It’s the usual pond of humanity, and I see that most are either looking for answers, their cell phones, or for the ambitious, both. After a few minutes of pretending to listen without really thinking of anything else, I eventually allow the khutbah to swim to my ears. Ripples. It’s not long before they become splashes. Waves form and at once I’m flooded. He’s telling my whole life with his words, killing me softly with his song and I wonder if it’s wrong to sing the Fugees in my head at jummah. It allows me to deal with it for a few seconds, God, in the movie theatre, sitting next to Wyclef. My tendency to attach song lyrics to khutbahs is a guilt I forgave myself for a long time ago.

The man next to me shifts.

I’m at the mosque again, and my throat hurts from holding it in. I’m actually beginning to feel the words now, pain, drowning me, retribution, before one lifts me up, accept, lets me breathe, heal, and I’m carried by this wave, this beautiful wave, until it finally collapses on me. Forgive. My eyes negotiate that awkward middle ground, needing to widen but wanting to narrow in frustration of this never-ending journey.

I’ve long realized this ugly-looking battle of attrition on my face is the same one within me – these forces of forgiveness and retribution hesitant to accept that the ground they fight for is also where the answer is buried. This ground strewn with attempts to liberate me, riddled with bullets that transcend time, again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and yet they fight, crawling out of that endless trench of resilience. They fight with a drunk obsession for answers, a resolution, a light at the end of the tunnel, a happily ever after.

I wonder if modernity’s – and as an extension, my own – arrogance of having an answer for everything will ever accommodate my lack of one. When it comes to this, I only have questions, and questions of science, science and progress, do not speak as loud as my heart. Mine seems to be a compass with no true north, spinning endlessly, unable to direct. But maybe not every journey has a direction, or even a destination. How can I be lost, if I’ve got nowhere to go? Maybe that’s okay.

My eyes drift across the room and wonder if this khutbah is talking to them as well, these unfamiliar men who wear their journeys on their faces; furrowed brows of resentment, receding hairlines from regret, crows feet from recoiling into laughter. I fall on this one man in particular, reciting the tasbih. I’m absorbed by the humility in his obedience, and eventually am reminded of a mantra myself. I made a lot of mistakes, I made a lot of mistakes, I made a lot of mistakes, I made a lot of mistakes. I repeat the lyrics of Sufjan Stevens with as much submission as the man flipping through his mishaba. Although some would say we are in the extreme opposites of dhikr, I can’t help but feel we’re both untying our ego from our self. On this journey to accept and forgive, my ego indeed becomes the shackles on my feet – I know I can’t forgive until I forgive myself. During this invocation, I eventually feel it, if only for a moment, this amazing feeling of self-acceptance, and all of those wonderful little cliches. Everything happens for a reason. What goes around comes around. It was meant to be. I’m floating.

Actually, I’m forgetting to breathe. Inhale, inhale, you are the victim! I exhale the last ten minutes of introspection and suddenly feel uncomfortable with the metaphors I put myself in. I need to escape and do so, like so many times before. I check my phone. Someone wants to add me on Facebook. Who is this? We have two mutual friends, but they’d add anyone. Maybe’s it’s a fake. Look who’s talking.

The familiar monotone of the iqama couldn’t have come sooner. The floor arises from its slumber and begins to form rows to worship in unison, and I look for a space to fit in, feeling exhausted and preparing for two long, long rakaats.

I look for a space to fit in.

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