Be Lost in the Call (A Poem by Rumi)
Lord, said David, since you do not need us,
why did you create these two worlds?
Reality replied: O prisoner of time,
I was a secret treasure of kindness and generosity,
and I wished this treasure to be known,
so I created a mirror: its shining face, the heart;
its darkened back, the world;
The back would please you if you've never seen the face.
Has anyone ever produced a mirror out of mud and straw?
Yet clean away the mud and straw,
and a mirror might be revealed.
Until the juice ferments a while in the cask,
it isn't wine. If you wish your heart to be bright,
you must do a little work.
My King addressed the soul of my flesh:
You return just as you left.
Where are the traces of my gifts?
We know that alchemy transforms copper into gold.
This Sun doesn't want a crown or robe from God's grace.
He is a hat to a hundred bald men,
a covering for ten who were naked.
Jesus sat humbly on the back of an ass, my child!
How could a zephyr ride an ass?
Spirit, find your way, in seeking lowness like a stream.
Reason, tread the path of selflessness into eternity.
Remember God so much that you are forgotten.
Let the caller and the called disappear;
be lost in the Call.
"Love is a Stranger", Kabir Helminski
Threshold Books, 1993
Watching, and Not Watching the News
I cannot watch the news any longer, the breathless gasping of superstar anchors, calling in experts in detection and weaponry. Is there a second shooter on the loose? A third? Maybe that SUV in the roadway is yet to explode? More deaths today since Sandy Hook, they swoon. As if a record's been set. Like it's newsworthy, the number. A ratings boost.
Instead I turn my attention to a tiny nurse, guiding my fragile mother into a wheelchair, rubbing cream into her dry and swollen leg. Today I learned that she was once a midwife for women in Dubai, and that before that she worked several jobs for little pay in the Philippines. Around the world she's wandered, in search of something she could send home, something like hope or a little money for food or school. And now this tiny nurse stands over my weeping mother, like a midwife, a gentle soul suggesting comfort, offering hope and warm hands. "Spirit, find your way, in seeking lowness like a stream. / Reason, tread the path of selflessness into eternity."
The sad men with machine guns win the nightly news. And the firepower is awesome in response, the militarized equipment we thought we'd need in foreign wars, but send instead to places like Colorado Springs and Sandy Hook and San Bernardino. But it's this Filipina in my mother's bedroom who changes the world, who heals the human heart, who is God's midwife in the here and now. I imagine that her life here is hard: her children and grandchildren are thousands of miles away; and she works long and tiring hours for just enough to get by. But her smile is genuine and she speaks meaningfully of grace and faith and service.
If I have anything to offer tonight, anything to offer to my friends and family, to my church and my people, it's her example and my gratitude for it. Today, in a quiet home, she has "tread the path of selflessness into eternity." I've watched my mother, hobbled by injury and despair, resting in this 'eternity' and finding some peace in its embrace. And this is no small thing.
This Sun doesn't want a crown or robe from God's grace.
He is a hat to a hundred bald men,
a covering for ten who were naked.
Holy God, fill the hearts of the weary with love tonight,
And bind up the many wounds of the frightened and hurt.
Turn the intentions of your many peoples,
Your Muslim and Jewish and Christian peoples,
Your skeptical and smart and curious peoples,
Turn our intentions to kindness.
Let us cover the nakedness of the cold and lonely.
Let us feed the hungry with good things.
Let us tread the paths of selflessness,
And find in our tenderness the only eternity
That warms our anxious spirits and heals us.
Amen and amen.
