Thursday, June 08, 2006

The "Aunties"

This is a mixed complaint, I guess. There is a sister who likes me to go to a different masjid than I normally attend, and she's pushing really hard. Now, I like that masjid for the most part (except the fact that women pray in the cafeteria and can't see the imam... but there are rugs at least, which is better than the gym floor where I can see... anyway) and the khutbahs are much better (I hear--I've only been once and enjoyed it myself.) On the other hand the khutbahs at the closer mosque are just kind of bland, and usually partially or mostly if not entirely in Arabic. But anyway, that mosque is a long drive, and so I would rather stay "in town" instead of driving all the way out there--saves on gas, plus I've had many errands to run the last few weeks since I've been working so late. But she keeps pushing me, and I think is trying to make me feel bad for not coming. Now I really appreciate her support (sue has loaned me some CD's I've enjoyed listening to) but she's invited me to classes I haven't been to, and little social things I haven't been to either. It just seems like she's asking me to do way too much all at once. Another lady at a different masjid is putting a different kind of pressure on. She's been reading the Mars and Venus book(s?) and now is reading something about 'proper care and feeding of husbands.' I feel like she thinks I'm her guinea pig, and she's trying to marry me so she can test her newfound understanding of marital compatibility. So she's pressuring me to get married. And I really like praying at the masjid, but it's like if I go, and she goes, she assumes I want to chat for 30-90 minutes afterwards and I just can't do that. And when I say I need to sleep (like Monday night isha was at 10:30, I said I had to go to work at 330am the next day) I get this look like "It's so sad you have to do that, you really shouldn't, just stay home, someone will take care of you." It's condescending, somehow. Anyway, she keeps pressuring me to get up and pray this last third of the night thing, because she says (I haven't looked this up) that Allah swt descends in the last 1/3 of the night and will answer any du'as. Seems strange to me, since I kind of never really think of Allah swt as being so far that I can't make du'a, but when I get up for fajr, come to the mosque early and try to read some Qur'an, I get berated for not getting up early enough to make du'a in the last 1/3 of the night. Like fajr isn't a big enough accomplishment! Sorry--this is hard for me!!

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