His birthday just passed, but Malcolm has been on my mind a lot heading into this Ramadan.  Not Spike’s dramatization of his life.  Not even Malcolm’s own dramatization, as expressed in the Autobiography.  I’m referring to the thorough breakdown provided in Manning Marable’s great book.

After he was gone, Malcolm’s legacy continues to grow internationally and it’s certainly everlasting.  But in his final days, he was all too aware the organization he gave his adult life to was trying to kill him.  The federal government had its eyes and ears on him (much closer than he probably realized).  He’s still one of the best orators and fundraisers for his cause, but in the immediate aftermath of his life, he left very little for his children financially.  At the end of the day, even the best among us are still human: what does carrying all that stress do to a man’s psyche?

God’s Plan for me to this point has played out as a series of ‘lessons learned from my heroes’: I’m more popular than I ever intended to be, but still have an extremely small inner circle, built on decades of trust and drama free bonding.  Financial stability taking priority over building a family.  The President of the United States is an overt Islamaphobe, but day by day the Resistance meets him with the checks and balances built in the system.

Hope, for the future.

Something I heard this week really struck a chord with me: You can’t be a person of faith and question God’s timing in the same breath.

As I’ve spent the past year locking back into my path, I’ve felt a lot of anger over time lost.  But I can’t have it both ways.  Human emotion shouldn’t be repressed, but at the same time, I shouldn’t let the scope of my ambition blind me to the progress that’s being made toward the endgame.  Even if I’m frustrated with the pace.

God’s timing.  Will of the Force. Trust the Process.  By whatever name you call it, I’ve improved on accepting things as they are (for now) and not as how I think they should be in my mind’s eye.  I’m still here, there’s still time.  I feel balanced in both my personal ambitions and also in doing what I can to serve the generation coming up behind me.

Good mindset to start Ramadan.

See you in June.