Moving

You know, when they first come into the world humans can't do much more than wriggle,

flapping their arms a bit and kicking their legs,

which they have already practised a little bit before they arrive.

But they soon get to know how to hold on to things and move them,

and the kicking turns into a crawl and they are in motion.

No stopping them after that.

The games begin,

rushing and chasing, catch me if you can,

the dance of one against another and one with another

to be played out through their lives.

And they learn to express themselves in the ways that they move,

the ways that they use their bodies to share feelings and understandings with others,

in dance or mime, or other ways of moving to express themselves.

They come up with all sorts of ways to show what humans can do in the way of strength and stamina, balance and control.

In circuses and sports arenas they display their skills with grace and beauty.

And sometimes they measure what they can do by competing against others

in different sports that need different talents.

Humans love to compete, to test themselves against each other.

It's like they are fighting against each other, but they are doing it as friends,

as a game,

playing at fighting within a set of rules,

something both sides do together.

Even for playground chasing they need at least two people to do it together,

and if one can always outrun the other it is really no game at all.

If one can easily catch the other it is no fun unless it is more of a game than a competition.

In any sport it is not always the winning that counts.

There can only be one winner, but without the losers there wouldn't be any way they could show how good they are,

showing the skills of movement that just as with dance and circuses show grace and beauty to those who watch them.

Moving lets out all that energy that they have inside them,

and helps them to be happy,

so they run and jump and bend and twirl and swing and roll,

and to give themselves even more energy they do things in time to music,

whether for working together, or just for the enjoyment of the dance.

In fact, if they put movement and a drumbeat together they can enjoy it so much that it can make them quite drunk.

These things are very powerful and need to be treated with care.

What is best is done with balance.

It is said that the way of Islam is the middle way,

not one extreme or another, just beautifully balanced.

Look at the rhythm of the night and day,

and the sun and the moon as they dance across our skies.

What are the chances of each of them being exactly the same size in the sky?

But they are,

so when one catches the other magic happens,

and as the moon blocks out the sun it briefly blazes on the edge of the moon like a jewel on a ring.

And the sun and the moon moving through our sky are just two of God's signs,

written in the creation moving around us.