Dear Mr. God, it's Hannah

We praise You as if You were a phenomenon outside our universe and outside our imagination. And we always keep life after death at the back of our mind because it seems so decisive for us. But what is decisive?
We always search You and sometimes we believe that You answer our request.
But when will we find You?
How do we know that creature and creator are not one and the same?
When will we learn to praise the world around us and every leaf that we find on the ground?
And to live in dignity the way we define it for the divine spirit can be found in ourselves. Because weren't it You who created us too? Why don’t we listen to the melody of Your words that float peacefully in the river nearby with the same passion and emotion that we feel when we now listen to Sunday’s prayer? And why don’t we protect this delightful planet with the same enthusiasm and strength with which we’re now desperately clutching our prayer rug? Why do we sell our reason a book that instils in us our own wisdoms, but with wrong labels?
And why do we stick to details before we search the essence?
__________________________________________________________________________________

And some more questions that sometimes pop up in my mind…

Why are there so many religions if there’s only You?
Why didn’t You give us enough reason to figure out what is truth and what is fake?
Why don't You manage to make us all believe in You?
Why do some people believe so easily?

Is a dishonest belief better than not to believe in You?
Why isn’t it enough to believe in “something” instead of “everything”?
Why are religious people often so strange and superstitious?
Why does the fact of calling myself a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew tells my people about my character?
- Wasn‘t I born without a religious belief?

Why did You create my hands if I’m not allowed to touch?
Why did You create my hair if You wanted me to cover it?
Why did You create sexual desire if it’s something I have to suppress?
- Didn’t You know that prohibitions breed curiosity?
Why did You create love if I must not love the one I want?
Why do my people love to tell me that the answer to all these questions is “because life is a big test”?

Why do so many feel superior due to their religion?
Why do people reduce religion to its rules and prohibitions?
Why do I have to be afraid in order to accept the rules apparently imposed on me by a divine force?
Why do I have to be threatened first?

Why do You allow a man to hit me if I’m worth as much as he?
What is the difference between marriage and the wish to own the other person?
Why shouldn‘t people call an adopted child theirs and save one more life instead of giving birth to another?

Why don't You remove my doubts and answer my questions if my belief wasn’t enough for You?

Do You love me?

Yours sincerely,
Hannah

Sunday, 3rd June

Can you imagine being without me? (I heard myself say) And then: I feel I'm spending too much energy on struggling for our relationship. I'm not living it - how should I? You're thousands of distances away from me. (Put yourself together!)
You stay calm - as always. (I cry now.)
We should first - (your usual reaction) - and then we'll decide on what to do.
You're right, actually.
And then you say what you've said for a fuckin hundred of times and still you don't seem to understand I'm not listening any more.

I stand by and I see it all decline and I don't know what to do. I promised to stay with you for ever and so I must go on walking with you- behind you? - but I can't move. I stand still, empty mind, and I want to tell you that it's over. Right now, right here in this ugly cinema in front of everyone watching this silly English comedian.

At the same night you tell me you want me to become your "wife" - it's been one of the happiest days in your lifetime - (I want to say: What day are you talking about?) - but sorrow and greenness are choking me - (You wouldn't know why I'm asking) - your eyes full of expectation you try to read my mind - (And I'd wish you'd know what it tried to tell you) - and I say - You got a piece of popcorn on your nose and it looks damn foolish - and I remove it and you laugh.

On Joy and Sorrow by Khalil Gibran

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.


this is in my opinion one of the most impressive wisdoms in the Prophet.

My undefined happiness

I believe that I can only appreciate true - pure- friendship by having wrong friends.

True friendship means happiness to me. There doesn't have to be any "Hektor" going on a journey in order to bear me out. I only believe in this one happiness. Because this is love at the same time - true friendship is love. Strong and intensive love. And don't tell me you're able to distinguish as I saw them merging. And there doesn't have to be any book about love teaching me that love is more for love is anything but a profound poem.
I don't believe what I'm about to write, but if I could I would say I belong to the happiest people on earth. Perhaps I'm writing this because I sometimes feel the opposite, but oddly enough the opposite exists only in a part of me - which appears so undefinably... feels unpredictable... gets me scared...
Melancholy is the biggest enemy of happiness. Painting the world in dark colours it appears to be tangible, close but the way that you can't see what you're longing for.
I had this feeling once in a blue moon. Probably thanks to my pipe dreams that turn everything - even the dark paintings - into a romantic scenario where problems occur on purpose in order to get solved by.. me - princess. I feel so graceful, beloved, wooed and missed, though that's how I trick myself and I realize it all.
Twice I dreamed to be imprisoned, from where I could never escape. Big and cold, nobody helps, it's all surrounded by water. One jump could be fatal, because it is winter and we're in ... Germany.
...I could have been influenced by One flew over the kookoo's nest - no film has ever impressed and scared me so much before, but this is long ago and the dream goes hand in hand with my struggling emotion.
Thinking about tomorrow I should think of Wednesday or Thursday because it's Tuesday night. But there is no Thursday-morning. There is only breaking-up... final exams... get away from here. Yearning - if ever it extravagates- makes you blue just as melancholy. Creeping in it nestles to your body expanding into your soul and finally staying there. You think you can't fight it for its pleasantly monotone purring melody has driven away everything that used to be real.
...because yearning is like a comfortable pillow on which you'll become prosperous and fat...

What if I had only one day left to live?
I'd fall into a deep depression or maybe I'd swamp it out smashing all my clocks. I'd definetely think, reflect, I would wonder what I've actually done during my life time, everything and nothing at the same time - heartfelt - structureless, though. Much too complicated, you pondered much and experienced little. I'm not contemporary, I may have been born sooner or I should have been born elsewhere. Anywhere, but not here.
There is no right or wrong; right is what you make out of it.
Is that really true?
Isn't it possible that I'd be better off in a different country?
Isn't there a spark of truth on this eternal yearning for something that cannot be defined by our reason?
Does yearning show the way or only the unreachable?
Does it fool my imagination? Does it lead me astray?
Why do I long for so much?

Now I gratefully decline - playing princess - since later on she'll be getting everything she deserved, every opportunity she missed on purpose and even more, profound happiness.
I can't make up my mind.. some moments are impossible to experience when you're happy and yearning reminds you that they will pass. Just as all the others. Or is true happiness independent of the moment?

God only is independent of the moment.
It's late and I better go to sleep.