It is 111am and I have decided to write.
I have no topic, but I am thinking about God. I want God to help me write this blog post tonight.
We are nearing the end of the year. Time waits on no one, they say. Life is short, they say. Make every moment count, they say. Tomorrow is not promised, they say.
Is there anything they do not say?
What is the least said phrase?
What phrase has never been said before?
Then I thought about something.
The moon never shines the same way twice.
Perhaps the same is true of phrases.
Even if a phrase has been spoken a million times—or a billion times—every time it is spoken, it is different. Who says it matters. When they say it matters. The context in which they say it matters. Who is listening matters.
And then there is what happens inside us.
What do we hear?
What thoughts pass through our minds as the words pass through us?
Two people can hear the same sentence and receive two completely different messages. A phrase spoken in joy can become something else when spoken in grief. Words spoken by a stranger can mean little, while the very same words spoken by someone we love can change our lives.
So perhaps no phrase has ever truly been said twice.
The words may be the same, but the moment is not.
The person speaking is not exactly the same person they were before. The person listening is not exactly the same person either. Time has moved. Life has happened. Something has changed.
Every repetition is happening in a world that did not exist the moment before.
Maybe that is why we should be careful when we dismiss something by saying, "I have heard that before."
Have you?
You may have heard those words before, but have you heard them now?
Have you heard them as the person you have become after everything you have experienced?
Maybe God has been trying to tell us something through words we thought we already understood.
Maybe the message has not changed.
Maybe we have.
"Time waits on no one."
I have heard that before.
But tonight, at 111am, sitting here thinking about God and wondering what to write, perhaps I am hearing it differently.
Perhaps that is the miracle of words.
And perhaps that is also the miracle of life.
We are constantly being told that life is short. That tomorrow is not promised. That we should make every moment count.
They say these things so often that perhaps we have stopped listening.
But tonight, the words are arriving again.
Not as repetitions.
As something new.
Because this moment has never existed before.
And it never will again.
Perhaps God is in that too.
Not only in the words we have never heard before, but in the old words returning to us at exactly the right time.
Maybe nothing God wants us to hear is ever truly repeated.
Maybe every moment is the first time.
And maybe, somehow, every moment is also the last.
*This blog post (at the time of making this footnote) is 517 words long. Surah 51 verse 7 says "By the sky with its perfectly woven patterns" which makes me think back to the phrase "The moon never shines the same way twice." Then I learnt something new today. That arabic letters can be categorised into moon letters (14) and sun letters (14). As I tried to write, phrases are unique each time we encounter them. Maybe the verses of the Quran are unique each time we encounter them. The more we listen and read the Quran, the more we get from it.
*That footnote is 546 characters. This is pointing me to Surah 54 (the moon) verse 6. One way to view this verse is that in this life, the Quran calls us many times and we have the opportunity to respond. In the hereafter, the Caller calls us, and there is no longer an opportunity to turn back. For me this means to not ignore the warnings, signs and calls of the Quran.
*I wonder how many moon letters and sun letters are in all the occurences of muqattaat letters? I wonder if we can see anything interesting by studying the moon letters and the sun letters in the muqattaat?
Comments