The Stream

Through the forest the wind
does whistle and up the stream
where time does end
a backwards clock
and pounds the drizzle
that fills the lake
for fish and men
with all the things
of which we're made
so to walk into the glade
or swim on down
past the still
and green green trees
that leave us by
to swim and leap
beneath the mountains
oh so steep.
Can you hear
the water call
as it treads
the waterfall?
These breaths betray
the breeze and say
today you might go away.



The Time...from an ongoing discussion I have been involved in for about fifteen years on a message bored...I mean board. I've known some of these people for over a decade! And they still get into the nastiest arguments....
I appreciate both people and have known you both for a long, long
time. I wouldn't referee this match if you paid me.


People just need to relax and get along. The point is to learn
something..share ideas you know.

The Islamic calendar....doesn't stream well into modern life because
it is ever changing in the geared-to-Gregorian year. In all
actuality, you need both things and a year actually ends up being
the Metonic one which is roughly nineteen years long. But we cannot
have birthdays so far apart it seems!

It isn't a competition you know and the fact of the matter is....we
live in space and we don't even know which part of space we live in
or whether it has edges, directions, etc. Time itself is distorted
and I think it is the most amazing thing that we live in a "plane"
of existence where the sun and moon are available to us to "reckon"
our days and our lives. Without them we'd not know where we stood
and truly, we'd not be alive to know about our ignorance either!

This is what the Quran relates about it and it cannot be refuted by
anyone. Period.

[6.96] He causes the dawn to break; and He has made the night for
rest, and the sun and the moon for reckoning; this is an arrangement
of the Mighty, the Knowing.

The argument that ought to be waged however isn't about which
calendar is best or more accurate (in a universe of many
conclusions) but rather the argument is about causality. Wicked
little argument that it is and if I had a nickel for every time I've
seen it waged here at the Cafe or elsewhere...and I don't
particularly want to wage it again because it tends to be a circular
argument.

I'll just state the case of Causality in the Quran. To me it is
perhaps one of if not the most important statements in the whole
Quran:

[25.45] Have you not considered (the work of) your Lord, how He
extends the shade? And if He had pleased He would certainly have
made it stationary; then We have made the sun an indication of it -
from The Distinction

Two things.

1. We BELIEVE that the sun creates our shadow but the Quran refutes
that and states that it is only made to appear that way. Allah
actually created everything independent of everything else with
unique characteristics that are so fantastically arranged that they
APPEAR to have causes and outcomes that are intrinsically related.

But they aren't and the world is an illusion.

2. When Armstrong walked on the moon he found that distances and
surfaces could not be judged accurately by his senses. What
appeared to be close was in fact far away and what appeared to be
deep was in fact shallow.

The eyes do deceive us.



So. Which calendar is accurate?

Neither.


The Islamic calendar is dedicated to actions associated with worship
of Allah.

The solar calendar is dedicated to actions associated with the
material world.

It's all about measuring things accurately in the first place and to
be honest, I've never quite understood why it would be the case that
ancient people had to invent a calendar in the first place except
that they wanted to know about the future events so that they could
plan better. That is common to us all....ignorance about the morrow.

There is no one who knows about the future except the prophets or
who related it with any accuracy whatsoever. That isn't to say that
we always understood their prophecies but we do try.

The most important prophecy in my estimation is relating to the
prophets themselves and the people to whom they were sent. Back in
the day....prophets were sent to certain groups..usually villages
that were isolated from other places. We don't know about the other
places so much except what exists in the historical records and the
archeology. We only have these few handfuls of stories about
ancient people.

Okay..so cut to the chase.

Prophets were sent to clearly defined people...the people of Noah,
the people of Madyan, the people of Gomorrah, etc. Each group was
given a prophecy of destruction and ordered to mend their ways and
each of them (with one exception that I know of and that would be
the people of Jonah) were destroyed. One prophet for one group.
Other communities apparently were unaffected by those events.

Then you have the last prophet and messenger named Mohamed (SA). He
was sent to which group and with which prophecy?

It is something that concerns us all you know and even if people
don't believe in an End Times they usually know a person who does.

So...he was sent to the whole of mankind.

Al'ham'dulillah.

And so the question is...who will listen? I'd
say..personally...that the message is loud and clear. Not a person
on the planet hasn't heard that there is a very big religious
conundrum about.

The Catholic church is reconsidering celibacy....and rightly so.

Those are the signs that something bigger than anyone here is at
work and no one can stop the clock now. They can only try to hear
it ticking.