Hey guys, welcome to BuzzFizz. My name is Mbenya and today we are here at the residence of the one and only Alex Matenge. He is expecting us inside. Let's get in. Ah, mambo. Kwa sana? Mbenya. Kwa fika wupu lewa? It's PM Buzz. Karebuna. Asa enti. Mugwana kikungoja. Wuchungoja sana? Atra wupu ambali. Welcome. Thank you. How have you been? Kupu asana. Eh. Mnaka tui. Mngip tuu ngele yapa. Eh. Utuwa siskeu kuna. Utuwa siskeu? Eh, hachani funga. Ay. Hey guys, Alex has a beautiful house here. Eh? Hei, amijui. Amijui. Apana. Ura kacha? Hei niya BNB. So ay, how I believe you. Eh, ikona dipchaza koko wala BNB. Sibuna. Kuzet. Yana set BNB. Ay, wakwa jaleks? Mkwa po? Are you ready for my questions? We do this. Yes, I'm ready. Anytime. SPM bars. Any time. Hei, thank you. Are you a morning person or an evening person? I'm an evening person. Nafanyangakazu siku sana. What thing you do when you wake up? I thank God for giving me life and waking up again. Important. If you are in a position to choose where you live, in the world, where will it be? Mmm, Dubai. Dubai is beautiful. On a scale of 1 to 10, how good are you at keeping secrets? Ten. Eh, ten nezakwa bini. Sita ambi amutu. Eh, what makes you happiest at the moment? Yeah, that I'm able to make people happy and change people's lives. So blessing. In one way or the other.   Yeah. Indian food. You didn't like it? Eh, kwa na pili pili mingi. Pa pili pili is nice. I don't know whether I can survive in India. Hei, what's your dream kwa? Range Rover Sports. Oh, nice. 2021. Eh, Shmoto. What product can you not advertise? Akoho. Oh, wow. At a come of the deal is… Nisi ezi ambi amutu wa kumye pohombi. Pohmi rikpani anene. Wa tia wa jifikri ho mene, but nisi wasemi Alex alisema. Wa tia wa kunyo kiviya. Eh, eh, eh, eh. Have you ever spent a danger? No, I've never. Insh, Alex nevzuri karao. Godfaring. I. Low abiding citizen. We are done, Alex. Thank you so much for welcoming us here. Na shkuru. Tell the people to share, like, subscribe. Watwangu, SPM Buzz, Tenya Kwaipa. Support her by subscribing to this channel. Apocini, klik apokama. Klik na wajaya katia notification bell. Siyunangu ajanini. So that in time they upload a video. You are in the low. You get notified. And you are welcome again and again and again. Uku tshakuza. Uku rikuzuri. Thank you guys for watching. I was your host, Ndanya. And this is BuzzFist. Till next time. Bye. Over and out.


Hey, I'm Andrew Connell. I want to take a minute in this video and tell you a little bit about a full-day workshop that I've got that's coming up. It's called Developers Learn the SharePoint Framework and how to customize and extend Microsoft 365 apps. You're going to learn about the SharePoint Framework and how we can use it to extend SharePoint Online and building web parts and extensions. Then you're also going to see how we can use some of those same components and how they can be leveraged in a Microsoft Teams app, in a Microsoft 365 app, and how we can use that to also extend Viva connections, including building adaptive card extensions or something called ACES. Now, this workshop is a full-day long, seven, eight-ish hours, however much time that we've got throughout the entire day. And I've got a lot of stuff that I want to share with you. Now, I've done this workshop, or at least a variance of this workshop many times in the past, but this one I'm doing completely different. It's a complete revamp of what I've done in the past. Now, let me talk a little bit about who this is for. This workshop is for developers. It's for developers who are new to the SharePoint Framework or new to Microsoft 365 app development, or those who've got a little bit of experience, maybe no experience, or it's for people who have been involved in the SharePoint, in the SharePoint Online and in the Microsoft 365 experience, maybe low-code and no-code developers who want to get more into the more professional development side of doing things. We're not going to work with Power Platform stuff. We're going to focus primarily on working with Visual Studio Code, working with TypeScript, working with JavaScript. That's the sort of stuff that I want to focus on in this. Now, this workshop is based on a larger course that I have on the SharePoint Framework. I call it Mastering the SharePoint Framework. That course is nearly 40 hours long, comprised of over 200 lessons. And I've had over thousands of customers that have signed up and that have watched this course and have gone through this course since I launched it back in 2017. Now, I can't do everything in the course in the workshop. I mean, the workshop is really like only a quarter, or maybe 20% of the length that we have in the entire course. So instead, I've taken just the core pieces from it and some of the more popular things that I think are gonna be more interesting to you to get started. But my course goes into a lot more depth on these topics. Now, to show you that this is primarily for developers, I want to just make a commitment to you here in that we're not gonna be, I'm not gonna be talking about a lot of stuff. I'm gonna be showing you a lot of things and how to do it and how things work and explaining that process. That means I'm only gonna average about four to five slides per hour for this entire workshop. So you're not gonna be walking into a workshop with like a hundred slides. You're not getting this massive slide deck that you can click through. No, I want this to be a little more interactive and a little bit more of a discussion that we're gonna have. Now, one thing about this workshop that's a little bit different from other workshops you may be thinking of is that this is not intended to be hands-on. If you've ever built something with the SharePoint framework, this is familiar to you. But if not, we use node-based projects to do everything with the SharePoint framework and a lot of Microsoft Teams-based development as well. And what that means is that we have to download a lot of stuff every time we create a brand new project. That's not really conducive in a conference-style workshop when we're on conference Wi-Fi and everybody's doing it at the same time.   But I want you to learn and walk away with an understanding of how things work, how you can get started with stuff and then how you can be productive in your job. I'm gonna give you a zip at the end of the day that's got all of my slides, all of my resources and all the projects and then more projects that are gonna, that are what we build throughout the day so that you're gonna have all the resources by the time we're finished. So you're gonna get a lot of really good resources and learning materials out of this. Maybe you wanna go farther with this. And so what I'll do as just an exclusive opportunity for those of you who attend the workshop is I'm gonna knock off 50% off the price of my Mastering the SharePoint framework ultimate bundle of the course, what this workshop is based on. And that'll also give you access to my mastermind community that all my students of the ultimate bundle get to enjoy which includes monthly office hours and our Discord community with a bunch of private channels in there where you can ask questions going forward in the future. So again, just to wrap up, I'm really looking forward to doing this workshop at the conference that's coming up. Please reach out to me if you've got any questions. I'll include my contact info here in the video at the bottom. If you got any questions about the workshop and how you can learn more.


Welcome back, sisters. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salamu ala ashraf al-anbiya'i wa al-mursaleen. Sayyidina wa maulana wa habibina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. Wa ala alaihi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasliman kattheera. Alhamdulillah. So this halqa is on the foundations of the spiritual path, which is a PDF. How many of you have the access to the PDF? Okay, so some of you do not have it. I'm going to ask Mary, my tech support here, inshallah. If you have an iPhone, easiest thing to do is turn on your air drop so that she can quickly just send it to whoever and then hopefully you guys can share amongst each other. But if you want to also look it up, you can do that as well. Just do a quick Google for Foundations of the Spiritual Path and then put in the word sandala and you're going to get the sandala website and then it's the second or third article in that list. But it's a really just I think such a critical work that all of us can benefit from and you can keep reviewing it. I've read it countless times. I've benefited every single time because we evolve, we change. Life changes, you know, there's things that happen in our lives. So we might find ourselves in a different place than we were even a month ago, right? Or, you know, a year ago or whatever. So every time you review it, you'll find maybe new realizations. So, but this is a text that I think especially now that we're in Rajab, inshallah. Ramadan is around the corner. I think it's really important to review. The other day, just for my own curiosity, I put up a post on Instagram asking people ahead of Ramadan. What are they most worried about? You know, what are the things that we're most concerned about? And the options were, you know, getting our prayers on time, reconnecting with the Book of Allah for the sisters, making up our missed fasts. And then there are a couple more options. But I was trying to just assess where are people, you know, most worried? What are they thinking about the most? And I know it's been obviously a very, very difficult time for our Ummah. The hearts are broken.  I feel that I sense it. Our hearts are heavy. We're feeling the weight of uncertainty, the weight of grief, you know, trauma. Maybe you feel like a zombie, you know, walking around, you know, at work, at school, shopping. You just don't feel that you're in a good place. And I think that's a collective, certainly a collective sentiment that we're all feeling. But we need to move on, as we're always reminded, that we have to still live. We have to still continue. Surah Al-Madan is, as I said, around the corner. And that means we have to start planting the seeds, right? Rajab is the month of planting. And then, you know, the springs, inshallah, of Shaban will come. And then we harvest, inshallah, in the month of Ramadan. That's our hope, right? So that means good habit formation right now. That means if your prayers, you know, aren't, you're not doing your five prayers on time or doing them at all, this is the time right now to take it really seriously. And if there's ever a time that we should be really, really focused on perfecting our prayers, it's right now, because, you know, if not for ourselves, you know, this is the interesting thing about the human being. And I think a lot of us who are in the, in some capacity serving, right?  And so when you're serving, you tend to not really think of yourself because that's the nature of service. So you're not a priority. And even spiritually, that can be true. There are people, I guarantee you, who are very good at service in the community. I can guarantee you there are people who are active in their masjid. They may be teaching in their masjid. They may be doing good works, you know, the people, but for themselves, for their own spiritual well-being, they're not, they're not taking care of themselves. So that means potentially missing their prayers, you know. And you can, you can have that. I mean, it sounds kind of odd, right? Because you're thinking, wouldn't that be a priority? But the nefs is very interesting. You know, the nefs can delude you into doing things, thinking that you're getting, you're getting all this reward, not realizing that you're neglecting something far more important. And then, of course, Shaitan is also part of that process. That's his whole objective, is to thwart us, to deter us from doing good work by preoccupying us with lesser work. And that's actually something that most people don't think about, like Iblis. Iblis is not just one to incite us or entice us to evil. He will do that, for sure, when the opportunity presents himself, but he also derails our good works, right? So that's what that is. It's like getting you to do a deed of lesser value so that you don't do a deed of greater value.  I have to prioritize myself. Because just like we enter the world alone, we're going to leave the world alone and be buried alone. Most of us will be buried alone and we'll be raised to stand before Allah SWT alone. So we can't depend on others to save us if we're not even invested in our own salvation. So what is investing in your own salvation means? It means getting your own house in order, spiritual house in order. And this is the beauty of the blessing of being able to witness the ushering of these months that come before Ramadan, is that it gives you time to do that. So this document, which I hope all of you have by now, and those of you who are watching on YouTube, by the way, if you go into the description of the link, the PDF is there. So you can just grab the PDF from the description. But this is the fourth session that we've had and because of some interruptions with the schedule, I kind of spend a little bit of time reviewing what we've already covered so that nobody feels kind of lost. So I'm going to try as quickly as I can to review what we've covered in the first three sessions and then bring us back to where we are for today's session. So if you look at the document, first of all, what is this? It's called The Foundations of the Spiritual Path and this is by Sidi Ahmed Zarroq, who is a 15th century or 9th century Hijri scholar. He's considered a Mujaddid of his time. He is referred to as Muhtasab al-Awliya wa al-Olamah, which is the regulator of the scholars and the saints. So he has a very vast, vast knowledge in many different areas, but he gave us this incredible knowledge in this document called The Foundations, where he basically gives you a roadmap for you to be on a spiritual path what you need. What does it need? What are the criteria? What are the points that you need to focus on in order for you to really invest in yourself? So he starts us off by saying that the foundations of the path are five. The first is that you have Taqwa of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and he clarifies what that means by saying that it's mindfulness of Allah which we know, but it's also consistency with that. So both in private and in public, that you are a person that really thinks of your Lord, that you try your hardest to think of him, that he's not someone you run from or that you don't want to think about. Because people who are engrossed in sin, the last one they want to think about is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Just like when you're doing things you shouldn't be doing as a child, you don't want to think about your parents or teachers or adults. You want to get away with it. So we try to remove the thought of Allah that we're immersed in sin, but the opposite is true for people who want to be close to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You're always looking to try to bring him into your mind and that means making connections. I've mentioned this before, but it is a deliberate exercise. If you're doing something that you think is mundane, why? Why are you wasting your time doing something mundane? Why not have a reframe of whatever it is you're doing to get rid of an act of aibada? If you're frustrated because you feel like, all day long I waste my time, maybe that's because you haven't found a creative way to convert what you're doing into something beneficial. So a lot of us, especially as women, when we're staying home with our children, we may feel that way when we feel like we're not being productive because we're comparing our lives to people outside the home and thinking, oh, we're just living these mundane, boring lives at home doing housework, the drudgery of housework. That's all West Wassa. It's all a way of Shaitan to steal from you. And what does he steal? He's the ultimate thief. What does he steal? He steals our time, right? Because now instead of being in a state of, how can I take this action or this deed that I'm doing, maybe I'm doing a chore? I'm washing dishes, I'm folding laundry, I'm dusting. I'm doing something that is maybe not the most exciting thing to do or a fun thing to do, but I'm going to convert it into an opportunity to bring barakah and light into my home, right? To bring barakah and light into my being because with every word of vikr that we do, we are, inshallah, washing our bodies, cleansing our bodies from the filth of the sins that we've accumulated. Our good deeds are increasing, right? The spots that we know, you know, the hadith of sins that have accumulated on the heart due to excessive sins, right? The spots, excuse me, that are accumulating on the heart, that those are being, you know, removed, polished away with vikr, right? So it's a matter of just having that frame of mind that says, I refuse to let opportunity slip me by. And I recently watched a video, someone was mentioning, I don't know who she was, it was just one of these, you know, reels or whatever it was. And she was saying, there's something called, I think it's called the red car phenomenon. And so she explained that if I ask you, any of you right now, how many red cars did you see today coming here, right? Does anybody drive a red car? Maybe you have a red car. So one person, okay, but the rest of you, could you count right now how many red cars you saw? It was all so dark, right? There are things that until you're thinking of them, you're not going to recognize them or realize them, right? So her point was, now if I told you that for every red car you see, you're gonna get like a certain reward, $50 or $100, trust me, you're gonna look.  So opportunities, the point of the video was, opportunities are like red cars that if you don't pay attention to them, you don't notice them. But once you pay attention, then you will notice and then take advantage of them. So anytime you have that you're not actually doing something that really takes your concentration, is an opportunity for Dhikr and remembrance of Allah, driving a vehicle is a great time to maximize your Dhikr of Allah. Like it's not, I mean you're in a kind of a hypnotic state anyway when we're in a car, but this is a great opportunity to not just do Dhikr of Allah, but also to do muna jet, right? Which is what? When you converse with Allah, talking to Allah is real. We should be talking to Allah. And it's not a one-way conversation even though it's one directional in the activity of it, right? But it is absolutely, in your mind it should be a two-way conversation in that Allah Almighty hears everything. And He says that those who call on me, I will respond, right? So when we call on Him, He will respond in His time. But to take those times to just be like Allah, I'm so sorry, you know, I'm sorry for being this person who keeps failing. I'm sorry for not doing what I should be doing.  Ya Allah, thank you. I don't deserve or, you know, we should, we should feel undeserving because we are. We sin, we're forgetful, but He is so generous. So bringing that, all of that out is a beautiful time to do that when you're home alone, when you're in the car. So when we say taqwa, mindfulness of Allah, it shouldn't look like something that's difficult to do, but something you look forward to, you know? Like I want to, I want to bring Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala into my mind because what better thing is there to think about? There's nothing better. Like there's really nothing better. Everything you think about compared to thinking of your Lord will not yield in anything, you know, positive as much as obviously they can. So, you know, just trying that as a practice and then He goes on to say, so that's the first foundation of the path. Then adherence to the sunnah and word indeed. So being people that really take the practice of the prophecy of Him seriously, you know? You know, I have, I didn't bring the book with me, but we're going to be doing insha'Allah next week. I'll be in insha'Allah insha'Allah if it all works out. I'll be in Texas where we're going to be doing with Celebrate Mercy, the content of character. This is an incredible text. You know, Sheikh Hamza, masha'Allah, he's given us quite a few works that are really important, the purification of the heart, agenda, which has the foundations in it, by the way, and the content of character. And the content of character is a hadith book, collection all on character development. How to be more like the prophecy of Satan. And it's incredible. I mean, it's over 100, maybe close to 120, 130 hadith. It's very, you know, random, but it's something that if you read and you start to put into practice, you're going to see yourself evolve into a better human being. So sometimes we need to take these practices, you know, to that level. We can't just, you know, hear hadith here and there and appreciate them and maybe know them, but application is really what we're talking about here. So adherence to the sun and word indeed is knowing the sun of the prophecy of Satan and putting it into practice consistently. And then indifference to whether others accept or reject one. This is a really important, again, point because true faith is something that's going to be tested in many ways, right? And when you're living in a time of godlessness, there are a lot of people that are just not religious. They don't feel religion is of value at all. You are a minority in the world, right? We are. Although, you know, you can look at, you know, the population and there's all these, you know, polls that are done and people reveal their religious beliefs, but really when you look at practice of faith, unfortunately we are living in a really just dark time where a lot of people are just not taking their faith or faith at all seriously. So we're going to have to deal with that and how do we do that? Well, the best way is to not really care that, you know, the Prophet Adam told us that Islam started as something strange and it's going to end as something strange. So, you know, you have to kind of accept that you are going to not always fit in and people are going to find you to be, whether it's in your family or outside of your family, right? Some of us may have, may deal with that in our own families, right? That people find us to be, you know, different and they treat us differently because we are committed to our faith. But that's okay because when you're seeking Allah SWT's pleasure, it doesn't matter if people accept you or reject you. You truly don't care because you are accepted by the only one that matters. So it's just a whole mindset of not feeling like you need to acquiesce or fit into other people's little boxes, but rather, you know, practice your faith freely and be content with the fact that Allah SWT is pleased with you. So whatever others think of you just doesn't matter. And then contentment with Allah in times of both hardship and ease. This is just sort of the, you know, everything is from Allah, our tests, our trials, as well as our blessings. So you just kind of have to come to accept that life is going exactly as it's meant to go. Wherever you are, you are meant to be there. I am meant to be here. We may have come from a different place. We may be going in a different direction in five years. Maybe we'll be living somewhere else and we have a whole other life.  Everything has purpose and meaning. And I have to believe and trust that Allah SWT only wants good for me. So even during the challenges and the difficulties, these are opportunities where I'm supposed to grow and evolve and become a better version of myself. I can't start to turn away from Allah. Just to mention it, because I recently spoke to a sister who, it was hard to hear. Sometimes people go through different tests and Iblis, spiritual attacks are real. If you ever are going through a difficulty in life and all of a sudden you find your mind riddled with these thoughts and ideas about Allah being angry with you and that you're cursed.  And so then the mind, you know, Iblis will just keep repeating those thoughts and so people really struggle with those ideas and so we have to bring some perspective. So anyway, I spoke to the sister and she had gone through a major loss and she was unfortunately convinced and Iblis of course did this. It was his thoughts that she was cursed and she kept saying certain things.  I mean, she said that. It's very hard to hear a Muslim. She's a believer, but she had been under such a spiritual attack that she concluded that he's torturing me or he's angry with me and therefore I feel like he's my enemy. So anyway, we had to help her through that but just to hear someone say that, you realize it's because we don't have context. We don't always have explanations for things and it's hard, right? Because we live in a world where most of the time, I mean at least those of us who are privileged to be in situations where we can have, you know, questions answered, right? For example, you get sick, you go to the hospital. You go to the doctor and they can likely give you some idea of what's going on. So we're used to getting answers to questions but when a big calamity happens and you don't have any idea why, then your mind starts to create those ideas and that's why it's very important to zoom out and say, no, we're not meant to have the answers to all those questions. Allah swt literally has limited our understanding in this lifetime. But he has promised that in the next life, inshallah, whatever questions you have, they will be answered, just be patient and know that this isn't personal because if it was personal then, or if there was, you know, if this had something to do with your value, then how do you explain again the prophets and the saints and all the previous people of who were very close to Allah swt, very, I mean they worshiped him, you know, beautifully and perfectly in many ways. How do you explain that they were also tested? You know, because it's just the nature of dunya to be tested. So you have to combat those negative ideas with that type of perspective. But in general, the way that you do that is just to practice this ridah with Allah that no matter what's happening, I'm always content with Allah except that everything is coming from him and that there's good in it and I just have to be patient. And then turning to Allah in prosperity and adversity, this is more pro-activity, right? Like you have to be the one that knows what to do. So when things are going well, Alhamdulillah, you're in a state of gratitude and zikr, you're on top of your prayers. That's not a reason to suddenly forget Allah because sometimes again we fall into those terrible habits where we look, we turn to Allah only in adversity, but we're supposed to be just constantly turning, right? That's just the, you know, the, the why worship is around the clock. I mean from, you know, morning until night, we have our prayers and then we have da'ab in between and we should, we're encouraged to wake up even from our sleep to worship him. So there's really no cessation of worship. It should be a constant thing and there's different forms of worship, right? There's ritual worship and there's also acts like zikr that you can do outside of those times, specific times. So turning to Allah is just a way of the believer. So those are the five foundations and then he goes on and again it's kind of this interesting structure that he has of giving you kind of the building blocks of each of the, the sets that he's describing. So the five that we just covered, he says that the foundations of those are five as well. So exalted aspirations, maintaining Allah's reverence, expending oneself in excellent service of others, fulfilling one's resolves, and magnifying one's blessings. So if we want to get to that level of being, you know, on top of those first five foundations, these are the things we have to do. And then he goes further and says that in order to get to this second level, right, where you're actually able to even work towards those initial five foundations, you have to have right conduct. And so the right conduct he then helps us to, to know how to get there. So he says you got to seek sacred knowledge, right, in order to fulfill Allah's commands. You can't have right conduct if you don't know what you're doing. It's very simple, it's pretty logical, right? You have to keep company with spiritual guides and fraternity, and the fraternity of aspirants to gain insight. You have to surround yourself with people who are going to reflect the good that you want, as well as reflect in you things that maybe you need to work on, right?  Don't do that, don't make that mistake. That's not in your best interest. That's real good company. If you have a company that all they do is, you know, shower you with compliments and make you feel amazing all the time without actually setting you right when you're going down the wrong path, they're good, they're good, but they're not as good as they could be. True companions want your salvation. They don't want you to just like them and love them. They want you to excel and they want you your salvation. They want you to be saved in the next life as well. So those are the types of people you want to look for. And of course, the Prophet told us that al-Mu'min, al-mer'at al-Mu'min, so the believer is supposed to be a mirror for each other. So we're supposed to reflect light, but also truth. So look for that type of company and then forgoing dispensations and interpretations, concerning injunctions for one's own protection. So this is just a matter of taking your faith practice seriously and not looking for loopholes and trying to shortcut your faith. You know, sometimes the nefs because it's lazy, it's the quality of the nefs, right? And you should study the three degrees of the nefs, right? We have nefs al-amarabisu, which is the weakest of the nufus. It's the bottom tier. It's the nefs that's just immersed in sinfulness. It's given up. Basically it doesn't do what it should be doing and it is derelict in every which way. The nefs al-amarabisu. It's forgetful of Allah. It's heedless. It's sinful. So that's the lowest nefs. Then when you start to build a conscience and you have taqwa and you start to feel guilt and remorse for your sinfulness, you know, people have jahliyah and they come out of jahliyah and they want to get closer to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'a. They want to do better. Every day people like this exist.  So then they enter the next phase, which is what we call the nefs al-awama. And this is, the nefs al-awama is the nefs that's struggling against itself. It's going back and forth and back and forth. So between, you know, righteousness and sinfulness. Because it's weak. It's finding its, you know, balance. It's hard when you're leaving bad habits, right? Especially if you've, you know, if they've developed over years or decades to suddenly overnight turn a new leaf, it's not. I mean, some people can do it, masha'Allah. Some people have. They've definitely done it. Some people who have alcohol, you know, addictions or drug addictions or smoking. They are those people. Cold turkey, they leave it. Allah can give people like that. And with Allah, anything is possible. Because sometimes we think like, how could that happen? But if a person is truly sincere and they turn to Allah, he can absolutely turn their heart. You know, he's al-mukalab al-qunub. He changes a person's heart and then their actions follow. So that happens. But for the majority of people, they're going to struggle, right? Because the nafs is still, it's habituated to all that sinfulness and then Iblis is calling us, right? Iblis, that's what he does. He tempts us. And sometimes those memories that are hard to, you know, get rid of are the ones that beckon us the most, right? Because we recall a time where things seemed easier. I can just go drink my problems away. You know, escape into this or that. So you find yourself, you know, drawn back to that and then of course the conscience wakes up again and you feel horrible. So this repeat cycle is the state that a lot of us are stuck in. And this can also be with prayers. You know, there are people who get that boost of iman and all of a sudden they're doing everything right and then you check in on them maybe a couple weeks later and all of a sudden they're back in the slump. And as long as it's normal and as long as you're continuously moving toward Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala you're in a good state. So don't let shaytan make you feel like you're this perpetual failure, right? Because that's the kind of ideas that people develop.  But keep moving forward and inshallah Allah will eventually hopefully get all of us to the highest state which is the nafs al-amutma indah. Like you're done. You're done with the dunya. You've had the feast, right? And this is why as you see people in their older age because they've sold their wild oats, they've tasted the buffet of all the things that dunya has to offer they're done. I don't want it anymore. I've done it all. There's nothing exciting, there's nothing enticing anymore and now that I've overcome all of that I want something better and I'm starting to see the door of the other world is open for me. This is why aging is also a big blessing. If you really think about, I mean I know, alhamdulillah, I'm in my 40s I am so grateful to be in this decade of my life. Because the insecurity, the doubts the constant just not feeling ever settled of your 20s or teens, 20s, 30s it starts to kind of all go away and work itself out by the time you hit that beautiful age of 40 and then it's like you're coasting because you just start to see life very differently, you know?  I don't have that worry anymore, now it's just Allah that's all I seek. So that's the nafsah that's just stripped away of all that that actually seeks Allah swt actively, a person who enters this state is free of those sinful behaviors. They may make mistakes, obviously we're human but for the most part they found their rhythm and they're doing well and they're really just working on bettering themselves. So this is an important part of our faith that we should understand and when you're trying to discipline the nafs, it will bring you a lazy state where it's looking for those shortcuts. So you want to be more disciplined in the stage of forming good habits be hard on yourself. That's how you develop good habits but if you start to get slack off and start to take it easy too easy then it's easier to slip. So that's the third point and then he says organizing one's time with the remembrance of Allah to maintain presence of heart. So we talked about that, the importance of really reframing your mind so that you're not wasting your time or treating your time as though it could be wasted. Why is your time being wasted? What is it that you're doing first of all that is the waste of time or maybe you need to be again choosing how to make the best use of your time. So it's in our hands in other words and that's why trying to organize is also mentioned here in terms of getting to that place where we want to be. And then the last part he says is suspecting the selfish soul the nefs in everything in order to free oneself from its whimsical desires and to be safe from destructive circumstances. This is very very important. The internal dialogue that we have because it's familiar to us it's hard to feel like suspicion towards it it's all we know. Think about your mind, think about your thoughts. It doesn't occur to you to suddenly question yourself that sounds odd, right? But if you accept that there is a part of you your nefs, your ego that actually is your greatest enemy if you accept that then any thought that comes to you that is incongruent right? It's incongruent with your faith it's incongruent with what you know would be most pleasing to Allah SWT you should suspect it, like where did it come from? Because the source of our thoughts matters, you know and I kind of was trying to imagine like an analogy for the mind and in terms of the stream of thoughts we get and what came to me was like a grid, you know like in math you have grids, right? So just imagine like even graph paper, right? If you look at graph paper there's all these lines and it's little tiny squares, right? Or like a traffic grid a traffic grid would probably be the more better analogy but like our minds work like that there's thoughts that are coming in from all directions right? And some thoughts flow and they're fine because they're good thoughts you know memories they could obviously anything that's a positive thought when you have a person you know when you think of well of a person you make dua for them, those are all beautiful thoughts right? But then sometimes you get these crazy thoughts that come out of nowhere and you're like what is that you know? Those thoughts you have to suspect like where did that come from? Especially if it is you know a negative thought a thought that is inappropriate all of those thoughts they have sources where are the sources of those thoughts? It's not always Iblis right? Iblis is responsible for some of those bad thoughts that we get but you can't blame Iblis for everything. Some of those thoughts emanate from you and that's your ego your nefs again your greatest enemy. So if you start to examine your thoughts more you may find that there is a bit of a dialogue happening and that's okay. It's okay to be like wait a second why am I thinking that right? I'm reading a book right now and in the book the character he's he talks to himself you know and if you see people muttering to themselves we immediately assume that they have a mental problem like you just see I mean obviously nowadays with AirPods you know it's not as difficult to see someone talking in the air and just conclude that they might have you know they might be on the phone but if you just see someone without any devices and they're just pacing back and forth but they're talking to themselves many of us would conclude oh that person's got a problem there's something wrong with him so my point is that you know some people they can't help but do that maybe externally you know they're voicing this dialogue outside but you could we could certainly do that internally as well which is again you get a thought you get an idea to do something or even you think about someone or maybe there's an opportunity like if you're upset with someone right and there's an impulse in your mind that says okay I don't you know I need to go apologize right or no and then you get a thought that says no they should apologize where do you think that thought came from you had an inspiration to do something good right maybe you felt motivated to get up and go you know reconcile and to try to bring harmony back into the relationship but immediately you're met with a thought that counters that thought anything that thought comes from it's not always a bliss it's your nefs because your nefs feels entitled right we feel entitled like well why should I have to go apologize I'm always the one doing good and so then the nefs starts to feed feed you feed you and you become emboldened and now you're even more angry than you were before a lot of that is internal dialogue it's not external so how do you discipline yourself or how do you have this where he's telling us to suspect the selfish soul how do you do this practically speaking you stop and you examine these two independent thoughts you say SubhanAllah I was just about to do something good that I know Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala may be very pleased with me right when you break the ice when you are the bigger person to apologize even if you're the one wronged I don't think we realize the amount of reward that that comes with because what you're saying if you go back to the five spiritual I mean the five foundations indifference to where there's others accept or reject that's really what it comes down to when you're willing to overcome yourself right for the sake of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala it's because you've freed yourself of the need to first of all be right right because you don't care to be right in front of other people or it doesn't matter none of that all that becomes trivial to you because what you are really looking at is what will gain me the greatest reward with Allah I'm not in this for this personal benefit with this person it's not a power play I don't none of that matters what is going to garner the most reward from my creator and if that means me stepping on my ego because we both are angry we're both upset the whole house is disrupted by this but I can just stomp on my nuts go over there and say hey let's just work this out I apologize I know that there that comes with such immense reward from Allah and I'm doing that for the sake of Allah so that's the kind of dialogue that you can have with your head if you were to just examine what is happening what's actually occurring so kind of zoom out and say here I am in a situation I'm not happy this person's not happy we're both in this negative state and I had the desire momentarily to do something about it but then immediately I had another negative thought that thwarted me from that so now I have two choices before me the path is to take what am I going to do this is how you suspect the selfish soul and if we can apply that imagine to every situation and I know it's a lot of work it's not like we have all the free time to sit there and think about every thought but when it comes to our relationships this is important practice because all the problems that come to us many of the problems that come to us or that we find ourselves in are because of the enough's battling it out in relationships with other people it could be your in-laws it could be your siblings it could be your spouse it could be your children but there's some again enough's battle happening and we're not taking advantage of these opportunities to really fight within ourselves and do that mojaheda and from that mojaheda if you do it enough you will find ease making relationships actually much easier for you because you're preferring him your actions are saying I don't really care as long as you're happy with me I'll stomp on my ego I'll take it I'll be wrong I won't have the last word but I'm doing that for your sake that's rising that's rising above the enough all of that and then he goes on back to the document he says that the pitfall of seeking knowledge so now he's kind of just breaking this down for us in terms of really looking at all of these actions that he's encouraging us to do but also reminding us that it comes with some risk so the pitfall of seeking knowledge is the company of soft mark people whether due to their age, intellect or deficient religious practice so when you're becoming a seeker of knowledge you want to be careful people out there that don't have the best of intentions they may misguide you they may tell you things that are not true so you have to be aware that there's a responsibility on you to vet the people that you're learning from making sure that they have credentials what citations are they sourcing from do that work don't just be like I'm going to go hang out with this group of people or that group of people just because their religious doesn't mean clearly that they are going to benefit you there is still some responsibility on you to do that work so then he says the pitfall of keeping company with the spiritual guides and the fraternity is elitism so if you're going to start to hang out with certain people and this is the danger too of of certain spiritual circles is that once you become a member of that elite group there's that special halaqa that meets hidden and there's like a membership required all of a sudden you feel like you're better than everybody else and this is very dangerous so if you're a part of any effort you get invited to certain people have private events and you get invited and doors are open for you and you get treated differently that you don't fill your heart with a sense of superiority because that's not the benefit or that's not the purpose of having access to spiritual guides it's not to be like ooh I'm in the in crowd right or I'm in the popular crowd or I'm in the cool crowd that's not the purpose it's to benefit from their company it's to be in their orbit it's to watch them and observe them and absorb their knowledge and their wisdom and to model your behavior not to just be part of a club as a unfortunately a real issue then he says the pitfall of foregoing dispensations and interpretations concerning injunctions is self pity due to hardships so you have to be aware that the nefs will fill you with ideas when you go the harder route that all you poor thing right you poor thing this is such a struggle for you so anticipate that as you are more in a more sort of rigorous and disciplined path that you will start to also feel you know low in times because this is the nature of the nefs right it doesn't like discipline the nefs doesn't want to wake up for the hajjid you know it's gonna make you feel like oh but you work so hard the night before a low will understand or you start to you know don't do your sun up prayers it's okay you can skip out all of those if you really push back especially with our sun up prayers I'm just speaking maybe from experience but I know because of these types of works that any time you start to pity yourself and then you you know you take off some of the practices that you've acquired as a means of lessening your burden that's nefs like if you've gotten to a really good habit let's say for example you know you're again praying all your prayers on time and doing sunna and waking up for the hajjid but then all of a sudden it occurs to you that you know what my sleep is off I'm not feeling too great and next thing you know you're starting to cut out certain things because you think like I need you know I need to take a break the answer or the way to kind of assess whether or not that that's really what's going on or if it's just you're enough using an opportunity to take away you know certain things that you are habituated to is to see where else your time is spent because if you're out shopping all day and you're doing a lot of other leisurely things and your body is being you know put to a test people go to the gym and they will happily spend hours hiking going to the gym spending a lot of time on beautification and all that and that doesn't seem to be a factor when it comes to their fatigue right because they've mentally accepted well that's for my health benefit so then then it's like okay what can I cut down with other things and so if the first thought that comes to you is cut out your the hajjid that's a problem what's more valuable in the grand scheme of things hiking with your friends so that you can feel good that you got 10,000 steps in or waking up for the hajjid where your prayers are accepted it's a beautiful time to connect with Allah it opens this portal of this proximity this closeness to him and then everything just brings so much ease and barakah to your day what in the grand scheme of things is more important but this is how the nuffs will trick you will delude you so the pitfall of you know being disciplined is that you're going to start to see these these arguments that your mind will make for not doing certain things but if you have a habit hold on to that habit if you're reading Quran every day no matter what look at it like this I will never let this go because the moment you start to say maybe I should do it every other day guess what you're going to start doing it every other day and then after that it's going to be maybe I should do it once a week and then check in a couple months later and are you even reading Quran nope what happened this is the khutuwat of shaitan but also the nuffs way of taking in small doses things away from us so that's a really important pitfall and then he says the last one here the pitfall oh sorry the pitfall of organizing one's time with devotional works is ostentatious practice and ritualize perfunctory devotion so this is also important because if you start to organize your time then you may fall into the disease of the heart where you want to do things for show ostentation is riyadh right so you want people to see you doing things because now it's like ooh if I have a choice between doing my prayers at home or going to the masjid and doing them so that everybody can see me doing them and not to say obviously praying at the masjid is beautiful but it's more paying attention to what's going on in terms of your mind why are you prioritizing certain actions over others is it really for the benefit of it or is it that you're trying to again get more attention for certain things and then the last one he says here is the pitfall of constantly suspecting the selfish soul is inclining towards its upright states and goodliness and this is where Allah says in the Quran chapter 6 verse 70 were he to offer every kind of compensation it would not be accepted from him and then there's more on that he says more over the noble son of the noble one use of the son of Yaqubi both say in the Quran I do not say the selfish soul was free from blame the selfish soul indeed commands to evil acts except for those on whom my lord has mercy so again if you start to become completely you know where you're thinking of everything blaming everything on the nafs then you may start to feel like somehow again you've overcome it and now you're this person who's just always on top of your nafs even if you think that way your nafs is deluding you so it's something we have to it's a mujahada it's something we're going to have to struggle with until we leave this earth we're just kind of accepting that these are the states of the human being that we have these different sources of evil that make our lives difficult but we have Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and if we have him we can overcome them it's just a matter of practice and really that's what Islam is Islam is all about helping human beings become the best version of themselves through practice our deen is not just a belief it's a way of life and every aspect of our lives are covered when you really look at our worship we have the physical with our prayers it's a very physical act you have to get up wash yourself I mean I was thinking about we'll do and subhanAllah if you really think about how perfect Islam is it's like subhanAllah he really does obviously he knows us but everything that he's asked us to do or commanded to do is really it's so much to our benefit we'll do such a beautiful process because it's so unique to worship where else are you forced to cleanse yourself you know I mean people believe it or not we'll go to weddings, job interviews places where maybe they're mixing and mingling with like elite people human beings are we can become quite low and there are I'm sure people who are in the most foul states who will attend those things you know but this is a requirement Allah has of us that if you're going to worship me and you want to converse with me you're required to be cleansed so I think it's just perfect it's beautiful and then obviously the benefits that we get of the we'll do itself so the prayer is very physical and then the mental preoccupation that gets a lot of people stuck into negative states we're taught how to liberate ourselves with which is to be mindful to practice the qid to read Quran so we spend our time when we're not you know doing work or other things engaging the mind in beneficial things so that it doesn't have time to take us into you know these dark pathways that a lot of people find themselves in paths of you know either stuck on something from the past anxiety over the future these are the things that take us away from the remembrance of Allah but if we just you know again put our faith into practice we find that all of the things that trouble the human being that make existence difficult for us Allah has given us a way to overcome those things through our worship so truly Alhamdulillah the Niyamah of Islam the amount of gratitude we should feel it should just overfill our hearts for being Muslim in this day and age especially where we see so much misguidance and a lot of darkness Alhamdulillah we have the light of Islam so Alhamdulillah there's a lot more and you know again we'll continue inshallah with the next section which are the foundations that will cure the sicknesses of the soul so that's really important too again the document is written in this way where each section builds upon the the one before it so this is the next section is really how to overcome the nefs since the last point there was about suspecting the soul we need to learn better how to do that inshallah we'll continue with that next month but any questions before we break I mean no it is difficult it is difficult to remain steadfast but I think in my experience one of the best ways to do it is to surround yourself with really good people who have the same goal because doing it on your own is difficult you know Islam is not meant to do on your own it's a it's a deen of jama'a and we're social creatures Allah knows that so this way if you look subhan Allah what a gift that we pray together we fast together we hajj together we omr together we do thikr together I mean it's beautiful so I agree it's difficult if you're on your own but if you find a good jama'a inshallah that keeps you accountable it's much easier so that would be on the 10th of February we're going to be doing a sister social here at MCC for the purpose of trying to help the sisters meet each other for this same intention we have hadakas here Thursday and then on Saturday I have a dhikr and Dr. Rani of course does the Friday night mashallah programs here but a lot of times what I'm hearing from sisters in the community is that you're being talked at which obviously we're doing here too it's a class but we also need time to just meet and connect and share and build forge really strong relationships and the masjid historically was always a hub it was a hub for people to come together to do that so I invite all of you to sign up for that that's going to be on February 10th it'll be a Saturday evening inshallah and hopefully you'll meet more sisters how are you? you're very well sweet you mean these sessions? you're present oh no astaghfirullah no I'm sorry sister astaghfirullah wallahi I'm so sorry if that's how it seems first of all thank you for your very sweet words I I feel like maybe because of holiday and travel I don't know there were some gaps but wallahi this community is my top priority I really mean that and if there's no I don't want anybody to think like I'm just flying all over the world I'm not inshallah your niyah is obviously very pure may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala help you it's a jihad I know many sisters I hear this from many people between Aisha and Fajr that's very difficult for them for schedule reasons so sometimes it's a logistic sister like you have to maybe look at when are you sleeping are you getting enough sleep do you have good alarm system in your house like do you if you know they have clocks now that have the other and you can blast it and sometimes you might just need to order something like that where it's right there by your bed you can't ignore it you know so if you find out is it a logistic issue because it seems to me mashallah you want it you want it and you're asking for it but logistically you haven't figured out what works for you so I think I had a sister I forgot the name of it but there are these at the end clocks she's very sweet she gave it to me as a gift I love it it's every prayer mashallah you can hear it throughout the house so they're good systems and maybe inshallah we can try to find that for you you can order it and it's set it up to all the times inshallah that can be a game changer for you and continue to offer you of course you know sleep cycles as sister sometimes it depends on how much sleep we're getting so the research says that we hit REM which is that deep sleep within one and a half hours so if you're sleeping within those cycles it's like you're getting maybe two three four one and a half hour cycles and you wake up the cycle is over you'll be refreshed but if you're not sleeping enough first of all and the oven is going on or the clock if you have an alarm clock but it's coming in that one and a half hour time slot you're in such a deep slumber that it's difficult to wake up from that so you have to kind of go back and say I need to set my alarm clock to a time where I am getting enough sleep but also that I'm not interrupting a REM cycle if that makes sense you know yeah if you can do yeah if six hours you know as or seven and a half hours but somewhere where it's like the alarm clock that you've set is coming at the end of a one and a half hour cycle not in the middle of it right because yeah that's where I think a lot of people don't realize it's because I've had it too where you're like how could I sleep through that you know it's so loud but you can be in such a deep sleep subhan Allah that you know you're not hearing it yeah yeah that's true sometimes yeah you're dreaming of the alarm but you're still not waking up yeah yeah that's true that's the other trick too the only issue with that trick is that you're disrupting your sleep so it becomes where you become very groggy but I have only tried that as well where you drink this is her saying to drink water and that kind of forces you to keep getting up but I think you know the alarm clock would probably be beneficial to you because I'm assuming you can correct me were you raised hearing the other like were you yeah right yeah so see Allah that would be so heartbreaking because if you were raised imagine like you're you know you're raised in a country or an environment where you were hearing that that was your alarm clock and then you're taken out of that it's like so painful for the heart but with technology we can try our best inshallah one day Allah enables us to hear the other that would be amazing so we'll make a lot of da'a for you but thank you for your lovely comments and I just want to clarify that you know the halakas that I do here are once a month two of them though we have the Thursday night one here for you know sisters who are working and they're busy and maybe they need to feed their families and then they can come and then I have the Saturday morning for also sisters who can't come at night for whatever reason but they just really need to just go out of the house and have some time for themselves that's happening this Saturday so I try to do them close to each other just for you know ease from for me honestly for my schedule but you know if there's other we do have some some other things in the works for the month of Ramadan and afterwards inshallah you'll see more programming but come but come please to the sisters social that I think will be really good and I just want to clarify too that the events that we have here it's so important that we see what I see here like I love the multi-generational like the multi-generations that I see this makes me very happy because one of the problems that I think that we've really hurt as a community feel like some programs are only for this demographic you know like oh moms of children only or women who are married only or women who are you know under this age or I don't agree with that that's not Islam we have to have an open door where all generations all experiences feel welcome I don't it doesn't matter to me if you're married if you're single if you're divorced if you have never had kids I don't care if you're a believer and you're a sister you're always welcome so please let people know that because I feel like sometimes there are sisters who feel deterred like oh I don't want to come and bother that group that they're mostly this age range no if you're a sister in this community you're always welcome so when we do the sisters social it sounds like oh it's this fun party kind of environment but that's just a title what it really is is a gathering of the hearts and it's for everybody so bring your mothers bring your you know bring everybody bring you know your if your daughters who are 14 and older and bring people who are not in the masjid you know sister maha is not here but Leila you were here when she told us about you know the reason why we even started that is because she said that she knows she told us 15 sisters in the San Ramon area who don't come to the masjid because they feel like there's no programming for them and then she said which broke my heart it really did she said that five of them they started going to excuse me church services because they felt like they were lonely they're isolated they don't have community so we're just going to start attending churches for services and I was like what is happening and then she said that five of them actually left Islam so this is devastating to me that's like we are I don't know what we're doing but like if we don't draw people back to our masjid and remind everyone that this is yours this space is every one of ours nobody should feel like it only belongs to this group or that group you're a believer it's a house of Allah it's for you so I want that message to be heard loud and clear for everyone that you're always welcome inshallah for the women and even if you don't wear hijab I don't like there was a sister who came anyway but she was worried that she wasn't going to be allowed and she was a non-Muslim because she wasn't wearing hijab I was like stop for Allah what are we doing so we have to really make sure that we're sending the right message to people which is you know come the masjid is for everybody who wants to be here and our programs inshallah are there to serve so I hope you come and also sister Roya Mashallah she did a program here at the MCC she'll be attending and hopefully leading an activity so we're trying to come up with a nice event for people to really get to know each other but I do hope you'll sign up inshallah and oh that's right and thank you for their might everybody you're so sweet so Sunday we have also the remosked event with Imam Ahmad Dib and his father Sheikh Abdullah Dib and then I think there may be other panelists that were added but this was last week's event that got rescheduled so all of these things are happening inshallah you'll see me here on Saturday morning we won't be in this room because they have the Boy Scouts event so there's another room over there we're going to be in so if you come on Saturday it's actually on the other side where you go out the banquet 10 o'clock to 11 and it's just for we'll read Quran we do zikr we have a support circle so that's available for all of you as well yeah we do Yasin we do zikr and then we just talk and make dua for each other inshallah try to be efficient so that you have your Saturday with your families inshallah and then Sunday so jazakum Allahu khayr and thank you everybody we're going to inshallah finish with dua so bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem wa la'asir inna l-insan ala fi khusr illa ladina aamanu wa amilu s-salihati wa tawasu bil haqi wa tawasu bil sabr subhanak Allahum wa bi hamdika shadu an la ilaha ila ila anta nastaqfiruku wa natsubu ilaik Allahumma sali wa salam wa bariq ala Sayyidina wa Maulana wa Habibina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam wa ala alaihi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasliman katira subhanah rabbika rabbil aizati amma yusifun wa salamun ala al mursaleen wa alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen alhamdulillahi jazakum Allahu khayr and thank you again everyone inshallah


I'll personally have anything to do before the honorable Catherine A. Robertson, the magistrate's judge for the United States District Court for District of Massachusetts, not holding any cameras. In and for the District of Massachusetts, may you draw near, give their attendance, and they shall be heard, I'd say, of the United States of America, and this honorable court is now open. At this time, what a room for the beautiful people. Hi, my name is Chanel Grudeau, I'm an immigration services assistant of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Congratulations on your journey to becoming a United States citizen. My pleasure. Today, oh, is it Mike? Oh, I thought I was doing well projecting my voice. Thank you. Today's the day to celebrate this amazing journey that have brought us all together. Therefore, we want to ensure that this occasion is memorable and also a safe event. Please follow the exit signs and take a look at this moment to the ones around you. Emergency exits are found throughout the facility. Please take a moment to look around for your nearest emergency exit. Again, congratulations on reaching, it is an important day, it is in your journey to become an American citizen. And at this moment, your honor, there is one applicant of naturalization present today who is to change, who with us that would like to change your name as part of the naturalization process. The government has investigated the reason for these changes, it has no objections. I respectfully move that the name change be allowed. And that motion will be allowed. Thank you, your honor. Your honor, there are 21 applicants of naturalization present today. Each applicant has been duly examined under the provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. As amended, each has been found well qualified for the United States citizenship. At this time, your honor, I respectfully move that the oath of allegiance be administered to all 21 applicants, thus bestowing on them one of our, I'm sorry, one of our nation's highest honors citizenship. And that's the important motion and it gives me great pleasure to grant it. And now I'm going to ask Maurice Lee of our district court to administer the oath to all of you. Applicants for citizenship, please stand. Please raise your right hand and repeat after me. Be sure to say your names after the word, I. I, hereby declare on oath, absolutely and entirely, renouncing of juror, all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, but to take state or sovereignty of whom or which I have here to for in a subject or citizen that I will support and defend the constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law that I will perform non-combatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law that I will perform work of national importance on the civilian direction when required by law and that I will take this obligation freely and that I will take this obligation freely without mental reservation without mental reservation or purpose of evasion or purpose of evasion So be God So be God Congratulations to all of you. I'm thrilled to be the first person to congratulate you on your citizenship. I'm Magistrate Judge Katherine Robertson. I'm honored to be the judge presiding in this ceremony where you've just been sworn in as citizens of the United States of America. I want to welcome you and your family and your friends and members of the community who've joined us here. I want to thank the people who made the ceremony here at the Jones Library possible this afternoon. I want to thank the people from U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services. They come from Lawrence, way up in the northeast corner of Massachusetts. They make a long trip so that we can actually have people sworn in out here in Western Massachusetts with your families, with your friends and as members of the community. I want to thank Maurice Lindsay, who just administered the oath. He's a naturalized citizen himself and so it gives him, I think, a real special pleasure to be part of these ceremonies and I want to welcome Congressman McGovern who I think was probably the leading force to have this ceremony here today. I've been a Magistrate Judge for about four and a half years now and presiding over naturalization ceremonies is the most meaningful and joyful part of this job and I think it's very important to say at this point when there's so much divisive discussion about immigration in this country and in other countries, that we here today truly welcome you. We want you here. We need you here. You belong here. This country, it would not be what it is without people like you who have chosen to live here, who have chosen to raise your families here and who have chosen to work here. We value the contributions you've made as residents. We value the contributions we know you're going to make as American citizens. The diversity of this group represents the strength of America and you just have to look around you to see the diversity of the group that we're swearing in today. We're swearing in, I think 21, is it 21 people? From 16 different countries and I just want to read those countries and I want to know who comes from which country. So whose country of origin is Bhutan? Bhutan, there's somebody whose country of origin is Columbia. Somebody who is originally from Cyprus. Somebody originally from France. It was originally from Guatemala. Somebody originally from India, Iraq. These are different countries with varied and rich cultures and you've taken very, very different roads to get to this point of taking the oath as American citizens. Some of those roads have been long. I suspect that some of those roads have been really difficult. When I preside at an actualization ceremony I always wish that we could bring people up here to tell their stories because I think the stories would be so rich and it would be so interesting to hear them. You don't have time to do that but I always wish we could collect these stories. Whatever has led you to this moment, your memories of your country of origin, its language, its culture, its traditions, those things remain with you.  You have the chance, you have the right to participate fully in our civic and cultural life of America and I think we all hope you'll do that. We need you to do that. We want you, we need you to use the rights and take on those responsibilities, keeping in mind qualities like fairness, tolerance, compassion, equality and freedom. Those are principles that should guide us as citizens. I believe the most important new right that you've gained today and you have it now is the right to vote. We elect the president of this country, our senators, our representatives, our local officials that we have this right to vote and that our elected representatives succeed one another in an orderly manner is a foundation of our democracy. Here in Massachusetts we also vote on ballot measures that make huge changes in the law. When you vote you're expressing your views of how this state and how this country should be run, what our laws should be and how our public money should be spent. Your vote directly affects important questions. You can be as involved in elections as you want to be. You can campaign for the candidate of your choice. You can campaign the additional about, you can campaign about issues, about which you feel strongly. You can be a candidate for elective office. I urge you to make these kinds of contributions to how this amazing country is governed. I hope there are many more proud moments for you and your families and your loved ones as you participate in a new life, as you exercise the rights and obligations of citizenship that you've earned and that you've gained today. We congratulate you, we welcome you and we really, we wish you the very best the United States has to offer. Again, my warmest congratulations. All citizens will be welcoming. I know citizens, you may have a seat. I would say welcome home. Well, America's been your home for a while. Citizenship enriches what it needs to be your home. So this is your home now in a deeper and a richer sense. Citizenship is all about rights and responsibilities you will hear. But citizenship is also, I think, by affection and allegiance and a very deep thought. In the oath that you took, you heard a word that was not, I guess not often used. Indeed, I dare say that probably no one in the room has heard this word in a very long time and that's the word potentate. I guess you didn't think that was a 20-year-old idea. So a reference to a potentate is a reference to a form of government or at least a set of political relationships which is very foreign to the United States. It was another word that was used in your oath which is more familiar to us and to which I think we need to pay great attention. And that is, you pledged to do things as, quote, required by the law. So the juxtaposition of renouncing loyalty to potentates and being obligated only by the law, I think it says a lot about the ideals of American citizenship. I have the pleasure of serving as the president of the Jones Library Board of Trustees and I wanna welcome you on behalf of the Jones Library in this our 100th anniversary year.   I'd like to extend a special welcome to the Judge Magistrate who's presided, Judge Robertson. To Congressman and to the Governor, thanks for coming, it's nice to see you. Please come again. Bearing gifts. I wanna also welcome the president of our town council, Lynn Prismar. Our town manager's at the back of Paul Backelman. It's nice to see you, Paul. Paul, you can speak. Thank you. Welcome to the Court Clerk, it's Lindsay. Welcome to the Janelle of Brayu and welcome to Richmond for that wonderful rendering of the Stores-Pinkel Painter. This library has a long standing commitment to serving all of the citizens and all of the residents of Amherst, Massachusetts and surrounding areas. For a very long time, our collection has been rich in multilingual materials, recognizing that people who use this library come from different languages and different cultural traditions. Today, our award-winning English as a second language program is, I would say, of the jewel in the crown of the Jones Library. The Jones Library, like all public libraries, as one of my colleagues recently said, is a critical element of the civic architecture of this community. It's more important than roads and more important than lights and more important than playing fields. I'm loving the town council. And along with public schools, it is the most democratic of all institutions in this town. It is a place where the old and the young, the rich and the poor, people who speak English as their native tongue and people who teach, that speak English as an acquired language come together as equals. The library is a place of hope which points all of us to a future that we imagine. And it's a place which preserves and honors the past on which all futures are built. And most importantly, the library is a place which binds the community together. Massachusetts has a long and rich but very complicated history of welcoming new citizens. Indeed, prior to the ratification of the Constitution in that period of time between the Declaration of Independence and the ratification, the question of citizenship was a question that was decided at the state level. Each state got to set the terms and conditions for people who wanted to come as citizens. Massachusetts, I'm sorry to say, originally prohibited the poor and the sick from coming here. That tradition is long in our past but it needs to be remembered because it is out of the imperfections of our past that aspirations for change and improvement come. Naturalization is an important part of my family's story. My grandfather came from Lithuania in the early part of the 20th century and was naturalized some time later. Now I say some time later because he never told his naturalization story. It's not part of our family lore. So I don't know where he was naturalized. I don't know when he was naturalized. I don't know what judge presided. I don't know what sense he made of the word potentate. He made a mistake. He didn't tell his naturalization story. I hope you won't make that same mistake. I hope you'll tell and retell and celebrate your naturalization story. And I hope in that story you'll remember to tell your children and your grandchildren and your grandchildren's children that had happened to you in the Jones Library. Writing about what it means to be a citizen, the author Peter Block observes the following. A citizen is one who is willing to be accountable for and is committed to the well-being of the whole. Block says that whole can be a city, a block, a community, a state, a nation, or the earth. A citizen is one block says, who produces the future? Let me extend you my congratulations on this very momentous occasion and say how much I look forward to the future that you will help produce for our town, our community, our state, and our nation. Congratulations, no more potentates. I'm Liv Weintraub. I am the ESL coordinator here at the Jones Library. So I'm the person that did, Robinson was talking about, who gets to hear all the stories. One of the great things about my job and I never get bored. I'm gonna thank everybody for coming out and I'm gonna give a special shout out to our congressman, Jim McGovern. His office is who I call and we have students who have been troubled with the citizenship process that needs some help. And he has done more than probably any other representative in any state to help immigrants. So I'm gonna thank the Jones Library has been helping immigrants to become part of our community by teaching them English and teaching them how things work in this country. We offer one-to-one tutoring. We offer conversation partners, conversation groups, a literacy class for other people who wanna become citizens and help with citizenship. And we work with the people who are at the lowest proficiency levels. Some of them have testing anxiety. Some of them don't know how to read yet. No matter what the situation is, we will work with them as long as it takes so that they can become citizens. And I am proud to say over all these years, every single one of them has succeeded. We're not able to do these things because we have a team of over 150 dedicated volunteers. Some of them teach one student twice a week. Some of them have two students. I have a volunteer who has 10 students that he meets one after the other. We have specialists in beginning literacy and learning disabilities, citizenship, job search, interview preparation, getting into community college.  I know for a fact that our volunteers make a big difference in the lives of newcomers and there's a few of them out here and I'm gonna ask you to stand up and be recognized. If you're a current or former volunteer at the Jones-Larker, maybe they're already standing. We do hear as opening the doors for newcomers. Inviting them in, providing them with the tools they need to make their lives here successful. And there's a question that I think about a lot. What does it look like when immigrants and refugees have successfully integrated into our community? How do we know when that has happened? It might be when they can get by without a translator. It might be when they have jobs that pay the bills that allow them to buy a car or a house or send money home to people who really need help. It might be successes when they've figured out how to combine the best elements from their culture with the best elements from American culture. Or maybe it's when they themselves become the gatekeepers for newly arrived immigrants and they're the ones who are opening up the doors and showing people how things work. But I think one of the best indicators of success is when those immigrants decide that yes, I want to call myself an American. I want to stay here and I want to join this country as an American citizen. These 21 people here have been successful because they did a lot of things right. They obeyed our laws. They learned English. They learned civics. They saved up a lot of money for the application fee. They filled out their forms. They showed up for their appointments and we celebrate their success today. And we also celebrate our success as a community because somehow we managed to open up those doors wide enough that these 21 people decided that they wanted to make the choice to walk through. So I'm here to congratulate all of us. Lynn Perl. We're leading an excellent program here with such great results. I'm Lynn Grease-Firm, I'm president of the Amherst Town Council. One of those elected officials. You don't know what they used for the politician. And I'd like to start by first of all bringing greetings also from Joe Comfort, our senator, our state senator and also from Mindy Dom, our state representative, both representing Amherst and Mindy there. They're sorry they could not be here today. We often get to share a platform together and I can just tell you how much they regret not being here for this wonderful celebration. So I'm gonna start by asking, in addition to the 21 people up here, how many others in this room are naturalized citizens? Raise your hand. In this room, know their family's history and their arrival in this country. Some, a little bit. The point is, we are a land of immigrants. And when our president started making his attack on immigrants, I wanted to make up a sweatshirt that said, I'm an eighth generation immigrant because I'm proud of that and we're proud of you.  But unfortunately, many of our own high school graduating seniors could not pass because of the tests you had to take, the languages you had, the language you had to learn, and the way that you had to look upon this very valuable asset. So I just want to congratulate you today. I have one other personal story to share and that was on the day I was president when our son became an American citizen. He is born in Russia and there was a law passed nationally that in addition to military children, all adoptees of people who were American citizens under the age of 18 automatically become citizens. And so in Fenial Hall, one of our foundations of our nation, we were greeted by a ceremony of flags and people just welcoming him. He was at that point about six years old and his grandparents were present, as well as our family and my husband. So these are wonderful ceremonies. There's statements that you have made about our country, about your country, and about the country for the last time, if you have a question. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Congressman Jim McGovern, and I'm so delighted to be here. I want to apologize that I planned to have a nice suit on today for the occasion, but I was just hiking the New England scene at Trigel in Northfield, and I just miscalculated the time and I thought changing in the car on the way here was probably not a good idea. So, but it is truly an honor to be with all of you to witness an exciting and uplifting ceremony. And I want to thank Judge Robertson for presiding over this special day. I want to associate myself with the remarks of everybody who has already spoken. You're in an incredible community. Amherst is a wonderful place. You met the town manager and members of the town council, but this library is an important treasure as well. And I've not only come here to learn from the books that are here, but with that many community meetings in this very, very room on subjects that, you know, far and wide. So this is a gathering place and an important place to learn. Let me first of all say congratulations to each and every one of you. I know that this is a moment that many of you have only dreamed of until now and it's one that you have worked so long and hard for.  I know each of you was filled with gratitude and pride, but let me also say that we are proud of and grateful for you. We're proud that you have chosen to join us as citizens and we're grateful for all the wonderful ways in which you enrich our country and make it a better place. Today, in the presence of your family and your friends and your community, each of you has raised your right hand and taken the solemn oath that generations of new Americans have taken to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. And today's ceremony reminds us that as citizens, we are not bound together by how we look or speak or dress or worship, but by shared loyalty to our founding principles of liberty, justice and equality. As your member of Congress, it brings me great joy to be one of the first people to greet you as my fellow Americans. And to be honest with you, it is one of my favorite things to do. That's because I believe that immigrants would make America great. America doesn't simply tolerate immigrants. We welcome them with stretched arms. You are the strength and the spirit of our nation. From the first pilgrims who found freedom on the shores of Plymouth Bay here in Massachusetts to the waves of immigrants from Ireland and Italy and China that built our cities, laid our railroads and plowed our fields, immigrants made America what it is today. And just as important, our culture has been enriched by the ideas, the traditions and the customs of people from every corner of the world who brought their stories here to America. So let me remind you all what was not in your world. You were not asked to swear off the art, the music, the food or the traditions of your country of origin. Instead, we ask you to bring your heritage here to enrich our society and expand our horizons. You were not asked, in many countries, such differences cause deep divisions, sometimes even war. But here in America, we treasure those differences. They make us who we are and we believe that our diversity and your diversity is a strength. Now I know what some of you were thinking. There were some people in America today who have a different view of immigrants. They believe immigration is a weakness. It's perhaps the greatest irony of our history that many of those who demonize immigrants today are the sons and daughters of immigrants themselves. How quickly they forget. Yet as citizens, it is now your duty to assure that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. We are all Americans. No citizen is any more or any less than anyone else. Each of us is called to stand up for our fellow citizens and speak out against hatred and bigotry. I ask that you not only exercise the rights that are yours, but also to stand up for the rights of others. Whether it's a ton against somebody who looks different on a bus or a comment at work about somebody's ethnicity, I'm counting on you to speak up, even when it's not easy, especially when it's not easy. That brings me to my final point. Being a citizen is hard work. That's because citizenship isn't just a status. It is a state of being. America is a great and unfinished experiment in self-government founded on the idea that we the people can govern and make decisions for ourselves. That through our own hard work and willpower, we can create a better world for our children and their children. That work doesn't just belong to me or the elected officials that are here today. It doesn't just belong to the judge. It doesn't just belong to the president. It belongs to each of us as citizens. And so we need you to participate, to get involved, not just on election day by voting, but every day. I mean it when I say that the success or failure or our experiment in democracy is in your hands. We need you at town halls and at town meetings and city council meetings.  Although I hope none of you want to run for Congress. We need you to stay informed and we need you to inform others. And when our country doesn't live up to its ideals, we need you to speak out and call us to a higher standard. You know, I think being a citizen is not just cheering on our country when things are going well. Being a citizen also requires us to dissent and to raise our voices in the face of policies that we disagree with or deplore. To be silent when you think our country is going in the wrong direction, that's not patriotism, that's not being a good citizenship. I personally believe that's moral cowardice. So we need you to be involved in every sense of that word. You know, the words of our founding documents as as fine as they may be, need nothing. Ordinary citizens don't fight to make them real for all Americans. So I'm confident that each of you will meet these obligations and I hope that you know that I am proud to be your partner in that work. So today, the paperwork is official, but you already know the truth. Being an American isn't about what's on the paperwork. It's about what's in your heart. America is an idea that lives wherever there are people striving to help their neighbors, better their communities, struggle for justice and work toward peace.  So thank you very much. All right. All rise please. United States District Court of Distant Massachusetts is now closed. We will now move to the next phase where we'll call your names and give you your certificates. Thank you and congratulations. I will do my best pronunciation of these names, but please I apologize in advance. Okay, beautiful names. Olga Fabinova, Andrew Francis Ruffin-Williams. USCIS, again, we're just so thrilled to have been able to be here today with all of you and all of your family and friends. And once you're done with your photos, you are welcome to enjoy some foods and refreshments. Thank you so much.