When things are going not the way you want it to be, what would you do? Things you have no control at all, things you couldn’t change no matter what you do. Let’s say … you were amazed by a photograph of a scenery of a city that was so captivating, breathtaking, and poignant you made a promise to yourself, someday you will visit the place, and see the view with your own eyes.
This is the image:
*sumber: mbah gugel*
It’s the view from 88th floor of Eureka Deck, Melbourne. Sejak melihat foto itu, gue seperti terobsesi. Pengin liat view yang sama. Pengin berdiri di spot yang sama seperti sang fotografer, pengin memejamkan mata sejenak dan merekam pemandangan ajaib ini ke dalam otak, pengin melihat satu persatu lampu di gedung-gedung kota Melbourne berkelip, meyala, berpendar, menyambut malam.
Cerita berawal ketika gue diajak jalan-jalan ke Melbourne oleh @GoToMelbourne beberapa hari setelah gue menetapkan cita-cita melihat sunset di Eureka Deck. Semesta bekerja dengan cara yang nggak pernah gue duga sama sekali. Dan, semesta sedang baik kepada gue saat itu. Membaca dan meneliti itinerary yang tak memasukkan Eureka Deck, gue tak patah arang karena ada satu free day. Artinya, gue bisa pergi sendiri ke sana. Hore? Hore, dong!
Namun, di hari bebas itu, Melbourne is acting like … well… Melbourne. Banyak yang bilang ke gue, Melbourne adalah kota yang sempurna jika elo ingin merasakan 4 musim dalam satu hari. The weather here is unpredictable. Jangan bahagia dulu melihat langit biru dan awan-awan unyu berarak-arak riang di langit, karena dalam waktu lima menit, hujan bisa mendadak turun dan elo bisa menghabiskan sisa hari dengan menatap langit yang kelabu dan gloomy. Fakta ini tak menyurutkan tekad gue untuk mengunjungi gedung tertinggi di Melbourne itu. Gue yakin, di hari gue mengunjungi Eureka, cuaca akan cerah ceria dengan langit biru dan awan centil. And I was right. For like 10 minutes.
Pagi yang cerah digantikan dengan mendung di siang hari. Awan kelabu dan hitam menggantung di langit, menciptakan suasana yang gloomy. Matahari nggak terlihat sama sekali, dan pemandangan gedung-gedung di Melbourne yang tadinya vibrant menjadi kelam. Dengan harapan bahwa Melbourne itu adalah Libra yang labil, yang artinya cuaca akan berubah lagi, gue membeli tiket ke observation deck lantai 88 Eureka Deck.
Apa yang lo harapkan terkadang nggak sejalan dengan apa yang lo dapatkan. High expectation leads to two things: happiness or disappointment. Gue mendapatkan keduanya. And I ‘blame’ God for doing this to me.
Nggak ada langit biru. Nggak ada pemandangan sunset spektakuler. Nggak ada sinar emas matahari yang terpantul di sudut siku Eureka Deck seperti foto di atas. No glorious sunset that day.
Apakah gue kecewa? Well… I’d be lying if I say I didn’t feel the disappointment. Tapi, gue bukan orang yang larut dalam kekecewaan begitu saja. Gue lebih memilih untuk menikmati dan bersenang-senang dengan apa yang sudah diberikan ke gue.
And you know what? Di Eureka Deck inilah gue mendapatkan pemandangan yang JAUH LEBIH SPEKTAKULER ketimbang sunset yang gue harapkan.
Dua jam lebih gue berkeliling menikmati langit kelabu dan mengamati pemandangan 360 derajat kota Melbourne, seperti foto-foto ini:
Kece-kece kan, walau mendung? :D
Namun, pemandangan terindah adalah ketika gue duduk di bangku empuk berwarna hitam, yang menghadap ke jendela bening yang menampilkan deretan pencakar langit Melbourne. Ada beberapa anak-anak kecil yang berlarian mengejar teman-temannya. Ada turis dari Prancis yang sedang memeluk pacarnya dari belakang, membisikkan kalimat bahasa Prancis yang kemungkinan besar romantis, ada keluarga dari Korea yang berfoto berganti-gantian dengan berbagai macam gaya, dan akhirnya, ada seorang Ibu-ibu berjilbab dan dua anak perempuannya yang duduk berjajar di bangku panjang di seberang tempat gue duduk.
Tak lama kemudian, seorang laki-laki jangkung berjanggut menghampiri keluarganya, berbicara beberapa kata berbahasa Arab, lalu … dia sholat.
Keributan yang ditimbulkan para turis di observation deck seketika lesap, bertransformasi menjadi sebentuk hening yang indah. Gue nggak peduli lagi sama pasangan Prancis yang pacaran. Gue nggak peduli dengan turis Korea yang masih heboh berfoto dengan berbagai pose. Perhatian gue sepenuhnya tercurahkan ke lelaki jangkung yang sedang sholat serta keluarganya. It was the most beautiful thing I saw that day.
Sang istri menatap suaminya dengan binar mata penuh cinta. Anak pertama pasangan ini, seorang anak perempuan bermata bulat berbulu mata lentik dan mengenakan gaun krem, berbisik-bisik di telinga ibunya, sementara adiknya, yang mengenakan gaun yang senada dengan gaun kakaknya,tampak kepo dan menarik-narik tangan ibunya, meminta diberitahu, apa yang sedang kakaknya bisikkan. Sang Ibu menempelkan telunjuk di bibir, mengisyaratkan kedua anaknya untuk tak mengganggu kegiatan papa mereka. Tanpa sadar, mata gue terasa panas.
It’s the way she looked at him. Her eyes were full of love and affection. It’s the serenity that suddenly wrapped me tight. It’s the peaceful joy to saw the man praying to his God. It’s the vanishing of my disappointment because of the bleak sky. It’s the children who sat nicely beside their mother as they watched their father talked to God. That moment, nothing else mattered. That moment, I realised, God is everywhere.
Gue dua kali memotret lelaki yang sedang berbicara dengan Tuhannya. Setelah ia selesai dan menghampiri keluarganya, gue bangkit dari duduk gue. Mata gue masih panas. Gue menarik napas panjang supaya nggak nangis. Kan gak lucu ngajakin mereka ngobrol dengan airmata berderai-derai. X)
“Hi, excuse me…”
Si lelaki menatap gue dengan sedikit kecurigaan. Gue buru-buru menunjukkan foto di kamera gue. “I took two pictures of you while you were praying to God. Is it okay? If you don’t like it, I can delete it now. But I think what you did just now was so beautiful.”
“Thank you. Praying to God is always beautiful.”
“So … is it okay for me to keep the pictures?”
He nodded and smile. His wife was smiling too.
“Yes. Sure. They are beautiful. Thank you.”
Setelah itu, kami tak banyak bercakap-cakap lagi. Gue cuma tau bahwa mereka sedang berlibur, dan bahwa mereka berasal dari Abu Dhabi (atau Dubai, ugh, my memory messes up again!).
“Wherever we go, we know God is everywhere.”
That was the last line from this fine gentleman. And he was so right. God, is everywhere.
And you know what? Despite the cloudy and gloomy weather, there’s sunset! YAY.
Tentunya, harus ada gue yang mejeng dong, di postingan ini.
34 responses to “God Is Everywhere”
poto terakhir lu koq tegang gitu lex.. senyum dikit kek .__.”
nice story as always, poto fav gw yg lg sujud, indah nget :)
My eyes are burning…
Dan satu-dua tetes air mata jatuh.
Koh, it really is beautiful.
God is, indeed, everywhere.
Hummmmpppttt.. Setelah barisan kalimat lu yg so touching.. U hit me with a dozen beautiful pictures lex.. Thanks.. A lot of meanings at there’s!
Praying to god i s always beautiful…
Keren…
Good story, as always :)
To be honest, I was hypnotized by your beautiful story plus of course your very special picture (again)
Thank you koh and yes God is everywhere :’)
Baca cerita ini di Grand Indo dan mata gue berkaca2
Niceeeeee story…,
yes, God is Everywhere :’)
nggak ada alasan kita nggak bersyukur dengan keadaan kita :’)
Koh,hutang novel jangan lupa ya!!! udah ga sabar baca ceritamu komplit!
Damn good picture and nice story teller Alex ♥
Hope you have more chance to travelling more and share more inspirational story for us.. There is a lot of AMINNN for you :)
masyaAllah.. indah.. the way you telling it is wonderful too. Adakah tulisan yang lebih indah daripada tulisan yang menyalakan api iman? thank you :’)
Hey thank you for your great story. And your pics, it’s amazing.
Can I tell my story as well? :p
Actually, my lecturer gave another meaning of photography to me. He said that my friend pics are meaningful. Pictures with a philosophy, brush, filters, etc. Overmanipulated. And unfortunately, you can’t see the meaning in his before-makeup-pics.
“Oh, this kind of pic is far better than an original pic,” I thought.
I don’t ever think it’s wrong. I just can’t enjoy this photography thingy anymore. No offense.
And when I opened your ig, those pic of yours suddenly shouted at me, “hey we’re much better.”
Your pics with each stories. with no over make-up. with no setting. aMrazing is really amazing. Esp this pic. No need to be a Muslim to feel his love to God.
Then I realized, I still love photography, just this kind of photography. Thank you, thank you, please keep taking many wonderful pics so I won’t ever lose the meaning anymore.
I love the way you tell us. I love you, and thank you kak. Terimakasih telah menjadi pribadi yang hangat.
foto fotonya keren kak dan ceritanya selalu bagus seperti biasa, emang benar Praying to God is always beautiful :)
u ar very good in writing and taking pics :,)
Sorry to burst your bubble, but contrary to popular belief, there is no single evidence for the existence of God and it is therefore logical and reasonable to think that He does not exist.
Sorry to break this news to you: you did not burst any bubbles at all. The happiness remains the same for me and for some people who read this post.
Of course, it’s your right to believe what you want to believe. You think God doesn’t exist, it’s okay. You wanna say that you worship the internet or that you worship a holy dead tree or even the undies of your ex, it’s okay too. Even if you worship how mighty Miley Cyrus’s twerk, that’s perfectly fine for me.
And yes, me (and some of us) choose to believe in God. Whatever you say, would not burst the bubble. Newsflash: the bubble is called… faith. We are happy that way.
Lol, his ex’s undies? Seriously? Lol again!
I’m assuming your second paragraph is directed to me and not just people in general, so I feel that I must correct you that it is my right to believe AND disbelieve. Careful not to mix up believing in something and NOT believing in something. The stuff about Miley’s twerk and whatnot is irrelevant, and seem to only belittle what I have said.
With regards to faith, I am trying to encourage you and whoever else that’s reading this reply of mine, to think logically and rationally. Unfortunately faith, by definition, is belief in something irrational.
Your blog post is well-written, but to involve God whose existence is doubted at best, is rather flawed. As a wrap-up, my objection to the content of your post is that you seem to take his existence as a given, while this is not certainly the case.
Hi kak lex i just wanna say that i ever did this too (praying) in Brisbane’s airport during ‘mudik’ lebaran tahun lalu hehe, & it’s heart-warming how you could feel the sincerity of that guy towards his God. Good writing kak lex. <3
The warmth feeling that people radiate from their behavior…… Cherish everything that happened around you….. Such an observer….
Reply to Jack O’Reilly : It is perfectly fine that you don’t believe in God. Then, this is just another story about someone that you don’t know, that you don’t have any relation whatsoever, experiencing something that doesn’t interest you. For us who believe, the story is about US. About somebody very close to ourselves. That’s why we can share the same experience. That’s what make it beautiful.
What’s the use of feeling great about sharing the same experience if that experience has such a weak basis?
This is of interest to me. Why people would invoke God in any given awe-inspiring situation is very interesting to me.
:)i enjoy your entertaining reply to jack o something who tried to burst your bubble:))
Nice story nice pics!
It’s Jack O’Reilly, I would gladly appreciate it if you could, at least, respect my name. Thanks, Mamina.
Refer to my reply to aMrazing to see that the whole point of my post was not to burst anyone’s bubble. It’s a figure of speech, you see.
Poto istri dan anaknya gak ada?
Sekali lagi baca cerita alex..
Eh malah ikut2an brebes mili….
Akkkhhh…kenapa selalu bisa bikin cerita yg bikin terharu sih…
Ceritaaa & photo yg lebih dr indaah :)
Eh kak lex, ngomong2, di agamaku, sholat itu satu2nya ibadah yg nggak boleh ditawar2 loh. Kalau ibadah yg lain itu ada “pengecualian”nya, kalau sholat, sekalipun kita sakit, tetep harus dilaksanakan.
Makanya aku kadang agak bingung gitu kalau diajak liburan temen ke tempat-tempat yang susah mau shoat di mana, misalnya ke hutan. Atau ke tempat2 yg there’s no place to sholat.
Membaca postinganmu ini, aku jadi semakin yakin untuk bisa liburan ke mana aja. Gak takut bingung keteteran sholatku nanti. Karena God is everywhere, gak cuma di mesjid doang..
Sip kak, postingan yg (kayak sebelum2nya) bagus..
Semoga gue bisa sekolah di Melbourne karena emang keren kotanya..
Thanks for a beautiful story koh.
Semoga bisa nulis sebagus koh Alex dan yang penting bisa jalan-jalan sampe ke Melbourne, hehe.
Aku berkaca kaca membacanyaaa.. koh lexy ud83dude22ud83dude22ud83dude22ud83dude22ud83dude22ud83dude22ud83dude22ud83dude22ud83dude22ud83dude22ud83dude22ud83dude22ud83dude22ud83dude22.. can i say i love you now ud83dude2dud83dude2dud83dude2dud83dude2dud83dude2dud83dude2d
Gw gak tau musti komen apa… So pasti.. That is AMRAZIIIING….
sumpah aku ikut merasakan keindahan yang kamu liat, Koh!
dan itu… kudu banget koh kamu mejeng?