Category: Grateful Heart Monday

Welcome to this week’s Grateful Heart Monday entry, where gratitude is always the main focus, which for today is for Kazi Mannan, owner of The Sakina Halal Grill in Washington, D.C., a place that truly makes a huge impact and a big difference with the homeless and the hungry.

At the Sakina Halal Grill, no one is EVER turned away for a meal, even if they don’t have any money, and no one is ever asked about their circumstances either when they can’t pay. There are never any judgments and no questions ever asked, period. Inspired by his mother, Sakina, whom he named his restaurant after, Kazi was raised with nine siblings in Pakistan without access to running water or electricity. Even though they were immensely poor, Kazi’s mother still consistently gave away abundant amounts of food to those in her village in need. Following one basic philosophy, her belief was that God would always make sure there was plenty left for her family and she was never wrong, as Kazi and his siblings never went hungry. When Kazi eventually came to America at 25 years old looking for greater opportunities with only five dollars in his pocket, he worked hard as a gas station attendant and a limo driver saving every penny he could, consistently praying that God would guide him to what he was meant to do with his life and his earnings. Almost twenty years later, that answer finally came.

Kazi had been frequently dining at an Indian restaurant downtown and eventually had become good friends with its owner. When that owner began to experience financial hardships and was complaining about the difficulties in continuing to run his restaurant, Kazi felt his spirit move and said he wanted to buy his friend’s restaurant. A week later, the place became his. After redecorating and naming the restaurant after his mother, he opened and immediately went to a local homeless shelter and invited everyone there to join him for a free meal. Many of the homeless didn’t believe him and figured there must be some catch. There wasn’t. After Kazi convinced them of that, they came and enjoyed a delicious authentic Pakistani-Indian meal, as they learned his mission was to never let anyone go hungry, NO MATTER WHAT. Word spread quickly after that, both to the homeless and to many soon-to-be paying customers.

The Sakina Halal Grill has now become exceptionally popular and extremely busy and has a four-star rating. The homeless and the paying often sit side by side, including many White House staffers and other noteworthy people from the nation’s capital. Kazi is often asked by his customers how he keeps his place open with serving so many free meals. His answer is always that his only responsibility is to do what he knows is right and to leave the rest to God, which thus far, he’s been quite successful, never having any financial issues, even during this Coronavirus pandemic. His doors remain open from 1pm to 9pm every day for takeout for both the homeless who can’t pay and for the customers who can.

Kazi has one wish for every anyone who comes to know him and that’s for each person to share a meal once a week with someone less fortunate. His belief is that if everyone did, the entire world would begin to align with the ultimate goal of achieving peace and understanding. Kazi’s latest venture is an even greater far-reaching project to achieve this goal. He’s created a foundation that’s going to partner with 50 restaurants across the country, all operating on Sakina’s model to feed the hungry and the homeless. Whenever asked for personal advice from those who become inspired by his philosophy, Kazi suggests each perform one simple act of kindness for 30 days straight outside their immediately family, even if it’s simply offering a compliment to a stranger, and keeping a daily kindness journal in the process. He says in doing so it will become a habit and make a big difference both in their life and in the world.

So, out of all the gratitude I’ve expressed thus far under this series of my blog, I honestly can’t think of a better person who deserves to be the focus of some gratitude, which is why I’m honoring Kazi Mannan and The Sakina Halal Grill for today’s Grateful Heart Monday.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

It’s a new week and time for another new Grateful Heart Monday entry. Welcome everyone! Today I’m most grateful for the oddest of things. I say odd because I’m most grateful for a totally sleepless night I had the other night.

I know, I know, how can one be grateful for something like a totally sleepless night when everyone needs their rest? Well, that’s most certainly a good question to ask because indeed getting a good night of sleep is critical for one’s health and healing as we all probably know. But here’s the thing about a totally sleepless night. There are countless things that one can do when they can’t seem to get any shut eye.

Of course, through my years of recovery from addiction, I’ve heard numerous stories of people doing various forms of addictions during sleepless nights that ranged from getting drunk to looking at pornography. For recovering individuals or non-addicts in general, the norm appears to be watching television or a movie, or reading a book. For others, it could be writing or journaling, or working on some other hobby like knitting. But who thinks to clean their entire house during a totally sleepless night? I guess I do and that’s precisely what I did to occupy a time when I just couldn’t fall asleep.

After lying in bed for a few hours utilizing affirmations, prayer, and meditations, and even daydreaming, all in the hopes of falling asleep, I finally came to the acceptance I wasn’t going to be able to. So, I got up and began tackling a project I had put off one too many times. Room by room I went around the house, reorganizing, condensing, decluttering, rearranging, and tossing a number of things away I hadn’t used in years. Closets that had been difficult to get into were now left with decent-sized spaces for storage. Spaces that previously felt confined became more open-feeling. Garbage bags and our garbage cans became filled to the brim and a trip was even made to our storage unit with tons of books I hadn’t read in years and the large bookshelf they once were housed on. Interestingly enough, I became more energized the more I did all this, rather than feeling more exhausted. But the best part that came from this totally sleepless night actually has to do with puzzles.

One of my healthiest recovery habits is working on puzzles. I’ve done at least a dozen 1000+ ones since moving here to Toledo. Unfortunately, due to feeling like there just wasn’t enough space in our house anymore and way too much clutter, my partner Chris and had decided to shelve our puzzle-making projects well over 8 months ago. But after removing that large bookshelf from the office and relocating two other pieces of furniture elsewhere, we were left with a perfect-sized space to permanently place our puzzle table in the office. To celebrate the good news of that, I ordered a limited-edition Iron Man puzzle that I plan on doing for a friend when it arrives.

In the end, my totally sleepless night turned into an extremely productive one. It truly felt freeing and uplifting to declutter, to reorganize, and clean in general. On some level, I compare the experience to the thorough housecleaning practice I did during my 4^thStep work of 12 Step recovery. By the time I finished that step, it was as if a weight was lifted off of me, which is precisely how I felt by the time this 24-hour period without sleep ended.

Rather than feeling absolutely drained and depressed, I felt grateful that I had utilized what could have been a very frustrating morning and afternoon in a way that helped not only my energy, but my partners as well, and for that I felt it was best to become the focus of today’s Grateful Heart Monday entry!

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

With the world presently in such a state of negativity surrounding COVID-19, I continue to see the only antidote is to practice gratitude, which is the very purpose of my Grateful Heart Monday series. In light of that, what I’m grateful today is for my partner Chris still having a job during this pandemic crisis.

As most of my regular readers know, I personally don’t have a paying job that helps to bring home any bacon to my relationship with Chris. I do my best to make up for that doing household chores and duties and thankfully using some savings that helps to contribute to a few small bills each month. My health issues have continued to stand in the way of me getting back out there in the real world to a paying job and while my mind and spirit desire that immensely, my physical body isn’t quite capable of it yet. But I do have faith that one day soon I will and have kept that faith alive to keep me going. In the meantime though, I’ve been ever so grateful that Chris has continued supporting the two of us.

That’s why I developed fear when this virus began spreading rapidly and things started to shut down, forcing hundreds, then thousands, and now millions out of work. Every time Chris has come home from work since this whole shutdown began, I have wondered if he’s going to tell me he too is now out of a job. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened thus far and I’m ever so grateful to God for that.

It’s humbling for me to not having a paying job, to not be able to earn a living, especially when I once owned a seven figured business and before that was earning more than $80k per year. With my partner being in an industry that is still considered essential, it’s made life a lot easier to bear during these crazy COVID-19 fear-based times.

I know of so many who don’t know how they are going to keep getting by, who are out of work and have been for weeks now, even when their unemployment finally comes through. Unemployment tends not to cover an entire family’s bills, let alone the individual themselves most times. The last time Chris and I were dealing with that situation, when he was out of work for about a year, life was so stressful, tension was constantly high, and I questioned every day how we were going to keep managing.

So, for as simple as this piece of gratitude was to write about, the amount of gratitude I’m feeling surrounding it is rather complex. Because I truly am grateful that God placed Chris in a job that continues to operate during these uncertain times. I’m grateful that we still have his income coming in to keep putting food on our table and a roof over our heads. I’m grateful to Chris for his ongoing willingness to financially support us and to keep on working, even when he knows there’s a risk continuing to do so. And I’m grateful God has kept Chris healthy enough to keep working, as that continues to make this all possible during a terrible pandemic crisis that I most certainly pray will soon be over.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson