At the library’s youth maker fair today, a heavyset woman sat at the 4-H table, sharing brochures about programs relevant to kids and adults. I greeted her, picked up some brochures, and asked questions about the 4-H festival which I loved attending before Covid. Out of nowhere, Kathleen began to tell me about her daughter’s accident where she was pushed, suffered a brain injury, and almost lost use of her hands. This mother recounted the trauma of hearing her daughter scream into the phone and lay in a ditch because she was pushed or hit by another vehicle while walking. She said that in that period, she was not involved with 4-H due to her caregiving duties for her adult daughter.
I have no idea why Kathleen was telling me this, but this happens often, that people tell me things. Things I would rather not know. One minute her daughter is healthy and vibrant and the next she suffers a traumatic brain injury. This was a reminder that health is fickle and unpredictable.
Today’s reminder is to be more conscious about these gifts we often take for granted.
“Whoever among you wakes up physically healthy, feeling safe and secure within himself, with food for the day, it is as if he acquired the whole world.”
- narrated from Salamah bin ‘Ubaidullah bin Mihsan Al-Ansari
This hadith is a reminder of the gifts of physical health, safety, security, and food. None of these things are guaranteed for any of us. We can’t buy or earn or manufacture health, safety or security. Not really, anyway. These are gifts from the Creator. And if you have these things, along with food for the day, you have the whole world. The mindset here is that we have abundance when we have these things.
We live in a time where security, safety, health, and food are not guaranteed for millions of people displaced by genocide, war or political unrest. As of today, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the total number of forced migrants globally, including refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons is around 114 million. When I asked ChatGPT, the data was old, from 4 years ago, the number was estimated to be around 82.4 million. That’s a 37% increase. While we invent smarter machines, our world continues to be become more unstable, more insecure, more hungry.
In fact, according to this agency, up to 828 million people—more than 10 percent of the world's population—still go to bed hungry each night. In Afghanistan, 22.8 million people (55 percent of the population) are suffering from acute food insecurity and the country’s needs are surpassing those of other worst-hit countries, including Ethiopia, South Sudan, Somalia and even Yemen. Read Bathoul Ahmad’s account on the scale of human suffering on Yemen here.
I used to fund national trauma-informed work in healthcare and education where I saw firsthand, how the majority of Americans experience and internalize their traumatic events, as if one’s sense of security and safety are displaced entirely when something bad happens. I read accounts of people feeling traumatized by their parents, relatives, workplace, etc. There was a normalization of "trauma” as the defacto state of people’s lives. I do not diminish the suffering imagined or real that people experience as a result of their mental health, but I do find the juxtaposition interesting. A
According to this hadith, you have the whole world if you have enough to eat for the day, and your physical and mental health. In the hadith above, security and safety are internal, something you feel regardless of your circumstances.
At the library, this space for community members to come and enjoy an afternoon with their kids, there was a real sense of security. Here’s a photo of a child making a “seed bomb” out of soil, clay, and water. While there were a lot of kids excited to use the 3D printers and play with robots, organizations like the masjid, 4H, the library, and the local horticultural society offer ways for people to connect to each other in their environment.
A Question For You
What are good deeds you’re planting in the world? There’s no limit to what you can do, given your gifts of health, security, food, and safety.
Welcome to Sadia’s Ramadan Learning Series, which offers micro-lessons for a joyful Ramadan. Thanks so much for your engagement and learning along with me!
Here’s what I have so far: (Am I going to do this for 29 days?!)
Pre-Read: Ramadan: A Guest That Stays a Month.
Lesson 1: A Small Intention
Lesson 2: 3 Levels of Fasting
Lesson 3: Sleep is a Gift
Lesson 4: Do Less, Not More