Recapping the Ramblings

Its over four years now and some 360 odd entries since I started putting my thoughts and feelings down if not for anything else just simply for lack of better things to do. Today upon looking back at some of my earliest blogs I realize how much have changed and how little change has affected my life in the past four years. Most impotantly it is through the writing of this blog that I am being made aware that I have four children instead of just three and that it is through the writing of this blog that I am able to recount the expereinces i have had in dealing with the Malaysian Immigration and Registery Deaprtment with regard to my children's nationality status. Many things have transpired over the four year period when this blog was set up which was soemtime in March of 2005 and this includes the departure of my late wife Nancy Buss Bahari @ Nur Syamila Bt. Abdullah in her home state of Colombia, Illinois. I never did get to see her till the end of her days something that I feel not so great about.

I am not feeling well myself of late, sore throat,tooth ache , feverish, kind things that is indicative of an oncoming fever of one kind or another which I can ill afford to have right now albeit mentally, physically or financially. But them are the breaks! My mother did tell me that there will be times like these and many of them throughout one's life so learn to roll with the dice she said. Life is like a roller coaster ride ever changing one time you are up then you are down or as the Zen master once said 'Life is like a swinging door, you breath in it swings in and you breath out it swings out, you stop breathing and you are dead", I like this saying better.

One of the changes in my life evesince my return from my sojourn overseas a period of more than 24 years is that I have come to accept the teachings of Islam with more genuine feeling and much thoghts and struggles agains all my demons have been put into this gradual drift back into the religion of my mother and her mother. I fully abmit that islam had very little appeal or as a matter of fact had an adverse effect on my life in my youngwer days especially during those years i was living a hedonistic life of an artist in the United States. I began to realize that I needed to return to my mother's religion only after I was living in Japan and raising my two children who were then two and three years of age and I was the homemaker as my wife was working full time like your average Japanese salary man, out with the birds in the early morning and home with them in the late evening. Living in Japan was not bad, as far as livng standard went but something was not right and it dawn on me when I had an incident with my preschool aged children while putting them to bed.

After all the singing and bedtime stories told my daughter was still whining incessantly in Japanese and it got to me. having lost my temper I yelled at her to shut up and go to sleep. My son who was barely three then said to me in English that all she wanted was some water (mizu). I got her the glass of water after which she fell asleep. I felt small and helpless having lost my temper at her over such a small matter simply because I did not understand her whining in Japanese asking for a drink of water. That night I decided that it was time to make a change for the whole family and decided that I wanted to raise my children where i can undrstand them and at the same time they can get to know their father's cultural past. We made our move to Kuala Terenganu on the east coast where my wife had a job teaching at one of the colleges and i got a job working as a Health and Safety Officer at the Petronas refinery site in Kerteh, Terengganu.

Perhaps it was not the right decision as far as my wife was concern, perhaps i should have remained with them in Japan where we had many good friends and were relatively comfortable with life, but the dye was cast and whether right or wrong these last four years has been a testimony. my wife who was converted to Islam is now no more and my children who has grown up in this country has yet to be recognized as its citizen and i am still living hand to mouth while putting my daughter through her last year in secondary school. What will become of us in the nex few years only Allah knows and I have fully accept my faith in Him anive as it may sound to some. My two children has a taste of what it is like to grow up among their father's kith and kin and consider themselves Muslims in upbringing. Other than these they had also had some great times while growing up in the east coast as my wife and I had always made sure they had the best of what we could afford for them in those years. We spoilt them as some of my family members were eager to point out as part of our failure on how to raise kids.

Over the years there is accusations made towards me over what had happened to my wife especially from my sister in laws who accused me of ill treating her or not taking care of her needs, like wasting her hard earned money on buying art materials and so on. One of these complains has even been written as a comment in my blog which i have kept as a reminder for myself of what can go wrong in life. Unfortunately it was written anonimously in Bahasa Malaysia which means that the writer who i strongly believe is a woman was playing it safe as all cowards do when pointing their fingers at someone. Time and again I have asserted that I am not a model of a father or husband but I loved my wife and respected her for many reasons the least of which was because she was an American or white or caucasian. When I met my wife in San Francisco she was recovering from a broken relationship that had ended with an abortion. I married my wife back then out of compassion more than any other reasons. I wanted to give her a life she had deserved and which she failed to achieve with her former relationships three out of which ended with an abortion for her. I gave my wife her two beautiful children and a taste of being a mother to them even if it was for a short term before death claimed her in the prime of her life.

I have no idea why I am reflecting these events of my life on this particular day but as Ftriday today might as well let it all out. For those who have judged me harshly and frowned upon my wife and children and yes they know who they are and for those who have the idea that they really know me I hope they realize that what I write about how good or how bad I am is beyond their comprehension and my advice is to let sleeping dogs lie. I am answerable only to my Maker, He that created me and He that will take me back to Himself or what is rightfully His that is in me. In the meantime life must go on and there is much to do and so little time left to do it. Right or wrong is a sickness of your mind, the Buddha taught, suffering is and non who suffers he was said to have declared and Nirvana Is none who attains...it. Do you know what the hell He was talking about? Do you care to know? Who untangle the tangle?

At the Friday prayer today the Imam was talking about 'Sacrifice' in view of the cominf of the Aidil Adzha the Haj performing month and he mentioned about Jihad or the struggle. The much distorted and abused and misused term 'Jihad' in islam is a far cry from what is being made to understand by those who are out to see Islam in the gutter laid to rest among the ancient antiquities. Jihad is not about out to kill non Muslims, (unless the prescribed situation is met with according to the injunctions of the law), it is not a carte blanch to declare a holy war against any tribe or nation or any non Muslim, Jihad has a far greater meaning and its meaning is aimed at the individual soul. It is the war or securing one's soul from the temptations of what the Buddha calls this world of Maya, this Illusive material world full of trappings and hidden agendas that one simply cannot imagine how intricately woven these are untill one is caught fully in one of them. Just like a drug addict with his dependance on his fix or a drunk on his liquor or a pervert on his whoring appetites. This is the greater Jihad! The bigger war that one declares within oneself against all the forces of one's egoistic tendencies that has claimed Kings and Emperors, the Pauper and the Fool alike. In Islam this situation is further exerbated by the prescence of the Shaitan and his hordes of mischief makers luring the unwary to their doom, while the Buddha in his teachings called it Mara and his hordes, the Christians their Anti-Christ and his minions who are out to claim the rights over human souls like a gamble between good and EVIL. But off course there are those who can dismiss all these as old folks tales to scare and bring one to conform to some sort of a collective beleif. The Atheist have their holidays from having to deal with the thoughts of heaven and hell... thank God!! they say. Life is here and now and not in the hereafter or heaven and hell and the rest of the doom and gloom laid in store as promised by most devinely inspired religions.
What proof? They ask. Who ever came back and brought the DVDs of this so called after life of heaven and hell? What proof? And if there is a God, why the mess? The killing fields are getting more and more of a fad these day and age, its cropping up everywhere! Attila the Hun today does not have to ride his war horse into battle nor wipe his blade dry of blood to wipe out a village he just sends in his drone and followed by a bomber, the victims knows not what hits them. The threat of Nuclear weapon as a deterrent is every nation's idea of a safety unbrella and the haves will do all it cna to discaurage the have-nots from acquiring such weapon of mass destruction. While some nations faces hunger and starvation others are out doing eachother on who can own the best circuit for an F1 event or build the tallest and grandiose building to fill the skies. Even then thaere are millions if not billions who does not give a hoot about what is happening in this so called Global day and age, life goes on for them like a clockwork.
Who untangle the tangles?