The need for repetition

“I love you!”  “Love you too!”  We all hear it, say it and know it.  How many times a day do we express this out in our conversations with loved ones?  Just look at how a parent drops his/her child off to school and one of them replies: “Love you too!”  Or you may hear someone on the train/bus/store/street/elevator/office space or you may be the one hanging up a phone conversation with “I love you too!”

What’s up with this need of constantly wanting to be recognized and expressing ourselves out that we find ourselves with?

A child knows that his parents love him, but he still needs it to be said constantly.  It is a need that I need to be reminded that I like to be recognized.  If you think about it, it can be said that most of the disturbing human behaviors are the result of the lack of feeling loved or recognized.  Why is that?  How does one end up that way?  Something to think about…  I remember growing up I had a class-fellow who had no siblings and I had a friend with one sibling who would always say: “Poor Johnny! He needs TLC (Tender Love and Care) because he is lonely and got no siblings.  And the rest of us would pity him and comment like any other adolescent would: “Aww…”

Is there such a thing as a loveless creature in the universe?

Isn’t everything created out of love and Mercy?  Can the Maker of this vast universe be a cruel tyrant who would just not love some of Its creatures?  I remember in 4^th grade, my school had this annual play and we had to rehearse and repeat our parts every Saturday for 5 months.  The music teacher would say: “Without repetition, there is no rhythm!”  I was given the role of a butterfly roaming around an angry dragon.  Although I did not like the color of my costume, I could not wait for the last part of the play to sing along with the dragon when he becomes happy.  We all love happy endings? Everything is lovely in creation; don’t you think so?

In reality, human nature is in need to love and be loved.  Our needs are repeated.  I love you because the sense of the need for love is still there.  It is as if someone wants me to recognize It through this need.  Every morning our stomach wakes up with the need to be sustained.  My soul wants to recognize its Provider through the food.  The need to be sustained is there.

What is the illuminating part in repetition?

• It helps me strengthen the recognition of being needy.
• It helps me declare my neediness and use it as a pivot to make sense of my existence.
• It helps me be in touch with my spirit and its Source of Existence.

Repetition of any sort are just a reminder to us about how needy we are for our spiritual needs to be met.  We are not here to learn how to satiate our appetite or hunger.  We are here to learn how to heed the reminders to fuel our soul.

What is the purpose in praying?

When we pray, we recognize our neediness.  Through prayers, I recognize how needy I am.  When I achieve something, I forget that once I was asking for it because I am needy.  Hence, I need the reminder to be repeated.

“In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Ever-Merciful.” (Quran, 1:1)