Arrival
5 min read
Sufi Punk
On standing outside a mosque door, on tears that were a language, and on building doorways when the ones you were given would not open.
Faith without belonging · Late diagnosis · Identity and unmasking · Low demand faith
Witness Writing
Sanctuary First
Before you enter
My name — Sufi Punk — is not a brand. It is a lineage statement.
Sufi: for the inward path. Punk: for the refusal.
Together they locate me in the Malamatiyyah stream — the Sufi path of those who chose the inward over the visible, who found God in the places religion forgot to look, and who understood that the soul’s business with the Divine is no one else’s to measure.
I use the word Allah. A word so vast it holds everything and belongs to no one. If you have arrived here unfamiliar with the tradition, that word may carry baggage the world has placed upon it. I kindly ask you to set that down. I have made my home in this word. You are welcome to make yours.
Bismillah ir-rahman ir-rahim.
Welcome Note
Welcome.
This is a zawiya. A place a soul built to escape the world and make sense of it — where the heart can expand and dust off the labels, the identities, the boxes the world puts on it.
Leave your ego at the door. Whoever you think you are, you are not that in here. Not your diagnosis, your credentials, your doubts, your armour. Just a soul. That is enough. That is everything.
And when you leave — you will choose what to put back on.
This place was built by someone who needed it to exist. Who spent years carrying things the world had no language for — faith that ran deep but couldn’t always find its door, a nervous system that experienced the world differently, a love so large it sometimes had nowhere to go. Who went somewhere very dark and came back not with answers, but with a different orientation. Who built this place so that others might find their way to the same quiet.
You don’t need the right words, the right beliefs, the right way of being in your body or your faith. You only need to be a soul that is looking for somewhere to sit.
The collection moves through arcs. Arrival will bring you here. Threshold is the gate you cross. And Practice is the work of coming back — and recognising what the world did to the soul.
This place was made for you. It always was.
And whatever wisdom your own lineage carries — bring it with you. It belongs here too.
From the Lantern Library
Wander by what meets you
12 posts
Arrival
9 min read
Low-Demand Faith — The Liturgy of Fascination
On finding God through the back door — through music, fascination, special interests — and on the long discovery that wonder was always the path.
Faith without belonging · Late diagnosis · Low demand faith · Neurodivergence and spirituality
Arrival
9 min read
Faith as Stewardship
On parenting four prayers from four traditions during lockdown, on the difference between transmission and invitation, and on tending the ground rather than forcing the seed.
Parenting a PDA child · Stewardship and parenting · Multi-faith and heritage
Arrival
8 min read
When the Ground Would Not Hold
On fourteen years inside the SEND system, on the cumulative grief of a PDA journey, and on the night-by-night ground that love builds when nothing else can.
SEND system and tribunals · Parenting a PDA child · Stewardship and parenting · Safety and nervous system
Arrival
6 min read
The Shape of Safety
On two years housebound, on Transformers returning one by one, and on what it means for a child to come home to himself when safety is finally allowed to hold.
Parenting a PDA child · SEND system and tribunals · Safety and nervous system · Stewardship and parenting
Arrival
9 min read
Game On — Safe Passage
On lists and pen and paper and the scaffolding the world never saw, on a late ADHD diagnosis, and on the discernment the Punk grows into when it matures.
Late diagnosis · Recovery and what comes after · Identity and unmasking · Neurodivergence and spirituality
Arrival
8 min read
What Now
On the threshold between surviving and living — on what comes back from the dark, on choosing a spacious God-idea, and on the gold that cannot be taken.
Spiritual crisis and finding your way back · Recovery and what comes after · Identity and unmasking · Resistance and refusal
Threshold
9 min read
The Digital Zawiya
The threshold post. The arrival at the digital zawiya — and the punk move you make at the door: leaving every label behind to enter as a soul.
Spiritual homelessness · Faith without belonging · Identity and unmasking · Low demand faith
Practice
7 min read
A Heart Large Enough to Live In
On the heart you have to expand because there is nowhere else left to go, on choosing beauty inside nihilism, and on the small lever that calls you back to life.
Recovery and what comes after · Spiritual crisis and finding your way back · Inner life and practice · Neurodivergence and spirituality
Practice
12 min read
Winter in June
On a nervous system in winter while the calendar says June, on the seat of self beneath the noise, and on loving yourself in the moment you most want to leave yourself behind.
Burnout and survival · Recovery and what comes after · Safety and nervous system · Neurodivergence and spirituality
Practice
10 min read
Fight
On a courtesy car, a fifteen-year-old's gentle voice, and what the fight response is actually trying to protect — the thread back to the self.
Parenting a PDA child · Burnout and survival · Safety and nervous system · Stewardship and parenting
Practice
7 min read
The Sound of Allah
On a teenage boy and a fan heater, on four occupational therapy reports, and on the still small voice that no assessment will ever capture.
Parenting a PDA child · SEND system and tribunals · Neurodivergence and spirituality · Stewardship and parenting
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