Category: Faith & Reflection

I watched Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey yesterday. Like most people, I expected breathtaking visuals and larger than life battles. They were all there. But they weren’t what stayed with me. What stayed with me was the loneliness. Odysseus is surrounded by people throughout much of his journey. Warriors. Sailors. Allies….

Some of us hide it better than others. Some of us patch ourselves up with busyness, with success, with jokes, with prayer, with caffeine. But scratch the surface, past the polished LinkedIn posts, the Instagram smiles, the “Alhamdulillah I’m okay”s, and you’ll find cracks. Fractures. Battle scars from grief, rejection,…

Last November, damissus and I performed our second Umrah. This time we brought the kids along for their first, all except Arief, who had school and couldn’t get away. It’s a strange thing, standing in front of the Kaaba a second time. The first time you’re just trying to take…

There’s a particular kind of tiredness that has nothing to do with sleep. You wake up rested and still feel behind. The to do list refreshes itself overnight, somehow longer than when you left it. I’ve noticed that on those mornings, my mind goes looking for what’s wrong before it…