I started sweating and started thinking profound thoughts...

So every one's enjoying the nice weather outside today. It's sunny! It's warm! It's beautiful!
It's an oven hell baking me at 350 degrees, nice and slowly so i turn nice and orange, and every nerve of mine is coated by agitation.
..Needless to reiterate (but i shall) that this is NOT good weather for hijabis.

However, (here's where the profound thinking comes in) I remembered all the other hijabis who must be suffering in this lovely bi-polar manner of Texas and, oddly, i felt comforted knowing i wasn't the only one who was probably becoming mortal enemies with the sun.

It's a concept I learned a few years back, that acts as a comforting blanket in the back of my mind. That is: Muslims are strangers to the world. We fit in with society, with culture, with our fellow peers - but not perfectly. We are a little different, always have been, always will be. That's what comes with being a Muslim. You fit in, but not completely. There is always something that sets you apart from everyone else.

Not that it's a bad thing. I quite enjoy my uniqueness. Especially at a private Baptist school - it's fun (and a little flattering) to hear I'm the first, or one of the few, approachable Muslims a person has met. That's especially when I know I'm a welcomed...accepted...familiar...yeah lets go with familiar
-That's especially when I know I'm a familiar stranger.
People may hear this and feel slightly uneasy. I understand. The uneasiness is usually because Islam tends to cause Muslims to deviate away from a number of the current norms of current society. In fact, so far as I have observed, a lot of people feel that religion should mold to its followers - to fit their life style and perspectives. Religion should be mold able to form the comfort and safety shape we want it to. So people feel uneasy when they hear Muslims and their 'struggle.'

The thing is, Islam doesn't work that way. We don't believe that religion should mold to humans, because humans can (and often are) wrong, or misguided, or mistaken (take your pick of a synonym).
In Islam, people mold to the religion. We don't pick the shape of our comfort and safety nets, we see it as it is and either choose to mold to it. (Or you can turn away from it, but then that's not following Islam so that's a whole other post for later).

Anyhow - as Muslims we believe that the rules, regulations, laws, rights, etc. etc. set in Islam are set by God, and thus permanent - regardless of societal, cultural, whatever changes. Because these things are constantly changing - culture and societal preferences are not meant to be permanent. They are recorded in history with every turn as evidence of the progression (or decline, however you take it) of our human race.
So how can factors that are constantly changing, constantly will be changing, not meant to be permanent - decide our faith, which should remain permanently steadfast in us - once we choose to accept it - ?

Thus, Islam is here to offer us a permanent set rights and morals. So that, regardless of how Utopian or Dystopian or society becomes, regardless of what kind of grace or turmoil we have to face due to whatever, we have a solid, unchanging doctrine from God that can guide us at any time, all the time.
I suppose that's also why, even when people around me look at me with uneasy expressions because I am the familiar stranger that seems to be struggling for the appeasement of ancient values and ideals, I always feel a sense of comfort in knowing that I am doing what I'm doing for the one and only purpose of pleasing God.
That's what Islam is about after all - the submission to the will Allah.
Why? Because he is our creator. Without him, there is nothing. How can you not be grateful to your creator - the one who has blessed you with life and everything you NEED?

Really, hijabis may seem to have it hard in the summers of Texas, and I won't lie - it's no picnic. But in that struggle to breathe and not sweat out our inner organs, there is a sense of peace and comfort. No lie, submission may not sound great at first word, but once you try it you don't want to live without what it has to offer back to you.
The grace of God.

Positive note:
It's St. Patrick's day and because of it, I saw a man in a kilt! Yes, i did lol in my head (because sometimes life is funny).