First: Mending as a Belief in Return and the Possibility of Repair
If treating what is defective meant throwing it away and abandoning it, then the first one deserving to be thrown away would be the human being himself, for there is no human being free from flaws, mistakes, and shortcomings. If everything affected by a defect deserved to be neglected, nothing in existence would remain worth keeping. Mending is an art practiced only by those who have realized that the solution does not always lie in throwing things away, that treatment does not lie in abandonment, and that confronting a flaw does not mean surrendering to despair or abandoning what has been damaged, but rather attempting to repair it and restore it to a better condition.
Someone may come to you and say that you are merely patching things up, and you may assume that there is an insult in his words, even though mending is, in reality, an honorable act; because it expresses a refusal to surrender to imperfection and a belief that what has been damaged does not necessarily lose its value or deserve to be cast aside. When you patch a torn garment, you are not deceiving yourself about the existence of the hole; rather, you acknowledge its existence and work to repair it. If you were to throw away every garment with a hole, you would find no garment left to wear, because all clothes are exposed to tearing, just as all existing things are exposed to deficiency and defect.
Mending is not a denial of imperfection; rather, it is an acknowledgment that imperfection should not constitute a final judgment on something. At the same time, it is a form of human self-preservation; because a person who abandons himself at the first mistake, and cannot accept being imperfect or making mistakes, is effectively condemning himself to destruction at the first turning point. As for the one who continues repairing, he does not allow a mistake to become a reason for losing hope.
True salvation, therefore, lies in not losing hope and in preserving the possibility of return. Praise be to God for the existence of a door called return; because without this door, no possibility of repentance, repair, or recovery of what has been lost would remain. If everyone who made a mistake deserved to have the final punishment imposed upon him, only a few people would remain. And if everyone affected by a flaw did not deserve bliss, no one would deserve it, because no human being is free from imperfection.
Belief in resurrection is, at its core, belief in life itself. If we were to deny resurrection, it would be as though we were denying the possibility of life returning after its interruption. And if there were no return, neither waiting, nor repair, nor hope would retain any meaning. Mending, in this sense, is a belief in perfection itself; not because perfection is realized in everything, but because deficiency is not the end of the road, and because the existence of a flaw does not eliminate the possibility of overcoming it.
Second: The Impossibility of Absolute Perfection and the Possibility of Salvation
There is a fundamental paradox that must be considered: if perfection were absolutely possible for human beings, salvation would be impossible; because a human being who neither makes mistakes nor experiences deficiency nor needs repair would have no need for return, repentance, or compensation. The possibility of salvation is connected to the existence of deficiency, not because deficiency is an end in itself, but because its existence opens the way for repair, overcoming, and return.
Absolute perfection is therefore not the condition that allows salvation; rather, salvation is possible despite the impossibility of attaining such absolute perfection. For this reason, we should not regard a flaw as evidence of the absence of value, but rather as a place for work and repair. Human beings become tired, and praise be to God that they become tired; because if they did not become tired, they would never finish anything. And if there were no completion, there would be no rest, achievement, or transition from one state to another.
A person is rewarded according to what he endures, confronts, and strives against. The one who makes an effort is not equal to the one who makes no effort at all. There is no meaning in receiving a reward merely for sleeping and remaining motionless; rather, work, striving, and exhaustion each have their place in the scale of recompense.
From this perspective, we should not demand a life free of flaws, because a life that does not require repair is not the life we know. The real garment is not the one that has never been torn, but the one that was not thrown away despite the holes, tears, and wounds that affected it. The real human being is not the one who has never made a mistake, but the one who has not made his mistake a reason to abandon himself.
Third: Trust in Truth and the Rejection of Judgments That Deny the Value of Existence
What we see is not absolute, and praise be to God for that; because making what we see absolute may lead us to final and dangerous judgments about ourselves and existence. A person may see one aspect of the truth, assume that he has encompassed all of it, and then build upon what he has seen a final judgment from which there is no return.
The problem is not discovering flaws, but using awareness to issue judgments that destroy the value of the human being and make him disbelieve in himself. Someone may come to you and tell you that you are deceived, that your existence has no value, that you are moving toward an unavoidable end, and that everything you do is meaningless. But we should ask him: What follows from believing these words? If believing them requires you to disbelieve in your own existence, then you have fallen into a contradiction; because you are believing a judgment that denies the value of the very thing from which you yourself issue that judgment.
A person who tells another that he is a fool because he believes in the possibility of an ultimate purpose and wisdom does not necessarily provide evidence that such belief is mistaken. Rather, he may be the one who has overlooked a fundamental aspect of the truth: that human beings cannot live without meaning, and that their existence does not become worthless merely because some aspects of wisdom are not apparent to them.
Indeed, being unaware of certain flaws may be a blessing; because excessive awareness that knows no limits may make a person wish that he had never been conscious of everything he sees. The intention is not for a person to reject knowledge or deliberately remain ignorant, but rather not to turn everything he discovers into a decisive judgment against himself and his existence.
Fourth: The Contradiction of Believing in Absurdity While Denying Honesty and Truth
The claim that life is absurd, that the universe is a lie, and that faith, morals, and principles are all illusions raises an internal contradiction that deserves attention. If honesty does not exist at all, what makes the person making this statement honest? And if there is no truth, by what right does he demand that others believe his judgment concerning the nonexistence of truth?
Someone who says that everything is a lie and then asks you to believe his words places himself in a contradiction; because he uses the concept of truth to prove that truth does not exist. And if his words carry no value in relation to truth, there is no reason to grant those words authority over your existence or your faith.
Indeed, someone who says that life has no purpose and then calls upon others to abandon their faith, morals, and principles is not merely declaring his personal position; rather, he is attempting to make others leave their own orbits so that he will not be the only one who has left. He is not necessarily liberating them; instead, he may be making them partners in his loss of meaning.
For this reason, I reject the calls of those who claim that they have discovered the truth of the game, as though all of existence were merely a game that does not deserve to be taken seriously. There is no truth that makes everything a game, and even the frivolity that disguises itself behind seriousness does not escape the reality of its own existence. Someone who believes that he has realized that life is merely a game may himself be immersed in an assumption for which he possesses no evidence.
The matter is not simply about a difference in interpretation, but about the contradiction between demanding that a person become aware and then inviting him toward something that denies the value of his awareness; demanding that he become liberated and then leading him toward destruction; and claiming to reveal the truth to him while making the final result leave him with no meaning upon which to rely.
Awareness that leads to nothing, and does not guide a person toward a purpose, return, or salvation, becomes awareness without benefit. Therefore, we should not awaken a person only to throw him into the abyss, nor should we make him abandon everything that once gave him the ability to continue.
Fifth: Beneficial Knowledge and Its Relationship to the Purpose of Existence
If life is truly absurd, what is the meaning of knowledge? Why does humanity learn? Why are scientific institutions established? And why is effort devoted to discovering and understanding the world if all of this ultimately leads to the conclusion that nothing is worth the trouble?
Beneficial knowledge is not merely accumulated information; rather, it is knowledge that directs a person toward what benefits him and brings him closer to truth and purpose. As for knowledge that leads its possessor to say that his existence is meaningless and that everything he does is futile, it raises a question about the value of the knowledge he has acquired and the conclusion to which it has led him.
The intention is not to reject discoveries or close the doors of science, but rather to reject turning knowledge into a tool for annihilating the value of existence. Knowledge that cannot distinguish between what benefits a human being and what destroys him has not fulfilled its function completely.
A human being does not search for the truth in order to replace it with an illusion that comforts him; rather, he searches for it because he believes that truth has value, and that behind existence there is wisdom and purpose. Even the search for truth loses its meaning if the seeker has already decided that truth has no value.
From here, faith is not the acceptance of everything that appears comforting, but rather trust in the existence of hope and wisdom, even when wisdom is not apparent. What is outwardly visible is not sufficient on its own to make a final judgment, and our lack of knowledge concerning the source of certainty or all its details does not mean that certainty is nonexistent.
Sixth: Mortal Man Cannot Live Without a Purpose
The truth that cannot be ignored is that the human being is mortal, that his existence is limited, and that he cannot live without giving this existence meaning. A mortal cannot settle into living without a purpose, because purpose is what gives his existence direction, his actions value, and his waiting meaning.
If you manufacture a tool, you do not manufacture it without it having a purpose. And if something is created, its creation presupposes that there is a purpose behind its creation. No one makes an effort to construct something without there being an objective behind its construction. Therefore, the fundamental question is not merely: How were we brought into existence? But rather: What did the Creator intend by creating us?
This question is too great to be reduced to superficial conceptions that make existence a random event without purpose. The very existence of the human being is an additional value, and the transition from nonexistence to existence is not an insignificant matter.
There is a difference between the one who lived and the one who did not live, between the one who endured and the one who vanished, and between the one who acquired value and the one who lost it. The living and the dead are not equal, nor are the one who sees and the one who does not see equal. Likewise, the one who follows a path with a purpose is not equal to the one who leaves it, assuming that another purpose exists.
Enjoyment and deprivation are not the same thing, just as acquiring value and losing it are not equal. Whoever denies the existence of a purpose for enjoyment should contemplate the meaning of deprivation; because when a human being loses a blessing, he realizes the value of what he once enjoyed. Bliss is not something without value; rather, it is one of those meanings worth striving for and thanking God for.
Seventh: Belief in the One and the Rejection of Worshipping What Lies Beneath the Truth
A person who rejects the truth may find himself turning toward things that do not deserve to be his purpose. He may follow what does not truly exist, or turn desires, appearances, and temporary interests into objects of worship toward which he directs himself.
The problem here is not merely that a person follows something incorrect, but that he loses the ability to distinguish between the true purpose and the purposes he creates for himself. If what lies beneath the One has led him toward a nonexistent object of worship, then he has begun following something incapable of granting him the purpose he seeks.
The criterion is not for a person to prove that his desire agrees with the truth and then demand that others follow him, but rather to prove that what he follows is the truth. If he proves that, then hold firmly to the truth and leave desire behind.
Here, the meaning of true leadership becomes apparent. A person does not need to be a leader in everything, nor does he need to prove his independence by rejecting everyone who follows or guides him. Rather, it may be wise for him to find someone more knowledgeable than himself and more capable of recognizing what is right, follow him, and find relief from the burden of continuous conflict.
The struggle for leadership may be meaningless when the real objective is reaching the purpose, not possessing the position of leadership. A person who refuses to follow anyone merely because he wants to be the one followed may be more enslaved by arrogance than concerned with his own well-being and the fulfillment of his purpose.
Eighth: Morality Is Not a Burden That Should Be Discarded
It may be said that human beings invented religions and morality in order to avoid the absurdity and randomness of their existence, and that principles are nothing more than means created by humans to escape their anxiety toward nature. But this statement does not prove that morality is an illusion, nor does it justify abandoning it.
If nature, according to this conception, is random, why is the human being expected to return to it and make randomness the law of his life? Is he not himself the one attempting to avoid randomness by denying it and resisting the chaos it entails?
Morality is what enabled human beings to move beyond the image of direct predation, and it contributed to the disappearance of fangs from their social relationships, so that not every disagreement would require a person to eat his brother or prey upon him. If we surrendered to despair and absurdity, our dispositions might deteriorate until the fangs reappeared, not necessarily in their physical form, but in the form of cruelty, predation, and the absence of mercy.
Therefore, believing in absurdity and removing the cloak of morality is reprehensible, and mending morality is necessary even if it has been affected by defects. Whoever loves his religion repairs it, and whoever loves his morality works to restore it. As for the one who hates it, he searches for a flaw or loophole through which he can escape and get rid of it easily.
We should not be deceived by someone who attacks people of morality in the name of humanity or goodness while denying the very foundations upon which goodness is built. A person who possesses morality is better than one who lacks it, regardless of what the latter claims, because someone who denies morality and principles may turn himself into a person without restraint or reference.
If someone rejects moral coexistence and chooses to leave alone, he should not demand that others abandon their morality in order to follow him. Do not pour water for someone who rejects it and then demands that you bear responsibility for his thirst. He is the one who chose to separate himself from the community, and it is not fair for him to make others abandon their goodness so that he will not feel alone in facing the consequences of his choice.
Ninth: The Real Flaw Is Disbelief in the Possibility of Perfection
The flaw we are discussing is not merely a passing mistake or a deficiency in behavior, but rather the flaw that makes a person disbelieve in the possibility of perfection, lose confidence in the possibility of repair, and then attempt to make others share his despair.
A person may suffer from a flaw, but that does not mean that the flaw is his final reality. There may be a deficiency in one aspect of his affairs, but this deficiency does not give him the right to judge all of existence as purposeless.
Hope that what we see as a flaw may be capable of repair is not foolishness; rather, it is confidence that the truth is not necessarily against us. True foolishness, however, is for a person to use his awareness to disbelieve in himself, his existence, and everything that gives him the ability to be saved.
Someone may come to you and tell you that you are deceived, that you do not know the reality of what is happening, and that everything you believe in has no value. But ask him: Do you possess the complete certainty that allows you to issue this judgment? Do you know all the purposes, causes, and consequences? And can you turn the limitations of your knowledge into an absolute judgment on existence?
Someone who claims to know the truth of the game may himself be trapped in an illusion, because he has failed to realize that merely existing within existence makes him part of the truth, not a being outside it. What he considers an escape from the truth may simply be another manifestation of existence.
Tenth: Divine Wisdom and Justice in Judging the Human Being
Trust in divine wisdom requires believing that judgment is not arbitrary, and that God lacks no means of knowing the reality of the human being. He knows the deed, the intention, the usefulness, and the purpose. He does not need to discover what is hidden from Him, nor is He incapable of distinguishing between what deserves recompense and what does not.
Someone who imagines that God may commit injustice or make a mistake in judgment is looking at divine judgment as though it were a human judgment limited by knowledge. Belief in divine justice, however, requires confidence that God knows what we do not know, and that He does not lack any means of managing affairs or knowing the reality of His servants.
From here, we should also understand punishment. The existence of pain, suffering, and punishment is not necessarily something without benefit; rather, it may play a role in returning a person to an awareness of what benefits him and what harms him. Without pain, how would a person know that something is hurting him? Without the distinction between what is good and what is bad, how would he recognize the limits of his actions?
Praise be to God for the existence of pain just as we praise Him for the existence of blessings; because pain may be a means of alerting us, punishment may be a means of repair, and boundaries may be part of care rather than evidence of an absence of mercy.
We should not understand punishment as evidence that God wishes to destroy the human being arbitrarily. Rather, it should be viewed within the framework of divine knowledge of the human being's interests, the reality of his deeds, and his final outcome. God knows what we do not know and sees what we do not see, and we should not make the limitations of our perception the standard by which we judge His justice.
Eleventh: Trust in Divine Decree and Governance, and the Rejection of Complaining About Wisdom
True faith requires trusting the judge who knows the entire reality of the case, rather than searching for a flaw in his judgment so that we can turn that flaw into an escape route through which we evade the outcome.
If you believe that the judge is just and knowledgeable, there is no meaning in continually searching for a loophole in his judgment so that you can escape it. But if you think that the judge may make a mistake or that his judgment may not be in your favor, you will not be able to surrender yourself to him completely.
Here, the paradox of belief in divine judgment becomes apparent: the believer trusts that judgment is based on knowledge and justice, and therefore does not believe that he must search for a flaw in divine governance in order to escape it. As for the one who does not believe in this judgment, he continues searching for an escape route because he does not trust the outcome.
The same applies to trials and tribulations. A person may be tested so that he learns mending; that is, so that he learns how to repair what has affected him and how to deal with deficiency without surrendering to it. If he learns the art of mending, he becomes a tailor, capable of dealing with holes instead of making them a reason to tear the entire garment apart.
Therefore, whatever it is that you have been tested with, try to repair it, and do not stop mending. Someone may come to you and tell you that your condition has reached its end, and that what has affected you cannot be repaired. But he has no right to turn his limited assessment into a final judgment on your life.
If a blessing is incomplete, do not allow its deficiency to prevent you from being grateful for it. The value of a blessing is not completed merely through its existence, but also through praising God for it. Gratitude itself is a form of mending, because it restores meaning to the blessing and prevents a person from viewing it as an ordinary matter that does not deserve appreciation.
Twelfth: The Unification of Interests and the Shared Purpose
A person who thinks only about the destruction of others does not realize that everyone's interests may be one and the same. Why should a person wish destruction upon someone else if salvation and goodness could be a shared interest?
Unified interests are closer to the concept of unity than the fragmentation of interests, because everyone can gather around one purpose instead of each person becoming an adversary to the other and turning his own interest into harm to someone else's interest.
We do not need a world in which every person overcomes the other, nor a society in which everyone abandons mercy in order to prove their ability to survive. Rather, we need to realize that what benefits one person may also benefit another, and that goodness is not necessarily a limited resource that can only be achieved at the expense of others.
From here, the call to despair and absurdity does not harm its proponent alone; it may also harm everyone who responds to it. A person who drags others toward destruction so that he will not be alone in it does not offer them salvation; rather, he makes them partners in his loss.
Thirteenth: The Human Being Between Freedom, Leadership, and the Need for Someone More Knowledgeable
Freedom does not mean that a person must reject every form of guidance, nor that he should make randomness evidence of his independence. It may be wise for a person to acknowledge that he cannot lead himself in every matter, and that there are others who are more knowledgeable than him and more capable of knowing the way.
Indeed, a person may wish to find someone to follow, not because he wants to abandon his responsibility without thinking, but because he realizes that leadership is a heavy responsibility and that the highest position is not necessarily the best position.
The one who assumes greater responsibility bears a greater burden, and not every person is capable of carrying that trust. One of the greatest blessings may be for a person to find someone better than himself in governance, stronger in argument, and more capable of distinguishing between what is good and what is corrupt, so that he may follow him and feel reassured that the path is not merely a personal judgment that could lead him astray.
The struggle for leadership loses its meaning when the purpose is reaching goodness. Why should people dispute over who leads if they can gather behind someone who knows the way better?
Indeed, a person may praise God for his failure in certain matters, because if he had succeeded in them, he might have taken on responsibilities greater than he could bear, perhaps becoming a prisoner of his own arrogance or unable to retreat after others had begun following him.
The greater the number of people who follow a person, the greater his responsibility becomes, and the more difficult it becomes for him to retreat from his decisions. Therefore, it may be wise for a person to maintain some distance from leadership and not demand that others follow him to the extent that he becomes bound by them.
What we want is not to follow ourselves merely because we want to be leaders, but rather to find someone better than ourselves, acknowledge the strength of his argument, and feel reassured by his ability to recognize goodness. When we find someone whose argument is stronger than ours in every dispute, we do not need to continue challenging him; because the purpose is not to win the argument, but to reach the truth.
Fourteenth: Work and Existence Are Neither Absurd nor Cosmic Idleness
Our existence is not a transition from nonexistence into an empty state without any function. Rather, it is a transition from idleness to work, and from extinction to activity. Praise be to God who brought us out of cosmic idleness into existence and granted us abilities through which we can work, benefit, and earn rewards.
Imagine that a human being existed without having the ability to act, without finding anything to occupy himself with, and without anyone granting him work or a purpose. Would that not be a form of idleness without meaning?
Work is a blessing, the ability to be active is a blessing, and even the exhaustion that accompanies work has its value; because through it, a person realizes that he is performing a function and that his existence has an impact.
It is not logical to regard every obligation as a burden or every responsibility as a deprivation of freedom. Responsibility itself may be what grants a person meaning in his existence.
From here, we praise God for the abilities He has granted us, for the work He has made available to us, for the existence of reward and recompense, and even for the existence of punishment, which reminds a person of his responsibility and restores his awareness of the limits of his actions.
A person who finds nothing to do and does not feel that his existence has a function may find himself in a state of idleness that is not very different from the absence of the ability to live. As for the person who works, strives, and awaits recompense, he lives in a world that has order and meaning.
Fifteenth: Resurrection and Recompense, and the Rejection of Reducing Existence to Death
Belief in resurrection is not an idea that can be dispensed with without changing the meaning of life. Rather, it is an extension of the belief that existence is not a passing event that ends in complete nonexistence.
If a person awaits resurrection, death is not an absolute end, but rather a transition to another stage. But if he believes in nothing after death, what makes him wait here? And why does he continue speaking about purpose and recompense if he believes that everything will end without return?
Someone who does not believe in resurrection and then demands that others live according to his conception should explain to them the meaning of waiting, work, and recompense. As for us, we believe that there is resurrection, we await that resurrection, and we hope to have a share of mercy and bliss in it.
We should not make death a means of persuading a person to abandon his life, because life itself is the arena in which a person works, repairs, acquires, and prepares himself.
Going away without return is a heavy conception, because it makes everything a person lived through, everything he worked for, and everything he awaited end without completion. Belief in return, however, gives existence continuity and establishes a relationship between what happens now and what will come afterward.
Therefore, I do not accept death as an argument for cancelling the value of life, nor do I accept nonexistence as the only outcome for which a person should prepare. We await resurrection, and we hope that there will be something that brings comfort to the hearts of those who believed, and that the wisdom that was not apparent to them in this life will become manifest.
Sixteenth: Tranquility and Bliss as a Purpose Worth Believing In
If there is nothing but tranquility, then thanks be to the One through whom we find tranquility. And if bliss is the purpose, it deserves to be sought, even if a person has not understood all its details.
A person does not need to see everything in order to believe that goodness is possible, nor does he need to know all the details of bliss in order to realize that it is better than deprivation. Someone who has never tasted bliss may not know its value, while someone who has tasted it and then lost it realizes the extent of what he has lost.
From here, we should not allow someone who wishes to convince us that bliss has no value to make us despise what could be good for us. A person who rejects a blessing may not realize its value until he becomes deprived of it.
We do not seek salvation because we hate existence, but because we love life and want it to reach completion. We do not seek recompense because work has no value, but because work has value and deserves to have a reward.
Seventeenth: Faith as a Continuous Choice for Life and Goodness
I will not stop mending until death, because abandoning repair before that is an early surrender. I will always choose life, I will always choose what is good, and I will hold firmly to what I see as true, even if circumstances appear before me that make continuing difficult.
It does not matter to me if someone comes and says that I am deceived, that the world is not worth it, or that everything I believe in is meaningless. The question he must answer is: What alternative does he offer? Can he provide me with a better purpose, a more firmly established truth, and a broader hope?
I believe that there is wisdom and purpose, and I believe that everything that happens has a cause, even if I am not capable of understanding all of it. I believe that there is an ending that will bring comfort to the hearts of those who believed and reveal what was not apparent to them.
This does not mean that a person knows everything or that he must claim to encompass the truth. Rather, it means that he should not turn his ignorance of the details into certainty that wisdom does not exist.
If I do not know the source of something, I say that I do not know, and I do not make my lack of knowledge evidence of the absence of truth. If I do not understand the reason behind a trial, I do not immediately conclude that it has no purpose. If I cannot repair something at that moment, I do not judge it to be impossible to repair forever.
Certainty is not a claim to know everything; rather, it is confidence that what we do not know does not become nonexistent merely because we do not know it.
Conclusion: Do Not Stop Mending as Long as You Are Alive
Mending is not merely the repair of a torn garment; rather, it is a position toward all of existence. It is a refusal to allow a flaw to become a final judgment, a refusal to allow a mistake to become a reason for abandoning oneself, and a refusal to allow despair to replace hope, absurdity to replace purpose, and nonexistence to replace life.
The one who loves himself does not throw himself away at the first mistake. The one who loves his religion does not abandon it at the first flaw. The one who loves his morality does not leave it because of whatever defects may affect it. And the one who believes in wisdom does not make what he does not know evidence of its absence.
Perfection does not mean that there is no hole in the garment; rather, it means that we do not surrender to the hole. Salvation does not mean that we are never exposed to trials; rather, it means that we learn how to repair what has affected us. Freedom does not mean rejecting every leader; rather, it means knowing when following someone more knowledgeable than ourselves is the better choice. Knowledge does not mean discovering something that makes us disbelieve in our existence; rather, it means searching for what benefits us and brings us closer to the truth.
A person who trusts that there is a purpose behind his existence will not allow anyone who calls him toward absurdity to take away his faith. Whoever believes in resurrection will not make death the end of everything. Whoever believes in justice will not search for a loophole in divine judgment in order to evade his responsibility. And whoever believes in blessings will not stop being grateful for them because they are incomplete.
Praise be to God for the door of return, praise be to God for the possibility of repair, praise be to God for the existence of work and recompense, praise be to God for the pain that alerts us, for the blessing that deserves gratitude, and for the life worth holding on to.
Do not stop mending as long as you are alive; because the flaw does not lie in the garment having a hole, but rather in losing faith in the possibility of repairing it, and choosing to throw it away instead of saving it.
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment