ayshaelshamayleh - Tumblr blog

[ayshaelshamayleh]

What is Divine Will in The Arab Israeli Conflict & why is it essential to the current discourse?

The Arab-Israeli conflict has been ailing me extensively for the past few years. Not exactly for the reasons that are common amongst Muslim-born Arabs. But for reasons pertaining to contemplations about Divine Will. As a scholar of The Holy Bible -one who has studied the Quran, both having grown up in a cultural context rooted in it and having had to study it as a spiritual seeker in the process of finding a faith/creed - I am burdened by uncomfortable questions. As someone who believes in God, solidly, I am broken by my inability to understand God’s hand in this war that lives so close-by. 

Let me explain my point-of-view: I experience the bible as true word of God, on a personal basis. I live with it. I study it. I model it. I am Arab. I live in Jordan. Israel roots its claim to Palestine in a biblical promise made by God, and narrated in The Holy Bible. 

I find it important for there to be Arabs, accustomed with the bible, engaging (and in fact leading) the discourse about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Arabs who are interested in the conflict must know more about the biblical context, no matter what they themselves believe, so that the conversation is more productive than it has been. If your opponent is claiming God is doing this, and it is difficult to understand how it is possible for an entire country to come into existence out of nothing, the question of “is this by God’s will or not?” must be important for every believer or spiritual seeker on both sides. This way you will speak clearer, and more convincingly, using a language all sides understand and relate with. You should not deny religious belief systems are at the core of this conflict, for everyone involved. You can’t care how uncomfortable that process is, it’s uncomfortable for all of us. And if politics, especially in a land heavily documented to be God’s, is a physical manifestation of the design of the energetic realm; it is important for all those who really look for or believe in God, to ask: “what’s up?”, and to consider that a priority question in their outlook, should they be true believers, true thinkers, true citizens. 

Let’s deal with what’s in the bible about this conflict. To summarize, in the bible the Jews are promised to be scattered amongst nations, and God’s subsequent redemption brings them back to a Promised Land. From Abraham to Joseph to Moses to Joshua to David, the journey that is the blue-print for the spiritual-Jew takes him/her from living somewhere, God approaching him/her and wanting a relationship, as part of a chosen people (chosen by random, not because they are better than the rest, but just to use them as a sign, a symbol, for His relationship with all of humanity at a certain point in history). So then, like the rest of us, they dance between committing to Him and wanting worldly desires and comfort, falling in the face of fear to truly trust Him, to follow His voice and wait in the silence, to move in obedience, to humble themselves as to have a sovereign God over them. They didn’t do that. As you and I don’t do that. As we all don’t do that.  

So then, God -having had good things to give them, good things to promise them, good ways to love them (the quintessential Perfect Lover) - in pain scatters them (‘because it’s over’). He scatters them into Egypt through Joseph, where they move and are eventually enslaved. To taking them out of Egypt, through Moses, wandering a scorched land of a desert for 40 years, so that everyone dies but their remnant (a minority out of them that loved God back in action), who are then given their ‘promised land’. And in the historical bible this does indeed correspond to areas in historical Palestine and its surroundings. David becomes the King of Jerusalem. Solomon builds his temple. Then the cycle goes downhill again, by the time of Daniel, famous for surviving a cage of lions, the jews are back to enslavement in Babylon. The downhill cycle continues.  

One important point to mention is that all throughout the Old Testament, the people of God are promised a Messiah, and to define “messiah” in lay terms: it is the someone or something through which we are saved, making life perfect and peaceful (it’s what every human dreams of and is alive in wait of - the perfect peaceful good life; the Messiah is the spiritual linguistic term that corresponds to the tool which brings about that life we dream of; the life-like heaven we pursue, the perfect state of us becoming perfectly ‘corrected’ and at peace with our existence). 

Now the New Testament tells the story of the Messiah, who is named Christ Jesus (consider it a random linguistic term for now that corresponds to this ‘tool’). Just to avoid confusions, because life is such that we are prone to mistaking a new car or a promotion or a new wife for a messiah -I just confirm that if you want to delve into the realm of precise language and the human-Divine story in order to discern whether the life you have is the one promised to you by God (or if you are living in a land way off-track), the ‘Messiah’s’ character is historically embodied by a man who happened to go by the name Jesus, at random (just the case, neutral). The things you like and fall in love with remind you of the character of ‘Jesus’. If we are to use his name just as a name of a character that is uttered by some people on the route through which we get to that life-like heaven, it’s just that. The gospel gives you a full and short enough narrative about that character (philosophically, artistically, literarily, poetically, historically, literally) to be able to use it as a reference for your life in that practical and simple, manual-style way - should you be one interested in answers that come through such a pallet.

So this fella, Jesus, a jew himself, a son of the lineage of David, a Christ of God comes to settle the debt between God and humanity once and for all. This guy comes to give us a tabula rasa, not just that, but a permanent stay in the life-like heaven. In fact, he says he’ll be inviting you and preparing us to live practically and truly as children of God. Like we feel that way, experientially. Now as you can imagine, you turn out to be indebted to the God that you avoided, silenced, maybe cheated on, but who still shows up (from Adam to your name). So this ‘tool’ of a Messiah is necessary. 

We fully understand the feelings of God on that front through the Book of Hosea (in the Old testament). The prophet of the times was called by God to get married to a cheating wife as a sign of the era and the feelings of God about humanity’s relationship with Him. The endless dancing, not settling, confusion, blurred lines, not making a decision about His presence and involvement, confusion, fear-of-commitment; mess. That wife, symbolizing the people of God, keeps running away into the hands of men (and man-made things), until she finds herself in a slave market. That slave market has modern iterations we are familiar with: selling our souls to jobs we hate, making money that is useless to spend on band aid solutions for the void and the endless pain of wanting life-like heaven but losing the way, insisting that is the only way it goes. That was Hosea’s wife; just like us. Wanting to skip investigating God’s design of life in favor of good times, and “busy-ness”.

Now if you’ve ever been cheated on, imagine that happening over and over for centuries with someone - the brokenness and ridiculousness and unfairness pile up, and Him showing up to create a life for you doesn’t mean the wounds went away or that His showing up is sustainable on an energetic level (think “accounting”). So (to be very simplistic in handling Christian philosophy) something needed to wash things over, resolve you, heal you, get a final fix so the two entities -you and God- could be ‘together’, compatible again, somehow -in friendship? In romance? Him, your Perfect Lover (each up to his capacity in His will). And that route that does that, mathematically and mythically and literally and linguistically, was randomly assigned the name Jesus. 

So what would it take God to reconcile us to Him, according to the bible (the new testament)? The answer is counterintuitive and very difficult to accept or agree to believing in. Before I lay it out, there’s this parable in the new testament that Jesus narrates that might help. There was once a man (alternate man with “God”), who owned a vineyard, and worked very hard at it, dug the winepress, built a tower, and lent it out to some farmers (alternate farmers with “us”) and went to a faraway country (alternate that with “life”). When harvest time came, the man (/God) sent his servants (/friends that walk around in your life constantly annoying you about God or things that remind you of such) to get his share of the fruit as agreed. The farmers (/us) responded by refusing the owner’s end of the bargain, so they beat the servants (/annoying friends) and killed them, so the farmers kept the whole harvest to themselves (/as they wished). The man (/God) sent more servants again. The farmers (/us) killed them again. So then the owner of the vineyard sent his son (alternate that with “Jesus”), thinking the farmers (/us) would respect someone as close and dear and connected to him as an actual son in this ordeal, and that we would give this son the rightful share. When the farmers saw the son, they said to themselves this is the heir, come let us kill him and keep his inheritance to ourselves. And so they did, just that. Killed him to get the land (/life) for themselves with no accountability before its owner. 

The proposition that is difficult to understand or agree to is that God, instead of finding a system that would make us pay for our unwise choices in our relationship with him, knew we couldn’t possibly manage to do that. So, be patient with me here and see it in mythical terms for a second; God paid the price of our wrongs by sending someone of Himself, allowing us to witness ourselves choose to kill him, and in response He showed us He resurrects, and everything not of His dies, to reach out to us for further correction again. The cycle of life keeps moving in that direction. God is here for good. At His own price. This is what makes “God” God, his capacity to love, counterintuitively. This personally moves me. 

The Christian philosophy essentially says God made a truce that is light and easy. If you are drawn to the character of this son, if you love this one who lived loving Him and his neighbor, showing the way, forgiving, sacrificing himself; you are saved and you enter your life-like heaven. The alchemy that happens within you, evolving you, as you pursue your belief in him changes your character into a state able to find and enjoy heaven. Now this life-like heaven isn’t easy. It entails embodying a life like that of God’s son. Loving God. Loving people. Telling the truth, even when it’s difficult. Having people mistrust your goodness. And instead of you choosing to retaliate, choosing to expose your wounds and your pain. Humbling yourself before God and man by asking your Maker for the strength to be good in truthful terms, for the sake of the people’s love for God and God’s perfect love for people. You will be persecuted because of that. You will be whipped. You will struggle. Yet within that life, God Himself works miracles in you and through you. You witness them. You feel Him, real, and strong. You know God. You see Him. Daily. He knows you. Personally. And there’s nothing else you need after that point, apart from enjoying your faith. And thus, heaven is on earth. In that counterintuitive and difficult way. 

Needless to say, what I’m describing above is not the ‘state’ of Israel. Let’s tie this back to the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of the reasons the historical Jesus was not accepted by the historical jews is because they were expecting a political King for a messiah. A man who controls life. Who leads them to physical prosperity; monetary, “real”. Christ was too ethereal for the historical jew. Too intangible. Promising a kingdom of heaven, not earth. So those who are jews in today’s world are an expression of a spiritual state that hasn’t accepted that the ‘messiah’ (the tool to life-like heaven) can come. They find it hard to grasp that after Adam and Eve’s fall from heaven on earth in pursuit of the physicality of life and its desires, the story ends with God coming down to earth to be with us. But that “being with us” is inside of us -I hate to break that, I know it’s an overstated statement. It demands letting go of the world enough to experience Him, rely on Him, see Him, find Him within the eye of the soul. Peace comes out of that silliness, that wherever your geo-coordinates may be in the universe, you are in God, and you work hard at maintaining that (through discernment of what is and is not God) and you suffer in His name. Faith isn’t a hobby. Faith is a full-life ordeal. 

Let’s tie this back to the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict again. What is going on has to do with another important belief that is so rare. Jews, christians AND muslims all agree on one thing: The world will end with the second coming of Christ (in fact, to Jerusalem). I don’t need to tell you that in today’s post-COVID era and post-Deal-of-the-Century, etc. reality, many feel -as secular as we may be- that the world keeps feeling like it’s ending. Now since all three creeds (i.e. the majority in this region) piously and unanimously agree that earth is destined towards a direction leading to the “arrival” of Christ, then all who are “correct” by their own standards, should be living in pursuit of knowing Christ, regardless of your religion. Your religion stipulates that, should you be a true believer. 

Those who do not know Christ, if they believe in God or are asking questions about God, should learn about him. It is a part of your religion. Social taboos on that front should not concern you, because you claim to believe in God, not people. A life of faith demands a life of your own faith in action, in behavior, in practice - waking up in the morning and working on yourself to find more about your God everyday, about your ‘religion’ everyday. Asking the uncomfortable questions. Anything else is not belief, or creed, it is a facade and a lie. It collapses. If you are unsure there is a God, the most important goal in your life is to go find out whether there is. Don’t wait till a deathbed. 

In my twenties I watched my father die over six years. His real and actual deathbed was fatally propped in our living room. And I watched. I watched him reckon with death. I watched his life be accounted for, both in the human realm and in the other one. I watched him apologize for wrongs he had done people. I watched him pray. I watched him pretend to have beings in the room other than my family. He was asked questions by them (very intelligent, logical and concise). He even gave answers he would turn to me and say were right or wrong or ones he was unsure of. He became so beautiful in his withering, the most loving essence of him palpably fragrant. I saw Christ. He was devotedly Muslim. Not in how he applied laws. But how he practiced, so humbly elegant, real faith is something so dense and real, but unseen, unacknowledged, unaccounted for. That humanity is the only one I wish to see. 

Life takes time. People have different paces and different paths. Intrinsic in the choices they make about how they live life and what they name things (e.g. ‘Israel’), they express what they worship, you express what you believe is the right modem for life. You can’t control your neighbor. You can just worry about your stuff - another overstated statement, I know. 

Here is a political state calling itself “Israel” that believes in doing good for itself and for its people, in hate and at the expense of what’s outside of itself. Is that wrong? They themselves say “no, not when it’s for our best and we are a chosen people”. In my contemplations about Divine Justice, I ache to understand how it is fair that God gives others a choice in how they treat things around them. How is God “God”, if He leaves it all to people? There seems to be no power behind it. Just suffering, and bleeding, and dying on a cross. That’s no God at all - I would imagine the spiritual jew and most Arabs would agree. Not impressive enough to warrant belief. Too passive, many people I’ve crossed paths with have said this. 

As a person of faith, I struggle with those questions as well. I find myself stuck between a rock and a hard place. I experience God as so perfect as to give people choice, even in how they treat Him, and in how they treat others. He is magnanimous as to warrant freedom of speech and behavior. But don’t take that lightly, because you will win. So it’s on you in the smallest of moments. Life and how the people around you experience it depends on you and your choices. There is divine judgement but you are allowed to do whatever you wish, it has consequences, but that’s not the reason you do good. You do good because you believe in the intrinsic value of creating a good world (should you live in a life-like heaven, then that’s imperative for you). Doing good to avoid punishment points to a young state of faith, baby believer, there is much space for development. We work towards becoming adults in God. 

I fail to understand what sort of life to lead to contribute to the resolution of problems that claim people’s lives around me. I feel the situation, it hurts me deeply. Life and God get confusing to the point of total implosion. To be real, since finding faith, the condition of my life is often signaled by whatever is happening in Jerusalem. If you want to know how I am, look up ‘Jerusalem’. Not because Jerusalem causes my pain at all, but my pain coincides with it, like truth. It’s like we’re in the same box of existence. Not by choice, I don’t even share any genetic roots to the place. I’m a random person of God. That state hasn’t been good. 

I feel that an important response (in addition to the other responses out there) to what is happening in Sheikh Jarrah would be to compile resources again and get the people to live in a neighborhood that loves them. Man should not need to negotiate his value amongst the people who live close-by him. In all cases, and despite complexities, man must live amongst the people who are concerned about him, willing to carry him all the way through. I pray that that comes through, and if in any way I am helpful, I’m interested in collaborating.

I’ll end with this good thought by pastor and author Tim Keller:

“Anger is love in motion to deal with a threat toward that which you really love (to disintegrate the threat) – to see what your heart loves the most, you need only ask what you are defending.”

Worth the think. 

[ayshaelshamayleh]

Call to action: not. [change]

It has been years since I’ve written, for words sake. I know the screens and music that keep my rhythm going. But my thoughts have no space or time in that. The scenes are endurance workouts for judgement-day testimony to show that I saw existence with more timidity and faithfulness than my kinsfolk -forgive my dry humor and competitiveness [I flaunt spiritual swag in private, being a Leo, I at least find it healthier to boast in God than bling-bling, you’ll need to cut slack if we are to get along]. This is what I stand for, remember that. I don’t care about the quality of lighting, or the budget behind all of it. It comes with time. And my interests are different. In either case, I come back to the page, aged. My mind lies, still. In the intercession of adjectives, praying my way out of a void that is still here. I can mean ‘still’ in two ways. But what does that mean if I don’t mean anything by it? (food for thought for creatives).

If I may be honest I feel, and I may well be delusional, that I’ve arrived beyond the threshold of all there is to know about the fundamental aspects of life. It sounds arrogant, but I feel it, regardless of opinion. I suffer with it, regardless of criticism. I sleep with it, regardless of caste. The facts that one must know before they kick a bucket. Like purpose. Like matters and values. Like a belief system. Like wisdom about my life post-mortem. A dogma. I’ve identified it for my soul. And I’m still alive. I know where I will go in the end. But I am alive, for one goal I can state in one sentence. That’s how I raised myself since childhood, which was half-stashed in national team locker rooms, I revisited a week ago. Royal adults and good parents. Bruises and emotional strike-downs. All the jazz one grows up with, strong. And it comes back to me now, in my thirties, yet unable to stand tall before it, let alone influence change on earth. 

What I have learned about existence is that, since I’ve found God, praising is an everyday labor that involves forgiveness. I do nothing but dwell in the mysteries of love, coming out empty handed in tangible reality. And I think that’s how it should be, if that is how it’s divinely willed for now. I have an unshakeable trust in the one behind all of it. It disqualifies me from being drawn to conspiracy theories that I see three-quarters of my generation suck up to. And complain about incessantly. On and off social media. COVID hasn’t helped. And it stops me from relying on myself to be. 

I am Jordanian in part. Totally anonymous to myself. No gender or socialization, nor set of expectations or laws. I’ve vouched for the one true theology that rises above these things. I do not believe in earthly stature, when I have it I focus on paying it no mind. I look beyond it into the will of God. I think of myself as a pilgrim, going village to village, I don’t know why it simplifies things for me. To this day, my Jerusalem is the one that crucified me outside of her walls. And I’ve resurrected. She cares not about my faith. Only cares to ravage through facts in hopes of catching an impending political threat that would bring her down. She thinks of herself as Babylon and I have zero interest in the paranoias of her mind. I just pray against them, and bless her. Which isn’t easy. Sometimes I don’t want to bless my enemies. But He died for me to learn how. 

Why does a person of faith exist? I once thought life’s requirements would be satisfied by the arrival at knowing God, personally. That is the end of intellectual pursuit. For sure. No human brains allowed, let alone necessary, past the point. When I first got there a few years ago, as my father was dying (I’ve written about it before), I sat in a farm waiting for Azrael by myself, I told my friends. But in my newly-dawned enlightenment, I was just being stupid again. Nothing but dreams about burglary in my house and visions that still hold true. This was when I first recognized the name of my savior. In case you’re wondering whether I know, I am still prone to stupidity, yes. 

After that, a cab drove me blind to Amman for the funeral of a friend who hung himself. Then I preached the gospel to a town that killed me. And I died. Now I’m alive again. I’m supposed to work on a music video for a religious minority that believes in reincarnation, imagine that. Those are the fun metaphorical summersaults God is good at. But the most curious concept to me, personally, is marriage, I don’t know why. I find goodness in the opportunity to taste the resurrection in the flesh. For my savior to animate himself in the body. For monogamy to be fulfilled in the truth of love. It’s the only thing I can think of that could console me in my present state. I know why at the beginning, when man tended the garden of Eden, God said it was not good for him to be alone. The badness of tending a garden alone aches my bones most days and I wonder what exactly the Lord is waiting for, because I am ready. I told Him so. I’m only becoming more incessant and rude in my prayer. Today I realize my heart is growing fond about adoption because I myself was adopted into the kingdom by the Father and I wish to know that bread in communion. I was not in the family. But my best friend Alysia prayed and the Lord heard her. So there it goes. 

                                                                                    Remember to pray for your friends, folks.

Photo credit: George-N. Al Khouri.

[ayshaelshamayleh]

supplication

Heavenly Father - Lord of Lords, King of Kings,

I come to you poor. Not just that. Also sinful from the top of my head to the bottom of my soles. I am without home, those around me look away from my anguish, and I have nowhere else to go, Father. 

Hurry up in remembering me, O Lord. I who follow your will. I who love your son. I who burnt the work of my hands at your altar. Show me your desire. Strengthen me to fulfill. 

When you had shown me, I had seen everything. Blind I walk now. The dark is unconcerned about me. Lowly I am amongst men.  

Till when, O Lord, will the one who serves in your name be the laughingstock of the land? How long will the blameless one with covenant come out empty handed, called self-serving liar without cause? How much more, O Lord, can this body handle? Release from torment. 

You who defends the cause of the fatherless, and pleads the case of the widow, how do I come to you when my legs can’t bear a cross, my back full of welts, and my crucifixion is public? And I long to come to you, in a crown of thorns and a purple robe, I would come to you. Mocked and discounted. 

Acknowledge me, savior. Adopt me, holy father. I have lost all that I had had.

[ayshaelshamayleh]

Fooldom

On my father's deathbed, he announced to me his intention to go elsewhere, it's over, he needs to go back home to rest as if it's a stroll across the street of our neighborhood. I didn't know how far off it was. I trusted the walk like a fool who does not know how long a body decays for. On the outliers I became an impossible who knows she does not know how much of a fool she is. Always.

[ayshaelshamayleh]

Azkaban

In Azkaban, the walls are high and

my shirt is red, standing alone with

prayer beads, swung left and right in

my father’s dream last night for the

hospice nurse who laid him to rest.  

What child I was, back when she

taught me how to kill. How much I have

no recollection of a sense of self since then.

Who was gentle on me. When I ended too.

I am neither alone now nor in relation to red,

passionate. I am all of it. Done with the light

being good, and ready for the winter’s rendition

of original darkness, but since alive, can’t

but muster a flame that burns. What part of my

corpse feeds lambs now. Till when.

I feel I’ve overcome this life one thousand times

over. I have done everything at least thrice.

I crave silence. Would do just fine in prison.

But in the cross, the horizontal slant worries me.

And I want to walk on water. That’s the truth.

I want to walk on water. What feet do I need for 

this is what I want the film producers to tell me. 

And they won’t. Because they’d rather swim.

[ayshaelshamayleh]

Plea

The closer you inch, the deeper the well of envy grows in the minds of those around me. Punishment comes during seasons of union with you. I have stripped myself of my arms and weaponry for the deeper clarity of myself to be worthy of standing nude in front of you. Take me. I would be poor for you, live as a mound of despicable mud to be in a room with you. Stonings outside your gate, I bathe in my pain. Life is overbearing where the fire of arrogance dictates the algorithms of sense. Love has a mathematics there and I can only count to one. I’ve got no explanations or defenses. Just my old feet and my blindness, an unashamed heart and a tired harness. Set me free in your simple company. Do not loath my generosity, not just for a couple of years. Eternity. I am exhausted beyond complaint. I am nothing beneath the illusion of my weight.

Be non-judgemental with me.

[ayshaelshamayleh]

On Occassion Of My Father’s 1st Birthday Since Passing: a prayer

To whom all words belong,

In my father’s close to last diary entry he asked the question, can one define love in one word or even one complete sentence? It’s a difficult question, and its answer even more difficult, he wrote in response to himself.

I feel my heart has widened since his loss. I had a vision of you one night, you made me levitate from my bed and forced your hand into my gut, healing something I had not known was diseased, then you took my heart out of my chest and it came out white as pearl. This is how it will work, you will not let me go, you said. It happened at a time when I had been dwelling on you and death for a month and a half in solitude, and two more mourning a suicidal friend, that now that I had been confronted by the two types of death, that by by force and that by choice, I somehow and by mistake withdrew my citizenship from life. But you reminded me with your vision.

Difficult events pass much more easily for me. Everything is acceptable. I think I know the exact moment I realized that. I was standing alone with a hospice nurse under a yellow neon light in front of my parent’s bedroom, knowing my father was dying in our living room in the present tense and I’m listening to real-life jargon about machines, pain, and the medical specifics of the last breath. It was the most marvelous time of my life. I do not say that lightly. Everything became acceptable after that, and to be clear, I am thankful for the sheer size of unacceptability that existed in that time-frame, because it made it impossible for me not to get over myself. See the truth. It’s a blessing. Bad circumstances are a privilege just like race and wealth are privilege.

This world is not what most people think it is. It is important to be broken in order to begin seeing clearly, one’s size, one’s end, one’s uselessness to loved ones in matters of life and death, one’s muddness. Made of mud. Simple. Undemanding. Passive. All-receiving and very well well taken care of. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. The fact I have been fed every day is a huge deal, because I’ve seen and been sure for a good chunk of practical everyday life that I cannot make anything happen. I cannot create, not a meal, not a life, not a text or a film. And the fact that I can’t create healed me from the most burdensome lie I had been tired of telling myself. Because I came out wrong every single time. This is the sole source of anxiety in the age and place I live. The refusal to surrender to the obvious truths.

I am clueless about how things work and so is everyone around me. Those who claim differently are the ones in the worst pain. I belong to you. My pride has been crushed so well that I cannot deny that. It makes my life good. I am provided for. I am helped. I am loved in ridiculous ways and every day I see the infinite faces of you. Humility has been such a big gain.

Reality is harsh in the external after coming to you. I do feel as though I regularly receive royal servings of rejection, in ways and for reasons I can’t fully understand. I understand. That too, my size; small. I experience endless beauty in others. Each pair of eyes, a heaven in waiting. It’s how I see you, and you recognize yourself in me, I think that is the perfect prayer. I find you everywhere, all the names belong to you, for sure. I can’t contain myself.

I find peace in your words. The impossible love in the distance you travel to give those who refuse you platform, warmth and wealth is heartbreakingly beautiful. I do not know how to match that posture but I would like to learn. I wonder about you. Love is an impossible task, and you, constantly moving to create life and insisting on giving it the choice to see you back, or not. Mostly not. You, the perfect, the supreme, the cause. Them, the uneven with you, aggressive against you. You, giving them the choice, to choose what’s inferior to you. You continue to provide for them. You continue to provide. You continue to provide. I don’t understand the sheer generosity. The universe is ridiculous. It’s fascinating. 

That is divinity. That is love. I don’t know it any other way. I chased all my life. I chased what I already had. I mistook you for people. For status. For paychecks. For fame. It was an easy mistake to make. I couldn’t help but commit it against myself. So I understand.

My father’s first birthday after his passing will happen this month. I cannot gift him any material thing this year. Despite his humorous attempts at knocking on the transparent barrier between the two of us a couple times since his departure, we cannot actually give anything to each other. I just say, happy birthday, and on this occasion I share two answers to the question he asked about you in the close to last diary entry he wrote:

“Can one define love in one word or even one complete sentence?”

Two contradictory answers, because such is the design of the universe. One: words are cheap. Silence is more truthful because it is non-existent, eternal, undefinable, which allows this love to be as impossible as it actually is. In the negative space, the infinite depth unfolds. Words can’t do it, as people can probably tell with this right now.

Two: man is God’s word in the flesh. Love is the only true expression of this lifetime. Pursuing love is innate, it’s what leads biological evolution. Likewise, the inherited lifetime from father to child, is a continuous phrase of praise. Diverse. Some words better than others. My father’s...probably impossible to surpass. Beautiful in a weakening way that only truth can do. I swayed. He was nothing but a breeze as he left, my aunt said. I agree.

I give my lifetime to his good question, and particularly I give the next year and more to the specifics of my answer to the last phase of his life. I hope he enjoys it. Happy birthday and thank you for the gift of sight.

PS I find it cool that my father was an eye doctor. Makes me understand divine comedy in ways that are better than reading that very long poem by Dante.

Lord, elevate my father and those we’ve lost, shower them with your mercy and lead them to your grace. You are the most trustworthy to take care of them. I rest my chase and surrender to you. The all merciful. The endless space. May you reveal your face to them everywhere they turn.

[ayshaelshamayleh]

on either side of panes

Be as the consistent hum of the water pump

that runs a jazz hymn in my ears while my body 

sits, morning to dawn, hunched over sickly ideas 

that live in a darkened well of creative aloneness. 

I see words, sometimes I see my end coming soon. 

I’m learning the consistent blackness of my recent 

dreams about unlit whirlpools and drugs, waiting in a red 

car for Jacob to pick up and lend me a fix. It’s a sorry 

sleep I wade in. I am new to the consistent crates that 

make my chest a soft face of the moon while listening 

to feelings about death. I think about you in those moments

resting your ear on my ribcage to find the hover of

aerospace; a comet, an explosive beat every billion

years but usually nothing. I think of your obsession 

with distant outbursts and passionate dislike of

intimate connection. It makes me want to do two

things; shield you from it and be sorry it’s here

I often urge death to come closer, the electric wait

for her is an acidic puddle in my stomach I cannot

hop over. I want to tell you I am tired of growing up.

The pain of extended maturity hurts. I want to repeat

conversations I hear in my house, how the sick have

come to terms with heaven but not the painful body

of passing. How I tell the healthy I’ll be there tomorrow

even with my need to get on a plane in near years

and land in place where love is legal. I feel so alone 

in those conversations, always wanting a hand to hold.

You believe in satellite bonds and appreciate what

your good hands cannot hold; Your relationship with the 

hard moon is exemplary. You confuse love with longing 

and I live a small life on earth that loves and loses what’s close. 

[ayshaelshamayleh]

Love Between Audacity & Theft

Beside brief handwritten phrases containing strands of clarity within the bundle of confused life I have not written in over two months. I’ve had nothing to say. Periods of creative drought are always accompanied by heightened pain and a diminished capacity to juice the strife into expression. I tend to feel lousy about myself in the meantime.

My meditation practice has been beneficial in one regard. It has walked me to the solid conclusion that most things in life are cyclical -breath, awakeness, and the creative process prove this. Still I maintain that certain human feelings disobey the rule. Vulnerability is a constant as far as I can tell. Affection too and an appreciation for books.  

The narrative my life has adopted over the past 5 years has been ridiculous. There is something so definitive about it. In four months I plan to leave my job for an attempt at heart-labor; a project I will love but which I have not yet figured out. The prospect of poverty and the possibility of my turning out to be a lazy anti-capitalist bum agitates me but perhaps not as much as the prospect of long-term mediocrity while serving corporate greed. In my current job I serve corporate greed. And in every job I’ve ever had I’ve served one thing or another that I don’t respect. And I’ve covered all job sectors in a small country in a span on 5 years - NGOs, public sector, journalism and private sector. I am sure I am to blame in part but the very system of labor (as applied in capitalist economies) is flawed in my awareness and I no longer have the patience to appease the boss who gives the work assignments that are only assigned to wring ROIs out of my mind and make sure I’m not a sunken cost. I am more as far as I feel; I’ve decided my feelings are important.

I long to create something small that exploits my heart and feeds me, something I can give to the world that is sincere. I also long for companionship; it is the second of two things that sit in the realm of my all-important feelings about life.

I believe in living on the giving end of love. I got here when I last lost almost everything and was too young for the austerity. I spent every morning for ten months collapsing and couldn’t stay on the feet for the hour it takes to get dressed then slowly began to understand that whether or not I ever live on the receiving end of anything isn’t any of my business. One can only have a say about the giving end of the things they appreciate. That’s something you should never leave your twenties before you learn or earn, it’s been both for me. You’ve got to only worry about your own work. Always be the first to give what you most want to have in the world. That is good work. That is honest living. That is hard earned joy.

The giving is something no one will take away from you but it won’t protect you. Sometimes it sucks to be human. Sometimes you’ll feel definitively alone in crowds. Your friends aren’t your friends. Your public persona is uncomfortable. In my case I am myself only occasionally when I can come to a set of walls and converse with someone behind swelling rows of barricades. If a brick is to fall I’d cement it back with my own hands because I can’t take a thing unless it says I’m allowed. That mentality is a concern when it comes to making a living by myself outside the security of a system, as I plan to do. I worry that I don’t know how to fight for the things I feel, or how to be worthy of them. I give myself a hard time about it and watch achingly as friends seize objects of interest by the throat. This is how giving injures me; not knowing how to draw a line between audaciousness and theft.  

[ayshaelshamayleh]

bubble football with journalists :)

[ayshaelshamayleh]

Why the Online World is Difficult to Write About (in fiction)

May 11, 2015 Over the past couple of years I’ve been preoccupied with questions about the political and social dimensions of the Internet. My desire to communicate my generation’s narrative in writing has come with the difficulty of reflecting the new world of modernized human communication and behavior in the timeless form of a poem or a novel. Having half your life online may be a non-issue in reality, but when it comes to the written word and fiction it’s a nightmare. Linguistic communication and the political landscape are different now than they were when JD Salinger was producing books. From what I see, through a lense that’s as narrow as the volume of literature one person can consume over the course of the year, many successful contemporary writers are avoiding the issue completely by basing their narratives in historical settings or fantasy worlds. The ones who are indeed trying to write about the modern world aren’t resonating with me, personally.

Here’s what has changed for us in the real world and why writing about it is difficult - politically, the close succession of the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Anonymous, Wikileaks and Aaron Swartz’ suicide revealed a first-of-its-kind global faceoff between the masses (aided by the Internet that is well understood by the average programmer and hacker) and the very (old school and offline) institution of government, which is visibly struggling with a historical thirst for control. Public ignorance, which is necessary for propaganda, was and is something most governments thrive upon. However the internet, a tool that promises borderless democratic access to information to the first, second and third worlds, is undeniably aggressively probing and poking the political system to react. This access to information has created a more evolved population of readers. At 26, I know much more than my parents do at 60, simply because in lieu of time-consuming, small, censored, and scarcely funded libraries I have Google (which I fear could form a future information monopoly but that’s a different point). My borderless knowledge of different political, economic and social systems in my country and beyond means I’m more aware and less of a fool. In the eyes of government, this is why my generation is more dangerous than any other. This makes me different, as a writer and reader.

Cyberspace is a new ground, one to which the traditional social contract between citizen and government cannot be simply extended without a negotiation process. What rights does the user sacrifice to a governing body in return for the law, order and protection against theft, fraud and murder? This is a question that is currently being answered by my generation - in the meantime, and to the writer’s despair or joy (whichever you prefer), there are no final answers or a stable reality yet. The debate gives a modern glimpse into an old tale of the human savage in a lawless state, and why and how governments ever came to existence. I personally struggle with authority and government essentially because, at least according to my philosophy classes at an elite or elitist (whichever you prefer) educational institution, my nomadic ancestors sacrificed their rights to endless mobility and an existence outside the justice system in order to enter a social contract with a government in return for a long list of nobel services.

Do I receive any those? I’m not sure because I am acutely aware of hemorrhages in public spending, rampant corruption, social security indebtedness, writers’ censorship and media-sponsored lies exposed (or not) by a thousand different opinions served to me daily by citizen journalism and social media platforms. The abundance of truths makes me confused, but it also gives me the right to choose between them. I never opted to charitably give up my rights for free - I believe in accountability. This is all to say, thanks to access to information, as an online user I’ve got more power than my parents’ generation has ever had. This changes my character and that of those around me in reality and in fiction.

It may not be a coincidence that the offline protests/revolutions of 2011-2013 came hand in hand with online civil disobedience. My generation is a complex one, one whose consciousness extends beyond the tangible physical realm of the real world - the Internet is a virtual space that keeps the ghost-like limbs of our personalities. I have a very difficult time explaining my life to my parents. Last weekend, in the hours of conversation only an internet-barren desert can afford a person these days, a friend pointed out how amusing it was to watch our parents use Facebook. How their offline codes of conduct applied to the online space; “I must like the picture on my friend’s wall showing her daughter’s wedding and comment with a long congratulating message about that fine upbringing.” I don’t do these things - I don’t feel obligated to react to anyone for anything they do online and that has extended to my offline world, where I suffer in the face of the very idea of greeting people I barely know or with whom I have disagreements because I -also in being shy or introverted- struggle fiercely while navigating the offline social scene. But because I have access to a virtual venue that allows me to choose who I want to interact with and when, my human need for socializing is met in those ways. Whether that is good or not is besides the point. This is reality, and it is the skeleton of our stories and narratives.

The issue is how do the writers of my generation communicate this change in the conditions of human behavior and resulting shift in our perception of existence? I’ve been working on a novel for the past two years and wrestle mightily in framing the narrative in a technological world - every time I write  “my phone buzzed and a text message read “something something something”” I cringe, because there is something traditional (and timeless) about novels, and -although I do read new fiction- none of my favorite books -the ones happen to resonate with me personally - ever mentioned text messaging. Those books I look up to didn’t live in a time where the task of engineering a solution to the re-wired pillars of human communication is necessary. The bright side is that there is no right or wrong, only experimentation and that is exciting, if successful it could be an important feat. The dark side is that the job is hard and requires so much writing and rewriting all while needing to keep in touch with new and newer trends. I still don’t know how to -gracefully- incorporate human communication platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp into a narrative. I can only imagine what having to include SnapChat would mean. Still the task is crucial to creating books that are relevant to the lives of millennials.

[ayshaelshamayleh]

The conditions necessary for creative evolution & the desire to learn how to keep a journal

May 5, 2015

It’s the second day after the 30 poems in 30 days challenge and although there are creative projects I’ve put on the back burner for the sake of completing the challenge, I am having a difficult time disappearing. Writing in secrecy has its advantages in the sense that it is more daring in experimentation, since failure is safer in privacy. However, the very pressure of releasing unfinished works and the vulnerability that sits in that is challenging, makes the writer’s identity as a thing that writes more legitimate, dilutes the stubborn barrier between the public and private persona, keeps an ego in check, and pushes the limits of everyday expression and thought (and in the off-chance of success, it can do that to the few readers).

Like the average twenty-something person, I have gone through the sort of massive highs and lows that in older age give you a grip over the full wavelength of wisdom. In contrast to athletes and entertainers, it is only the poets and writers whose chances of success improve the older they grow. That’s the only calming force I find in my average fear of wasted youth and growing older; that I will get better at writing, at loving, these two are one and the same.

In the meantime, I have written articles under a pen name 5 years ago and a friend who had read them -not knowing they were mine until last night- freed herself of the social obligation of self-censorship in front of people we care about and expressed her raw impression of the articles’ not-so-good quality. I appreciate those moments beyond belief, they are important and honest. The impressions and outcomes of artistic works should never be taken personally. At some point you realize you are only a vessel (good as far as the weather, the distance from your departure and the one to your destination allows you - youth is your enemy, you sail up its stream). Your craft is a leather shoe that can only get more comfortable, unique, and indispensable the longer you walk on this journey to that quintessential volume of work, which you shall never judge on the scale of good to bad but true to your vision or not. You will die and it may last or not, you as an entity are so unimportant. Your only obligation is to keep perfecting your voice until it reflects your messiest and most knowledgeable and vulnerable parts. 

Artistic growth is about attaining the perfect balance of control and lack thereof, and that is an impossible job. Get busy with it - that’s what I tell myself whenever I worry. I began this blog 3 years ago in what I thought was a liberating move to unclothe myself of the fear that had demanded a pen name, confused about how best to associate with myself, and this platform was self-served mercy; a place to be honest, fine-tune the voice and thought, available but not demanding of attention. My former boss once lent me Sylvia Plath’s unabridged journals, I am reminded now of -how I never gave it back, and any other book that has ever been lent to me, but also- the usefulness of keeping a journal, to document the trajectory and ideas. Combine that with the challenge of making unfinished works available in the public domain and it sounds like a good potion. I have never managed to keep a journal, but I want to try again here.

[ayshaelshamayleh]

Day 30

This is part of a 30 poems in 30 days challenge, for National Poetry Month. These poems are in their raw states, a polaroid version of themselves, written and shared on the same day.

The last poem houses the pressure to say something

with finality, before the plug is pulled on the excuse

to produce instant landingstrips of thought every

morning. Tomorrow I return to the hushed labor of

writing the book. In the meantime, what I will believe

to be absolutely true, beyond this day, is passion.

The itch below your navel, in your gut, that extends

upwards piercing through your throat, to stand

vertically for the people you love, the ideas you

thrive upon, the projects you give handfuls of your reck-

less youth to, which you know you have a finite

supply of. I pray that you give yourself fully and forgive

your heart if the entities change or if they never do -

both extremes are matters humans have trouble with

(changeability and especially consistency). When in doubt,

make life smaller, and listen to the song of your pulse,

the story of why you’re here hides in it. You are the author

of your life, to a great extent, so take the time to craft

a good tune, not a bestselling one, but one that best reflects

your inner, secret life; your voice in communicating with

yourself, be sure to speak to the world with it. That is

your honesty and -if no one else- then I cherish it. I am not

a fan of farewells, but I leave you with hesitence, until next

April. May the winds blow in your favor.  

[ayshaelshamayleh]

Day 29

This is part of a 30 poems in 30 days challenge, for National Poetry Month. These poems are in their raw states, a polaroid version of themselves, written and shared on the same day.

What is there to say about the artistic journey at 26.

I know little beyond the darkness lasting long then

blasting bright as the fire of angst released itself

through my throat to an audience of American strangers

who judged little and loved strong. My mouth moved

furiously, as if the almost two decades of silence had

shaped my inner life as a quiet orange room with neat

furniture and a TV set that’s on with no one behind it,

where the rockus lived in the kitchen and while the dusk

inched closer the doom of a deep deep sadness smelled

scorched.That’s how it felt all the years before poetry,

with the walls carrying frames of sharp memories and

I’d stand in the middle of the room spinning round and

round till it dizzied me and I couldn’t piece together what

had happened before I had locked myself in. But the rage.

I knew the rage, there, beneath a dining room table, felt heavily

neglected by the woods of bigger bodies asking for obedience.

Burn the world burn the world, in my adolescence I set fire to

people, to the streets, to the government, to cigarettes, to myself,

to good words and I wrote like a maniac with nothing to hold on

to but a boat cupped by my skull, floating on words till I conquered

the beast of a heart I had beating in the place of a clock. That

is what poetry gave me. I was ashamed this time

of how the present moves to the past despite me,

how I wanted equality, how the mundane growth

of ravens on my parents’ trees moved me, how

hurting someone broke me, how everyday I remind

myself of who I am - a soft puddle, an open

faced vulnerability, that is what it is. I want an inner

room that is welcoming for a thousand different types

of people despite my shyness or limited sociability -

otherwise I can never understand the pulp of life,

and I must because at 21 in the darkness I had

made a choice to live and for writing honestly to

[ayshaelshamayleh]

Day 28

This is part of a 30 poems in 30 days challenge, for National Poetry Month. These poems are in their raw states, a polaroid version of themselves, written and shared on the same day.

As the day waned, I slumped into the thick pool of fatigue

like a sea lion. “What will make you hate me?” my phone

buzzed by my arm. “Nothing.” I am incapable of hating

certain characters in my life, this was one of them. For

others, never hate, but a cease in malleability was possible;

these dealings tend to go silent after a clash. I react solidly

when there’s a shortage of forgiveness, my flaws necessitate

it, otherwise the greetings haunt me with difficulty and I fall

blind in public. I have no ounce of ungratefulness, its just that

the spent corners can’t afford a social democracy. I know I’ve

never been easy to strike a bond with. Taking me requires a

propensity to pardon, but I’ve got so much of it for you, please

always know you can come and douse yourself.

[ayshaelshamayleh]

Day 27

This is part of a 30 poems in 30 days challenge, for National Poetry Month. These poems are in their raw states, a polaroid version of themselves, written and shared on the same day.

Ode to Family

At times in my daily solitude, I hold each of you -scattered as you are around the world like poultry feed for your generation to grow on- in my heart. I do not know your emotional life as much as I know my friends’ - the intricate details were withheld in chambers of secrecy- but nevertheless I see a strife within you that I pray for without your knowing. I hold you in high regard, each of you, not merely because you are where I come from, but I trust you’ve got an opulence of spirit, and if there is one thing I work on releasing, then it is this communication with you about my faith in your yield.

To my father, I hope to read a thousand pages of my own construction that speak of patience, of kindness, of forgiveness, of radical mercy. He is a giving tree that has found itself barren in old age -will he understand I had harvested all he has had and feel no ounce of guilt about it, because that is parenthood and now in my wealth I will sing his praise and sit in his shade, and he must find peace in this gentle exchange of the living.

To my mother, I hope to extend in strength and say she is the solid ground I belong to both when I rise and when I fall, temporarily or with finality. She is my be-all, end-all, all my good parts, and the soft creases within myself. I fear her impending misunderstanding of the most private parts of my identity. I pray for her to remember my normalcy and that that will lay itself like a staircase to a higher understanding of love and all impractical concepts that make existence bearable.

To my eldest sister, I hope to remind her that she is the high goddess I looked up to till I grew as tall as she. She is my pride, shuffling around labs, trying to discover the brain of man. She is all my original parts; the poet first, then the striving giver. I owe her my youth. I owe her that distance she extended between me and orphanhood. I hope to one day hold her hand, and tell her to feel the breath -the one that comes despite responsibilities and ambition. I hope to hear her tell me how she made it, in all the ways she wants and all the ways that were beyond her expectation.

To my older sister I’d say her fear -that misconstrues itself as red blame on its way out- is fear, shuddering on the floor of the unknown and begging for a change of mind. Her tears down the cheeks of the hospital bed told truth, the fragility of her faith in the world is out of sincere connectedness. I hope for her to know that I am here facing trials of a similar shape in this world, and so in whichever direction the winds of change blow I promise to work my hardest to stand still by our kin. The nation’s news is told in her fatigued voice, and my salutes grant themselves to her difficult labor. She is my pride, traveling between refugee camps, uncovering the story of manhood in a state of war.

To my youngest sister I wrote all my poems (87 pages full) since 2012. She is my nerves, a little more sensitive to cruelty and apologetic than I turned out to be. She is currently learning how to navigate the skies of adulthood without the communication with air traffic control towers. Let her sway out of course till she arrives at her own string of voice and purpose, that is what older siblings are for. She is also my pride, weighing and reconciling the opposite forces of anger and guilt, trying to grapple with this strange worrying place of existence.

[ayshaelshamayleh]

Day 26

This is part of a 30 poems in 30 days challenge, for National Poetry Month. These poems are in their raw states, a polaroid version of themselves, written and shared on the same day.

The cosmic rotation was hinged upon

Venus, anchored in a wooden seat at

night in a wild place where young bodies

swarmed like an asteroid belt between

tables in the black warmth. I was the stationary

Jupiter, sitting with thick glasses and listening

to rocket countdowns to someone’s intoxication

behind me. My surroundings were just a

persistent noise in a whirlpool of movement

that didn’t matter. My dealings regarding

the insanity of the world were only impressionable

in as far as they related to the noteworthy. We were

two planets on the outside terrace. The slight pull

on the center of my gravity whenever one of us

shifted in the physical dimension was a

curious subject of physics. When Venus

finally swerved beyond sight I was left staring

at a triangle I made with my hands on the table,

swiveling around my own axis as if the big bang

of our run-in had instituted a delirious spin.