Sacrifice

Bakrid falls on Monday and it reminds me of sacrifice as Bakrid is celebrated in memory of Abraham’s (peace be upon him) sacrifice to Almighty God. Last week in the Mumbai terror attack so many brave people--policemen, men from national security guard and navy and antiterrorism squad, hotel staff--sacrificed their lives to save that of others. Gandhiji sacrificed his life for our nation. Mother Teresa sacrificed her life in the service of the poor. Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln---the list goes on---so many men and women of our times who have loved beyond the call of their daily life and found truth and victory in their sacrifice.

I feel so small when I compare myself to these noble souls but compare I must in order to escape from the trappings of daily life and rise beyond the petty thoughts of anger, envy and pride that I sometimes fall prey to. It helps to remember that human beings just like us have overcome their fears and desires to make the world a better place.

When we face insurmountable inequalities (economic, political, social), we shrug it off saying, “What can one person do?” Well, history teaches us that it is precisely the ‘one man’ who has always changed the world.

Apart from these bright stars that inspire, I take courage from the so many faceless heroes that are all around me-I see a young boy of 14 sacrificing his education and his dreams to support his elderly parents; a young woman divorced by her husband because their daughter has cancer, struggling to keep her alive, refusing countless marriage proposals and sacrificing her desires; a young girl of 13 who kept her honor without succumbing to the advances of men who frequented her prostitute mother and growing up to be a fine woman having a respectable marriage and educating her sons, a middle-aged lady who bore the emotional abuse of her alcoholic husband countering it with love and faith reforming him with endless patience, mothers who eat less so that their children would have more to eat, husbands who work hard braving poor health and old age to support the extravagances of wives they cannot help but love---the myriad tales of sacrifice.

As I look at their lives, my heart fills up with warmth, my soul lifts up in prayer, and I become nothing.