Confessions of a left handed bottle drinker

I had an experience over the summer that I was recently discussing with some women online. It all starts with a last minute stop to the supermarket on our way home one night.

I was the second person in the checkout line. The party in question was ringing out the purchase in front of me. It was almost midnight, I had had a long day, I was leaning over my cart out of exhaustion, I think I even had an extra neice with me, not just my own two kids, had my wallet or something in my right hand already, and decided to take a drink from my water bottle while I was standing there waiting. I didn't even think about what I was doing (as I said, it was late, I was tired and how do you open a bottle cap with your left hand if you are right handed anyway) and I heard some yelling but ignored it until it turned to English, then I looked, and realized that the cashier was saying "You're right, you're right". I was looking at him quizzically thinking, what could I be right about now? I wasn't even saying anything. And then he said in an irritated way, "Drink from your right" And when I comprehended that about 3 seconds later, I just stared back at him and then huffed and rolled my eyes. You know when you feel like all eyes are on you in a room. Yah, it was like that. And yes, even at midnight, Owlad Ragab was pretty crowded (that's Egypt, especially in the summer).

It was just so unexpected that I was left dumb-founded. I mean, suuuure if you want to get picky, drinking/eating from your right hand is sunnah but I think there is also a GREATER sunnah of not correcting other muslims in public, aka, trying to publicly humiliate them. My God. Didn't people ever hear the saying of our prophet, "you know a muslim by his manners"? It's not "you know a muslim by which hand he drinks with".

This is a somewhat touchy subject with me because about 7 or 8 years ago, a very popular local Muslim woman did something similar at a Ramadan dinner one night. It was one of those infamous Ramadan buffets- where all the food is out in bowls and Tupperwares and you walk along, drink in one hand, trying to balance your plate and your child's plate and somehow smacking them with globs of what you'd like to eat. There was nowhere to sit other than the floor and I got sidetracked talking to two women, plate in right hand, can of soda in the left hand. I was hungry, thirsty, it was Ramadan and I was ready to EAT, and so as I was standing there chatting for a minute, I took a swig out of my left-handed soda can. Oh lordy lordy lordy. "Sisterrrrrrrr, drink from your right hand only!!" Loud admonishment. I thought, my goodness, woman, how do you think I am supposed to do that. And does that even make sense? I am carrying my can in the left hand, my left hand germs already got on it. And then I stewed about that whole "ruling" for days and weeks and probably all these years. When people prepare food, they are preparing it with BOTH HANDS. When I make grape leaves, I rub both my hands in the filling and use both my hands to roll those suckers up. But you are telling me that eating or drinking with my hand is dirty enough to have to warn me about it loudly in front of a crowd?

I was listening on NPR yesterday to a man who had tried to live Biblically for a year. He was saying, it's basically impossible and everyone picks and chooses what it is they want to follow from the Biblical rules. (eg, do you react with an eye for an eye or do you turn the other cheek) I thought, that's really true. Even in Islam. None of us mortal weak modern humans seem to be able to follow it ALL, so people just pick and choose and then find reasons to justify their own choices. For this cashier (actually I believe he's the manager) apparently the sunnah of the importance of drinking from a bottle from your right hand outweighs the importance of not embarassing a tired customer at your business. Everyone makes choices. And everyone makes mistakes and gets their priorities temporarily confused, so I forgive the guy but -man- was it annoying at the time.

My charity epiphany

Oh my goodness gracious, has it been two years? How my life has changed. Well... it's going to take me a while to start finding profound things to comment on again but for now I wanted to start off by sharing a post I recently sent to one of my yahoo groups. I've ammended it slightly to make sense out of context.

Before I share my thoughts, I have to make a request. Comments in the past have sometimes gotten a bit nit-picky. Anyone who gets nit-picky with me nowadays after I've become the "no-nonsense" version of Ruthie is getting ignored or maybe even deleted. You've been warned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Charity~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wanted to talk about the concept of charity. Is it a religious obligation
or an option?


I used to battle with the question of "who DESERVES my kindness and charity". I used to
look at a situation and say, oh but that person got themselves INTO
that situation, they made their bed, now they must lie in it. I
recently had an epiphany. Everyone, everywhere makes mistakes. None
of us is perfect. We all have disabilities and faults. Some of
those are visible, some are hidden. Some of us have addictions, some
of us never learned pro-active ways to approach life, some of us have
personality flaws that turn others off, some of us have actual
physical disabilities, some of us have been widowed or divorced or
raped or conned or oppressed in one form or the other. In ANY
situation, we can always choose to either blame the victim, or simply
to act with the intention of alleviating pain and discomfort.


When Hurricane Katrina (and more recently, Ike) hit the Gulf Coast,
there were some people that might have said- oh well those people who are
stranded and lost everything had the chance to evacuate and chose not
to, or they were stupid enough to buy homes on the coast in a low
lying area so now they made their bed and they must lie in it.
Goodness gracious. Saying comments like that is not only cold-
hearted, it also shows just how much those judgemental people don't
fully understand the whole story. And it's ok. They may NEVER
understand the full story. We never can because each of us only has
limited time and information. As a muslim, I believe that only God
understands the full story. But here on Earth, mankind is his team
of vice-gerants. God is merciful to ALL, regardless of what they did
to get themselves into a situation. How can we, then, say God is
wrong to be merciful to someone who is sleeping on the floor and
basically asking someone else to feed them everyday? Is it wrong to
have mercy on a person in that situation? If I was in that situation
due to some string of unfortunate events, wouldn't I want others to
have mercy on me?? When I see people in a situation I do not want to
be in, I remind myself just how precarious my own life is and how
close I could be to being homeless, or fatally ill, or disabled, or
alone. I do not want that for myself. In fact, it scares me
s**tless. We all make bad, irrational, foolish, or wrong choices now
and again. They seemed like good choices at the time, didn't they.
And we all have lived through the consequences. And we all have very
good reasons for making those very bad choices. And SOMETIMES what
seems on the outside to be a bad or irresponsible choice is ACTUALLY
the best option for the person. We do not know all the details. So
that's why we don't judge.



On the other hand, I also need to comment that we should never *rely*
on other people's mercy. You need to always tie your own camel. You
can't just leap out off a cliff and say, oh but God is merciful so He
will catch me. No, don't be silly. And you also can't blame anyone
when you fall off that cliff and break your legs because no one came
to your rescue. "Where were my muslim sisters?" It just doesn't
work that way. If you are being chased, and come to a cliff and find
it is your only way out and you are prepared to hit the bottom and
break your legs because it is a better option than meeting what is
chasing you, then yes, jump off the cliff. God is merciful. But if
you just don't know what else to do with your life right now, and you
are looking for a change, it really might be irresponsible to jump
off that cliff. You get me? Make your decisions prepared for the
worst, never expect others to help you. And then when they do, just
imagine how much more you will appreciate it.

There's also a little excuse we give ourselves for not contributing
to the love and mercy in the world. We say, oh but when *I* was in a
hard situation, no one came to help me. I've said that to myself
before. But honestly, who cares. :-) If I am now in a position
where I can help someone else, why not? Why not help that person?
Break the cycle of un-helping-ness. Break the cycle of bitter apathy.
If a human is suffering, and we have the power to change that, how
can we make excuses to just do nothing?