Ramadan 2025 Day Twelve: Collapse as Renewal

“Your Lord is not inclined to destroy any civilizations without cause
​if its people are working towards justice.”
-Surah Hud

The vast majority of people have been exposed to some version of the stories of “civilizations” destroyed by “God”/with “God’s help” in what we call the “Abrahamic” faiths.
Noah and the flood.
Joshua and the battle of Jericho.
The plagues in Egypt.
That one that the homophobes love to cite so inaccurately.

In all of these stories, it is said that the destruction and suffering experienced by the people in those civilizations was deserved. Their behavior was deceptive at best, and wicked at worst. Within the Qur’an, the leaders and people of those civilizations are often said to have been given the “Truth” by Allah’s messengers in the past, and have either abandoned over time or never even accepted what had been revealed to them. They are given opportunity after opportunity, messenger after messenger, sign after sign, and yet engage in beliefs and behaviors described as “transgressions” against God.

Whether or not those stories are true or accurately interpreted, there’s a challenging question posed within this particular verse.

What if it’s supposed to collapse?

What if the collapse is the only way for something new and good to emerge?

For many of us in a particular country that rhymes with the "Blue Mess Gay," we are watching something collapse. Institutions and structures we hold dear being dismantled without hesitation.

Let me be clear - THE PEOPLE DOING THIS ARE NOT DOING HOLY OR SACRED WORK. Far from it.

But maybe, the ease with which they are dismantling the pieces of what we had built to try to create some semblance of care or justice is an indication that what was built wasn’t meant to last. What was built was a bubble wand in response to a fire. It was a way of trying to create imitation-justice in a civilization that was never built for justice.

Perhaps the holy and sacred work we are now being called to as these fragile institutions are blown away by the big bad Musk is to take it all the way. To acknowledge that what was built wasn’t ever going to generate universal justice or collective liberation because they were built on a quicksand that was always designed to dehumanize and kill.

What does it look like then, for those of us who believe in Love, the Sacred, Justice, to be part of dismantling in care? What Truth do we return to if we acknowledge that what we had was never going to work? And what possibilities can we imagine and create when we are given the space to build something new on more fertile and solid ground?