Returning from the light...

It's been close to two months since the day I returned from the Light.

For about two weeks, I traded my Black Robes for the White. And what a refreshing change that was. If you've ever played the Dungeons & Dragons board game or RPG video/pc game adaptations (or read the book), the purest priests wear white and the evil wizards don the black robes. Characters are defined by their race (elves, dwarves, humans), profession (bards, thieves, paladins, wizards, warriors), and moral alignments. Reflective of the real world, right?

The Apprentice and one of his masters

In D&D speak, I think a lawyer's alignment is Lawful Evil. A guild entrusted to shape the law and to enforce order, but the questionable way lawyers go about in achieving it? The devil may care. And as lawyers, to wield such powers we don the black robes. Powerful black robes. Power of the word. Words that turn into judgment. Judgment becomes Order. Order becomes the Law. And disobedience of that Law then becomes punishable. We live in a world where the ultimate duty is sadly not to seek the truth and justice, but to bend the law to our clients' favour. It is an adversarial battle royale: Winner-takes-all. But great power, as often is said, corrupts the soul. And for seven years, I wielded that power without realizing that it slowly corrupted me.

And then I traded it for the ihram cloth. An unsown cloth of pure white. A cloth carrying heavy rules and prohibitions to ensure its sanctity. It was not just the cloth itself, it was the entire state of consecration and the emphasis of the natural state. No alien scent of any kind was allowed to accentuate ourselves. It was overwhelming. But very refreshing. In the Holiest Land, a place where people vociferously competed with each other for goodness, even to the physical detriment of others (which sort of defeats the purpose, innit), I felt a part of my soul was being healed. Slowly restored. I was even allowed to feel pure. Me. Heh. There might be hope for me yet. The instant connection of the soul with the House of God was indescribable. The heart truly belonged there. It instantly knew that it was home. It was also a place for reflection on my past sins and my future direction.

And when I was contemplating the meaning and worth of my existence, I chanced upon a meaningful discussion with a guest in the Holy Land. He told me that the problem with the Muslim world is that there are many great scholars interpreting the fixed texts of God, but not enough scholars interpreting its application in the real world. The fixed texts are an important source, but it is constant, though the world is not. It adapts, it evolves, it changes. And lawyers are amongst those who are at the forefront of addressing that change and adaptation.

I guess it's easy to forget that there is a little white in the lawyer's attire underneath all that blackness, especially the more we remain trudging in its murky worlds. The step back and moving to a whole different world helped me realize it. There is good in the profession and that it needs to shine, it needs to be upheld. A reinvigorating reminder for those who have perhaps sunk in too deep or jaded with the profession.

But I've returned from the light, and I think I brought a part of it with me.