A growing selection of Dr. Timothy's talks, sermons, and lectures are being made available on YouTube. Links to these videos can be found on the IISF Website. Please stay tuned, for we will be uploading new material in the coming weeks. As always, your comments are most welcome.
INTRODUCTION TO ISLAM session this Sunday
This Sunday (Jan 27), God willing, our IISF Introduction to Islam class will be discussing "The Eastern Branch of the Abrahamic Covenant: Ishmael, the Ka‘ba, and the Mythic History of Arabia Prior to the Rise of Islam" at the Inner Garden (4-6 pm). DROP-INS WELCOME! Go to the IISF WEBSITE for more information.
Spiritual Reflection for the New Year
“Surely God does not change a people’s situation
until they change what is in themselves…”
from the Qur’ān, sūrat al-ra‘d / “The Thunder” (13): 11
We open our eyes and find ourselves, by God’s grace
and mercy, in a new year, with a fresh opportunity to change ourselves, our
families, our communities, and our world.
But where do we start? How do we
even begin?
Last summer, recognizing that the status quo at all levels -- within
myself, my family, my community, and my world -- was completely unacceptable, I
began wrestling with this question in my khuṭbah
or sermon crafted for the occasion of the ‘īd
or feast concluding the month of Ramaḍān (August 19, 2012), and I humbly offer an
excerpt of that sermon here:
“I hunger for a revolution of consciousness, but I
recognize that this revolution will not come quickly or easily… rather, it will
come from the ground up, from a radical rediscovery of our faith and the
essence of all Divinely-revealed religion. We need to rediscover and so
reconceptualise who we are, what we are, what we are about, and what the
ultimate purpose or goal of our existence really is. In more sophisticated
terms, we need to rediscover the teleological consciousness that is at the
heart of all prophetic teaching: namely, that we all – each one of us – came
into existence by a deliberate and purposeful act of God, that God breathed
God’s own spirit into us and appointed us to be the caretakers of the creation,
that God gave us the capacity for knowledge and the capacity to reflect the Divine
qualities in the world, and, ultimately, that we are all passing through this
world on our way back to God, who is both the origin and the ultimate goal of
our existence.
The Qur’ān instructs us to “seek God’s help with
patience and prayer” and it also tells us that the task before us is “a
momentous thing except for those who are lowly in spirit, those who reckon they
will meet their Lord and who know they are to God returning” (2: 45-46)…”
Are we humble enough to recognize that the
transformation for which we so hunger and thirst must begin within our own
hearts?
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