Who says you can't?

There's a lot of work to do out there.  Lots of problems to solve.  Lots of issues to think through.  Big problems.  Big issues.  There's a growing disparity between the rich and the poor, marginalization of various groups of people in our society, juvenile delinquency, pollution, global warming, declining fish stocks, unsustainable and inhumane ways of raising livestock... I could go on... 

Faced with such problems, it's easy to throw up our hands and give up.  Who are we to address these issues?  We're not experts.  We didn't spend our lives studying this in school.  We're not qualified.

Then, I remember something that Dr. Abdal Hakim Jackson said at the Reviving the Islamic Spirit Convention 2011.  He said:

The people who started Harvard University 

were not graduates of Harvard University.

It's so obvious and yet so brilliant.

The definitive cure

This past week, I attended the Reviving the Islamic Spirit Knowledge Retreat.  There's so much I want to write about it.  But this morning, as I was trying to put something together, I was stuck.  Again.

It's the same wall that I've hit before.  I don't want to write something until I can write it just right.  (I'm just recognizing now the arrogance in that statement -- the assumption that I can and should only write things that are 'just right'.  As if anything else would not be worthy of me.  Ouch.)  Then, if I can't formulate the complete, fully formed thought from the beginning and middle to the end, I don't even start writing.  And I'm stuck.

This reminded me of one of the things we learned in the retreat about purifying and refining the self.  Dr. Abdal Hakim Jackson was teaching from Taj Al Arus by Ibn Ata Illah.  It's a collection of aphorisms regarding refinement of the self.  With regards to fixing bad character traits that one finds in oneself (such as arrogance, for example), there was one line in the book that said:

Do not be like the sick person who says, 
'I will not treat my illness until I find the definitive cure.'

You will not find the definitive cure until you treat your illness.

It's just another reminder to take the step and make the effort -- even if you're not certain that the first step will take you where you want to go.  Because what is certain, is that without taking any steps, you're not going to get anywhere.