Celebrating a holiday in the modern world
Cr:http://www.lansingislam.com/img/estamp.jpg Eid stamp sold at post offices all over the U.S.
September 30th, 2008 was the celebration to end the month of Ramadan. However, my family and I were not fully able to celebrate Eid Ul-Fitr.
In today’s day and age we hardly have time for anything. Should we be so busy that we no longer have time for our family and religious celebrations?
One of the reasons for not being able to celebrate this holiday was that all my siblings and I had classes ranging from 7 in the morning till 8 at night. Also my mother and father had to go to work.
This made it difficult to get together and attend the Morning Prayer and spend time with our family and friends. This just gets me thinking - so how do we find time for our religious holidays in a place where there’s no time for anything?
Aroona Toor, 18, is a Senior at McCluer High School. She came to St Louis when her family immigrated to the United States in 1996. She is a honor student and also on the school tennis team and participates in soccer, drama and writing. She is a practicing Muslim, praying five times a day and finding time daily to read the Qur'an. 
What you have to do is note what day this holiday will fall on for next year and everyone in your family has to plan to take a “vacation day” so you can all celebrate together.
It would be easier if you lived in a nation with a sufficient Muslim population that would make Eid Ul-Fitr a national day off, like Christmas is for Christians, but that is of course not the case. ( I don’t apologize for America on that by the way, it makes sense to have Christmas be a day off for businesses since almost no one would be there anyway)
At least you are thinking about it Aroona, I give you credit for that. A lot of people, regardless of faith, often ignore the important days of their religion because of convenience. I hope next year works out better for you and your family.
Nice post, Aroona. Loved the pic of the stamp, too. Welcome to the blog.
Aroona, you’re far from the first to comment on the difficulties of finding time these days for much of anything besides work. This does say something not very complimentary about our society, where the vast majority of us feel that we have to go at a killing pace just to survive.
I ponder this verse from the Bible: “The sabbath was made for Man, not Man for the sabbath”. It is God’s desire that we take time to NOT be working, which is the whole point of sabbath, is it not? If God found it appropriate to say that HIS work was complete, and then rest, why can’t we?