Wake and Walk Out 

–Rumi

If I flinched at every grief, I

would be an intelligent idiot. If

I were not the sun, I’d ebb and

flow like sadness.  If you were not

my guide, I’d wander lost in Sanai.

If there were no light, I’d keep

opening and closing the door.  If

there were no rose garden, where

would the morning breezes go?  If

love did not want music and laughter

and poetry, what would I say?  If

you were not medicine, I would look

sick and skinny.  If there were no

leafy limbs in the air, there would

be no wet roots.  If no gifts were

given, I’d grow arrogant and cruel.

If there were no way into God, I

would not have lain in the grave of

this body so long.  If there were no

way from left to right, I could not

be swaying in the grasses.  If

there were no grace and no kindness,

conversation would be useless, and

nothing we do would matter.  Listen

to the new stories that begin every

day.  If light were not beginning

again in the east, I would not now

wake and walk out inside the dawn

Form is Ecstatic

–Rumi

There is a shimmering excitement in

being sentient and shaped.  The

caravan masters sees his camels lost

in it, nose to tail, as he himself is,

his friend, and the stranger coming

toward them.  A gardener watches the

sky break into song, cloud wobbly with

what it is.  Bud, thorn, the same.

Wind, water, wandering this essential

state.  Fire, ground, gone.  That’s

how it is with the outside.  Form

it ecstatic.  Now imagine the inner:

soul, intelligence, the secret worlds!

And don’t think the garden loses its

ecstacy in the winter.  It’s quiet, but

the roots down there riotous.

If someone bumps you in the street,

don’t be angry.  Everyone careens

shout in this surprise.  Respond in

kind.  Let the knots untie, turbans

be given away.  Someone drunk on this

could drink a donkeyload a night.

Believer, unbeliever, cynic, lover,

all combine in the spirit-form we are.

but no one yet is awake like Shams.

I was at the hospital today, visiting my friend who is recovering from the surgeries well, but she still has Stage 4 cancer. And I could hear Rumi putting words in my head, and I could feel his energy and his reminder that his religion is Love, and our religion is Love, no matter what path you follow.  The ecstasy in the path of Love can help you get through the trying times and sometimes in the devastating times.   When the going is the toughest, it’s good to remember that the God is Love, Lover and Beloved, and nothing else can be all three.