Write Transparently. Live Transparently?

"Isn't it funny how the most personal themes are also the most universal?

And often the most powerful?"

(Amanda Revé L.)

True Love.

This is a poem of true Love.

This is for St. Valentine's Day, and this is for every day.

Something like this is infinitely beautiful.

There is far more to this than meets the eye,
So I think.
You tell me!

~

"The wakened lover speaks directly to the Beloved,
'You are the sky my spirit circles in,
the love inside Love, the resurrection-place.

Let this window be your ear.
I have lost consciousness many times
with longing for your listening silence,
and your life-quickening smile.

You give attention to the smallest matters,
my suspicious doubts, and to the greatest.

You know my coins are counterfeit,
but you accept them anyway,
my impudence and my pretending!

I have five things to say,
five fingers to give
into Your Grace.

First, when I was apart from you,
this world did not exist,
nor any other.

Second, whatever I was looking for
was always You.

Third, why did I ever learn to count to three?

Fourth, my cornfield is burning!

Fifth, this finger stands for my lover,*
and this is for someone else.
Is there a difference?

Are these words or tears?
Is weeping speech?
What shall I do, my love?'

So he speaks, and everyone around
begins to cry with him, laughing crazily,
moaning in the spreading union
of lover and beloved.

This is the true religion, all others
are thrown-away bandages beside it.

This is the sema of slavery and mastery
dancing together. This is not being.

Neither words, nor any natural fact
can express this.

I know these dancers.
Day and night I sing their songs
in this phenomenal cage.

My soul, don't try to answer now!
Find a friend, and hide.

But what can stay hidden?
Love's secret is always lifting its head--
out from under the covers,
'Here I am!'"

--Rumi, I Have Five Things to Say

~

What can stay hidden? Nothing.
O Lord, have Mercy on me
According to your loving-kindness.
And be Blessed Love,
Be Blessed!

Your baby boy,
s.s.

*sema means "cycle;" in the original Arabic Rumi uses the female name "Rabia" here. I assume this was his lover. This translation is by Corry Stuart and can be found on his website @ http://www.corrystuart.com/009fivethingstosay.html.

Fear... or Healing?

A Friend's Illness

"SICKNESS brought me this
Thought, in that scale of his:
Why should I be dismayed
Though flame had burned the whole
World, as it were a coal,
Now I have seen it weighed
Against a soul?"

--William Butler Yeats

I am praying for you dear ones. I am not afraid.

Do not fear, but

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
Lean not on your own understanding,
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your path straight."
Proverbs 3:5

and

"Be strong in the Lord and the strength of His Might."
Ephesians 6:10

Psalm 91.
Psalm 103.

You were forgiven, you were healed
for no reason but becuase
He Loves you.

When You Fall...

"No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home, but the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one's temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us: it is the very sign of His presence."
--C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain