. 

What do you get when you put a young woman in a position of authority? A woman who has no clue what to wear. I went through agony last Eid, and finally selected something that was modest, somewhat flattering, and looked like who I am- an American Muslim. I'm in the process of attempting that again this year, and the results are about the same, except in a different color.

I seem to be gravitating toward blue for this Eid. Perhaps because I wore teal last Eid ul-Adha, but the association of this Eid and Watch Night , which coincide this year, with water may be pulling me toward the deep blue.

Eid ul-Adha's association with water will be rather obvious to most Muslims- it was Zamzam that made Mecca inhabitable for Hajar, (AS), Isma'il (AS) and their descendants. Zamzam's continued generosity offers another sort of sustenance to the pilgrims that flock there each year. Here the water is a blessing, springing forth to sustain life, and a symbol of survival. For blackAmericans, however, water is a very different liquid. 

Water symbolizes a boundary in blackAmerican traditions. Brides may cross a dish of water before marrying, to symbolize leaving childhood forever. Marriage is spoken of in blackAmerican communities using the metaphor of an island- a space isolated, or protected, by a formidable boundary. One cannot readily discern the inner workings of someone else's marriage from where you are, outside of it, much as an island cannot be explored from another island, by distant sight alone. There is also the Christian rite of baptism, which is meant to transform the sinner into a child of God.   Water means the ultimate journey, one from which there is no returning. It doesn't take a historian to hear the echoes of the Middle Passage, a floating hell to its survivors, in viewing water as the thing that divides one from one's past and community. 

The attempts to literally and figuratively reverse that voyage have been numerous. Spirituals sing of crossing the river Jordan, a reference to either death, or crossing a geographical river to escape to the North, and therefore freedom. Eliza's escape in Uncle Tom's Cabin, based on an actual slave escape, was one that crossed a cultural river dividing black and white America. Several Sea Islands have an area known as Ibo Landing, where according to legend, a group of Ibo men, women and children brought to America, chained together hand and foot, turned and walked back into the ocean that brought them there, before their astonished captors. 

Perhaps I'm seeking in my choice of wardrobe an immersion in the waters, to be transformed, transported, and sustained. 

Lord, wash me in the Zamzam of your grace.