Hundreds of ways to kneel

 

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.

Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.

Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~Rumi

The Light enters

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.

~Rumi

Don't go back to sleep

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

Don't go back to sleep....

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

When it is raining...

When it's cold and raining,
you are more beautiful.


And the snow brings me
even closer to your lips.


The inner secret, that which was never born,
you are the freshness, and I am with you now.


I can't explain the goings,
or the comings.  You enter suddenly,


and I am nowhere again.
Inside the Magesty.


~Rumi

Seek and find the barriers

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ~Rumi

Sell your cleverness

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. 
Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition.
~Rumi

Spring is Christ, by Rumi - Poetry for Poetry Month

Everyone has eaten and fallen asleep.

The house is empty.

We walk out to the garden to let the apple

meet the peach, to carry messages

between rose and jasmine.

Spring is Christ,

raising martyred plants from their shrouds.

A leaf trembles. I tremble

in the wind-beauty like silk from Turkestan.

The censer fans into flame.

This wind is the Holy Spirit.

The trees are Mary.

Watch how husband and wife play subtle games

with their hands. Strings of cloudy pearls

are thrown across the lovers,

as is the marriage custom.

We talk about this and that. There is no rest

except on these branching moments.

The Guest House by Rumi- Poetry for Poetry Month

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
    translation by Coleman Barks

Let the beauty we love be what we do. ~Rumi

Let the beauty we love be what we do. ~Rumi

My life flows between

‎"Wisdom tells us we are not worthy; 
Love tells us we are. 
My life flows between the two."

--Rumi, Turkish Traditions

Prayer is an egg

Our Senior Warden read this wonderful Rumi poem as the opening prayer at our vestry meeting tonight!

Awesome. I love Rumi, but don't remember this one.

~The Rev. Peter M. Carey

Prayer is an Egg 

 by Rumi

On Resurrection Day God will say, "What did you do with

the strength and energy

your food I gave you on earth? How did you use your eyes?

What did you make with

your five senses while they were dimming and playing out?

I gave you hands and feet

as tools for preparing the ground for planting. Did you,

in the health I gave,

do the plowing?" You will not be able to stand when you

hear those questions. You

will bend double, and finally acknowledge the glory. God

will say, "Lift

your head and answer the questions." Your head will rise

a little, then slump

again. "Look at me! Tell what you've done." You try,

but you fall back flat

as a snake. "I want every detail. Say!" Eventually you

will be able to get to

a sitting position. "Be plain and clear. I have given you

such gifts. What did

you do with them?" You turn to the right looking to the

prophets for help, as

though to say, I am stuck in the mud of my life. Help me

out of this! They

will answer, those kings, "The time for helping is past.

The plow stands there in

the field. You should have used it." Then you turn to

the left, where your family

is, and they will say, "Don't look at us! This conversation

is between you and your

creator." Then you pray the prayer that is the essence

of every ritual: God,

I have no hope. I am torn to shreds. You are my first and

last and only refuge.

Don't do daily prayers like a bird pecking, moving its head

up and down. Prayer is an egg.

Hatch out the total helplessness inside.

-Translated by Coleman Barks

a guide from beyond...

The Guest House 

This being human is a guest house. 

Every morning a new arrival. 

A joy, a depression, a meanness, 

some momentary awareness comes 

as an unexpected visitor. 

Welcome and entertain them all! 

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, 

who violently sweep your house 

empty of its furniture, 

still, treat each guest honorably. 

He may be clearing you out 

for some new delight. 

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, 

meet them at the door laughing, 

and invite them in. 

Be grateful for whoever comes, 

because each has been sent 

as a guide from beyond.

 

~ Rumi

 

 

(The Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks)

I should be suspicious

Who Makes These Changes

Who makes these changes?

I shoot an arrow right.

It lands left.

I ride after a deer and find myself

chased by a hog.

I plot to get what I want

and end up in prison

I dig pits to trap others

and fall in.

I should be suspicious

of what I want.

~Jelaluddin Rumi

Put this design on your carpet

I can't stop pointing

to the beauty.

Every moment and place says,

"Put this design in your carpet!"

~Rumi

Stay awake

Matt. 25:1-13 

'Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroomb 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5 As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a shout, "Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him." 7 Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps 8 The foolish said to the wise, "Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out." 9 But the wise replied, "No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves." 10 And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. 11 Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, "Lord, lord, open to us."12 But he replied, "Truly I tell you, I do not know you." 13 Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.  ~Rumi

 The word "Buddha" means "one who woke up"

Certainly, Advent is a time when we are encouraged to "stay awake" as we await the coming of God in our world.  On the other hand, with the lengthening night (in the Northern Hemisphere, at least), it is increasingly hard for me, at least, to stay awake.  If you're like me, you may be feeling tired, and somewhat overwhelmed by all that I have to do in this "season of light."

But, certainly, a part of staying awake is also dependent upon resting.  Taking time to be focussed and alert relies upon us taking time to drift and to relax.  The kind of alertness that is spoken about in Matthew's gospel, in Rumi's poetry, and also embodied in the meaning of the Buddha is a kind of alertness that is not tense, nor is it a rigid kind of alertness.  While it can be easy to fall into the stress and busy-ness of the holiday season, we are called to be alert - and to cultivate a real sense of relaxed awareness and alertness.

I pray that we might take the time to rest, but also to be alert, to get done what needs to be done, but also to banish stress and anxiety.

"Keep awake"

"Don’t go back to sleep."

Be one who is awake!

~The Rev. Peter M. Carey

"Children run through and make faces at me"...Another Rumi Poem

I sometimes remember this poem when I consider the ways that being a parent has changed my daily life, and my daily prayer!


I used to be shy.
You made me sing.

I used to refuse things at table.
Now I shout for more wine.

In somber dignity, I used to sit
on my mat and pray.

Now children run through
and make faces at me.


Coleman Barks comments: "In China they tell of three laughing Taoist masters, who taught by going into town and standing in the marketplace and laughing. One of them died. People curious as to how the remaining two would act gathered at the funeral pyre. The other two masters had been given instructions not to prepare the body in any way, not even to change the clothes the dead man was wearing. He had crammed his pockets full of firecrackers. The teaching began again. Rumi's poems are like firecrackers on a funeral pyre. They won't allow much public posturing, and they point us away from misery."

(Coleman Barks with John Moyne, translators, The Essential Rumi, San Francsico, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995: p. 238)

"Don't go back to sleep," by Rumi

On a cold morning in January, Rumi has a few words for us today!

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.

~Rumi

I should be suspicious of what I want, poem by Rumi

Who Makes These Changes

Who makes these changes?
I shoot an arrow right.
It lands left.
I ride after a deer and find myself
chased by a hog.
I plot to get what I want
and end up in prison
I dig pits to trap others
and fall in.

I should be suspicious
of what I want.

~Jelaluddin Rumi






.

"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi

Central Park Zoo, Quote by Rumi

I love this quote from the Sufi Mystic Rumi...."Let the beauty we love be what we do." Reminds me of the all too often quoted (and too little practiced!) quote attributed to St. Francis, "Preach the Gospel at all times, when necessary use words." It also resonates with me today after yesterday's reading from the Gospel on the Good Samaritan, for it was that he "showed mercy" and DID SOMETHING to help that was of vital importance.

The term "Good Samaritan" used by Jesus was probably nearly a distasteful joke and at least a gross example for some of the listenters when he told the story. His audience probably could not believe that a Samaritan could be "Good" in the way that God and the People of the Covenant were Good. Perhaps we would hear this incongruity in a "Good Terrorist?," "Good Enemy?," or even, (do I dare say it,...) "Good Al Quaeda?" Jesus was making it plain that it was the action of love that is of the vital importance. Jesus points out that our savior would perhaps be the last person we could ever dream of our savior being. In the case of the parable, the savior is the Good Samaritan, and Jesus calls us to "Go and Do Likewise," but He also lays out the Christ-Like nature of the Good Samaritan, who was willing to cross ethnic and cultural boundaries to help a person in need. Also, Jesus paints in the margins of this image of the Good Samaritan that HE is the Good Samaritan, the one who comes to save, yet is the unexpected one, and who comes in a way and a manner and in a mode that is not what the religious authorities and protectors of doctrine in his day would expect.

When Jesus calls us to "go and do likewise," he calls us to act lovingly, to even, "let the beauty we love be what we do."