You know what the hardest thing of all is?

It’s to create a presentation outside your comfort zone.

And especially to people you’re actually trying to influence.

This Saturday I’ve been invited to Ottawa to speak at a Muslim youth conference.

Honestly I can’t believe they’re still having them!

I am a product of Muslim youth conferences!

I went to them from the time I was sixteen to the time I was about twenty-two and had my first child.

Didn’t feel like a ‘youth’ any more, plus by then I was just too busy.

Apparently the high ups at the masjids in the Ottawa area have banded together and realized we’ve got a real youth problem in that the youth aren’t coming out much to the masjid.

I asked my children and son in laws what I should say. How the powers that be can engage the youth and some of them made a very interesting point.

It has to start in the home.

If Islam is not a priority in the home while the kids are growing up, it’s that much harder to make it a priority later.

And they said that the masjid should feel like an extension of the home.

It often doesn’t.

In our house, the most important thing I always tried to do was to establish that God was the head of the household, He was the authority that all of us, including and especially the parents, had to listen to.

And if the kids could find ways that we, the parents, were not listening to God’s laws and injunctions then they were free to correct us.

But of course it worked the other way too. We, as the parents, were free to tell them what we wanted them to do, and as long as it didn’t violate God’s laws, they were obliged to obey us.

It worked pretty well.

Most families I know have at least one member who’s the black sheep.

So far so good with my family.

Nobody’s out of the fold, alhamdu lillah.

But this didn’t happen over a weekend.

And many parents fart around while the kids are growing up, not paying attention at all, till it’s way too late!

And then suddenly they’re sending their kids to Islamic school hoping that’ll fix them.

Yeah right.

I’m trying to fit all the things I want to say into half an hour!

Oh why do they give us such little time!!!

Feels like I’ll have to talk a mile a minute to get it all in.

Oh well, guess I’ll have to more raise the questions and let the other sessions throughout the day answer them.

But the neat thing is one of the people speaking is a fabulous gentle man I listened to and who influenced me so incredibly when I was growing up. A soft spoken man named Jamal Badawi.

I am really looking forward to meeting him!

And just being on the same speakers’ board…wow.

I thought of starting my speech with quotes from this, one of my favourite songs, but Cat Stevens, aka Yusuf Islam. I think it sums up where we’re at perfectly! Enjoy!