Only needs wings ...

Everyday in which I step outside my place, I experience sorriness, and guilt. All those faces I see, all my friends, all those good people out there that I deal with on daily bases and share laughs and jokes with, I see them in the day after blaming me. That day, they wont do me anything, but worst, I will be responsible for this in front of Allah swt.
For not being able to do the bare minimum of showing the greatness of Islam, I feel guilty. For knowing that some people out there can be great muslims, better than me (of course) and a lot others once they see it, I feel guilty. Guilt is for my self, and then I feel like I have to apologize for them. I feel like "I'm really sorry." I owe them an apology for my weakness. I want to sympathize with them, but unless I am saying or doing something, saying that I have sympathy is a big lie. I feel sorry that if we die at the moment, I may have a chance inshallah, but I don't know about them.

I hate the common this-religion-is-for-me-or-not notion that is going around. I get extremely annoyed when I hear someone saying: "ya, I was looking into this religion, but I don't think it is for me", or "religion is not for me." Religion is not fitted for individuals, this would defeat the whole point of having a religion. Imagine a country with different constitutions from which citizens chose theirs once they are adults!! That would be complete chaos. There is one righteous religion, Islam, and it is sent for all humanity.

I know that the issue is much deeper for someppl, since they don't even believe in the existence of a god. But I think that very few out there firmly believe that there is no god. I think that most people found it too difficult to think of, so they just let it go, and try to live without thinking about it. In that sense, they are not really believing in anything or against anything. They look at the effects of believing in religion; practices. Yes, practices can tell a lot about the greatness of Islam, but that is not the essence. The essence is the main belief on which Islam is built. The belief of the oneness of Allah swt and the rest of the articles of beliefs (arkan al iman).

Those thoughts have been hovering in mind for a while. We muslims, mainly "represented" by MSA, don't do anything about showing Islam. We are busy defending ourselves, and proving that we are cool, instilling the I-am-just-like-you feeling with others. However, we drown in that until we were truly just like everyone else, may be worst. Even some attempts of showing Islam end up trying to show some Islamic symbols instead of hitting on that essence point. I thought what can we do?

Proudly, I decided to steal the New Yorker promotional ideas when they came to UT campus for a week. They had a huge balloon on West Mall, and a table. The table sole purpose was to let people know of their existence on campus. Then their simple free stuff flooded campus, and because we are students, we rushed to the Union to get that free pen! So, they had an operations room in the Union where again they just introduced themselves to campus. They had things going on in that room, but mainly introducing people to the magazine, giving out free stuff, and giving their main events on campus dates and times.

I thought if we can copy the whole balloon idea (I loved the balloon) and the operation room for only 4 days, that would be great. A big publicity blitz that only tells people that we are there. Then an operations room in the union, with free stuff, to which people will walk an extra few steps to get that free pen. Once they are there, we implicitly give them the choice of making a conscious decision whether to learn about Islam or not. What do we have in the "operations room" aside from free stuff? Well, think of it as a miniature museum. We need to teach them about Islam. So, we can have everything from small brochures, displays, a magazine, movies, arlicles displayed, a speaker coming in, to a staff that is trained to tell about Islam. My main concept was of two points: giving students the choice of learning about Islam, and pushing students to make their decisions of whether they want to know of Islam or not. we can't force one to learn something, but we can give them the option.

Anyways, this stays an idea and a concept. I don't think I can put it together alone, because if you wanna do something, do it right! I am not giving up on it, may be one day it happens. As for the moment, I put it to sleep. Just needs a pair of wings, and it will be free out there.