This morning, on November 9th, after I had woken up, eaten a hearty breakfast, processed the election result from the previous night, gone to my computer science class (and listened to the teacher, who’s been teaching for 12 years, deliver a short and emotional speech on treasuring the differences in his class, and valuing the various perspectives we bring), left my class, trekked to a nearby cafe on campus, and was in line waiting to buy a cup of chamomile tea, my phone vibrated with a text from a friend, “Can I ask you something?”
I told her, of course! Go for it. So she asked, “How can you still have faith? How can you believe in goodness in people and the universe and a god if this happened? I can't pray I just feel empty.”
She was referring to the election. To the man we have elected as our leader for the four next years. To the man who overtly hates on practically every marginalized community in this country. To the man who has promised to enact disgusting and dangerous policies that would target Muslims, punish Muslims, surveil Muslims etc.
I am a Muslim. Political identity, cultural connotations, spirituality, hijab, ritual and all. I am a 19-year-old college student, who tries to actively identify as a Muslim. Who looks visibly Muslim. Who tries to be the best Muslim she can be.
And part of that is feeling at peace with this result. With what has happened. Submitting to God, and God’s will. “Muslim” is, literally, someone who reaches peace through submission to God. When I read the result last night, I told myself, “Indeed my Lord is with me. He will guide me through.” And I know that might not be a common or intuitive response to what happened. A lot of us want to grieve or be angry, a lot of us feel scared and threatened. And that’s all valid. But I think before we turn to despair, we should turn to God.
That’s why I told my friend that for me, faith is something that’s so much bigger than any politics or any problems. Because God is greater than all of those. God is so absolute – nothing in existence can happen without His permission. Have we wrapped our minds around that? Nothing happens without God’s continuous involvement in it.
From the smallest thing to the biggest. From a tiny ant that’s part of a huge colony, who’s carrying a tiny crumb back home in the dark of the night under a rock, to entire galaxies, to black holes, to stars, to supernovae, to asteroids, to entire concepts of existence like “time” and “space.”
All of those things exist with relation to each other. They are all interconnected. The universe has to be a certain way for an apple to grow. Not just the sun, the air, the nutrients in the soil, but also in macro and micro universes – everything has to happen according to some order. Just to produce a simple apple. The germination of the seed, the replication of the DNA, the inner workings of a flower that becomes a fruit. AND also the inhabitability of the Earth, our distance from the Sun. The atmosphere, the element percentages of the air. They all have to be the way they are now for us to have apples. And we have had apples for millennia. We have had life, we have had order, we have had “laws” for billions of years. And they all continue to exist.
I continue to be able to write this post. Gravity remains as it always has. We are still in orbit. The weather is perfect. My brain and my hands and my body are all working in tandem. Every instant. Every synapse – fired in a fraction of a millisecond. It keeps happening, and it keeps happening perfectly.
How can I look at all of that, and not believe? For the Creator of one apple must be the Creator of the entire universe, of all that exists, to make that apple exist. And if I believe in such an absolute being, what is Donald Trump gonna do to me? What is a person? What is, even millions of people? Who might be threatening me. Who might hate me. What power do they have when they can’t even make a simple thing. When they can’t create anything. When they have no power over anything. When people are so weak, so powerless, that they fall sick to microbes they can’t see, and are so affected by everything around them. When they can’t control even themselves sometimes.
No matter how powerful Trump might look, he’s nothing. He’s powerless. He might have an immense amount of money and he might have hundreds of millions of supporters. But at the end of the day, is he in charge of rising the Sun every morning? Can he make anything from nothing? Can he control anything that’s not superficial – that doesn’t give him only the illusion of power? He says it himself, he is prey to his own feelings. He can’t even control how he reacts to some things. Disgustingly so. Why should I be afraid of someone like that? When the God of the entire universe has my back?
And so, that’s why I still have faith. And as much as there are people who hate me, there are as many, if not more, people who love me. And everything happens for a reason even if I can’t pinpoint it at the moment it happens. I am small and weak. I can’t see or know of anything except the present. I can’t look at the universe except in linear time and space. But God transcends the bounds and limits of Creation. And God is all knowing. And that gives me security. He knows what will happen. And He never tests me with anything I can’t handle. And God loves me. God loves me so much. God loves me so much that He created me and keeps creating me every instant of my existence, He feeds me, He surrounds me with people I love, He puts His love in my heart. And really, that’s all I need.