Mornings in Jenin

I looked at my daughter and knew, as I know the sun will set and rise again, that I loved her with a longing and depth more profound than time, more profound than God.

did not love for the pleasure of fulfillment or gratitude. She loved against her will.

healing and peace can begin only with acknowledgment of wrongs committed

She loved beyond measure,

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and he bends you with his might that his arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

can say I love her, but those careless, overused words would demean the immensity of what I feel. Fatima is the air I breathe. She is the reason for all promises. The embodiment of tenderness. She is love.

the Arab world, gratitude is a language unto itself. “May Allah bless the hands that give me this gift”; “Beauty is in your eyes that find me pretty”; “May God extend your life”; “May Allah never deny your prayer”; “May the next meal you cook for us be in celebration of your son’s wedding . . . of your daughter’s graduation . . . your mother’s recovery”; and so on, an infinite string of prayerful appreciation.

In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise be to the God of the worlds, the Merciful, the Compassionate, Lord of the Day of Judgment. You do we worship and to You do we turn for help. Guide us to the true path, the path of those whom You have favored. Not those who have incurred Your wrath. Nor those who have strayed. Amen.

love you as big as the ocean and all its fishes. As big as the sky and all its birds. As big as the earth and all her trees.”

“What about the universe and all its planets?

A magnificent sun poured its light over the hills like yellow paint and lit the old Arab homes that were enduring the perils of abandonment.