muscadine | Ramadan

Last Thursday we visited one of Rincon's programs to hear a Sufi Muslim professor talk about Islam and Ramadan. Our associate pastor is facilitator of the group, and she read this poem. I thought it was interesting and powerful. I found it online and thought I would share it here.

It's like practicing for death. No food or drink
during daylight hours no matter
what, in the
heat of summer or
cold of winter,
and no way out of it but through
sickness, pregnancy, menstruation, madness or travel.
So that

it's something that comes
inevitably each year, like it or not, whether or not
you've got a knack for it, and
some do, and love to fast, and
thrive on it, but
I do not, yet

each year it makes its visit, and year after
year it builds up to be a
sweet thing,

which makes it like death, the way it's
always on the
horizon, and an
absolute obligation, which must be

why Muslims often die well. They've had a
lifetime of Ramadans tenderizing them
for The Inevitable. And The

Inevitable surely comes.