The Fragility of Life and the Search for Inner Clarity

This past week I turned on the television and I saw a vision on the TV of people appearing to be standing on water, a lot of them. In fact they weren’t standing on water, they were standing on the wing of an airplane, that was partially submerged and it just looked like they were standing on water. But it didn’t make it any less of a miracle. Of course everybody knows what I am talking about, and that’s the plane that lost its engines flying out of LaGuardia and the pilot was able to glide it into the Hudson River without any power.

This morning people were being interviewed who had survived the crash, all of them survived, and they were asked questions like, “What were you thinking as the plane was landing?” And this one woman said, “I was thinking I didn’t tell enough people that I loved them.” And then she thought, “I was going to die but then I looked up and we were alive, now I’m thinking there must be something else I have to do in my life and I’ve been given time and grace in order to accomplish that.”

Every once in a while God, Allah, chooses to show the entire world that He can do as He wills. And that miracles are not difficult for Him. And when we see that we have a moment of understanding and a moment of recognition. These moments are very important in life. They are the moments when we realize the majesty of our existence and simultaneously the wonder of it. And at the same time how all of it is held together by a filament as thin as a hair. And that our life is something like a bubble and it floats and then it bursts. And when it bursts it’s done. Yet as fragile as that bubble is it can exist through amazing, incredible difficulties, and difficult situations.

These moments when we are at a sort of peak recognition of the temporary nature of our existence and at a peak recognition of the fact that our lives are suspended like a thread and may be taken from us at any second, these moments of peak recognition throw us into another state. Because all of a sudden all of the things that we’ve been thinking about that are really very temporary in nature and will have very little meaning to us, fall away from us as if they weren’t there, and the important things stream to the forefront, like I didn’t tell enough people that I love them, I didn’t get to say goodbye to the most important people in my life, that I didn’t express my inner gratitude for all that certain people have done for me. Or more directly, taken the opportunity to express my gratitude to my Lord for my existence and I haven’t had the time in my life to get to know who it is that I am so grateful to, who it is that has held me up, who it is that has taken me safely through this journey through existence, who has pulled me out of the fire so many times and who has let me start over and over and over each time that we fall away from the truth, fallen away from reality, fallen away from what’s appropriate.

Our life becomes very pointed in these moments, very centered. And our state changes. Now we have to ask ourselves this question, why does it take momentous occasions like that for us to be able to see clearly? Why can’t we sustain that point of view and that sight throughout our day, throughout our weeks, throughout our years? Why do we lose the instantaneous nature of the moment? That moment when those people who were descending into the water, they weren’t thinking about the past and they weren’t thinking about the future, they were right there, what’s happening now. Well the only place that we are is right here with what’s happening now.