You can go your own way

As the sparks fly upward

“The believer's shade on the day of resurrection will be his charity." Al-Tirmidhi

My tithe this year went partially to an organization that runs orphanages in Afghanistan. They’ve been sending me emails ever since, and although I didn’t realize it at the time (it’s hard to find aid organizations working in Afghanistan and I just googled and then did research on the auditing organizations for non-profits) it turns out its faith-based. The faith being Islam. They’ve been sending me emails ever since, and are now doing exciting work in Haiti, when Haiti seems to have dropped off the rest of our radars.

The added benefit is that I get fun quotes from the Koran. Or I thought it was the Koran, but Al-Tirmidhi actually (according to Wikipedia) is one of the canonical scholars of Sunni, Sunni being the branch of Islam that accepts additional works outside of the Koran as sacred. I think. The other added benefit is that it makes me realize there is complexity beyond complexity in the Muslim world that I don’t begin to understand.

I hope I don’t get put on a terrorism watch list for posting about Islam.

I spent the weekend camping at a friend of a friend’s house on Lookout Mountain. He owns fifty acres and has built a monolithic dome house and keeps horses and grows heirloom vegetables and organic herbs. We had drumming around the bonfire. It was great to be around trail people again (a thru-hiker attended) and also great to realize what kind of potential there is out there to live life out of the ordinary.

But I’m exhausted. So I’m going to say good night.