"For thirty years I sought God. But when I looked carefully
I found that in reality God was the seeker and I the sought."
~Rumi
How we break open.
How we die again and again.
How we fail.
How we struggle.
How we sleep.
How we rise from our slumber.
How we climb up.
How we feel the sun on our face,
Finally remembering.
I come to Sufism with my own ideas, my own background and my own eyes to see. My eyes are constantly seeking beauty, and beauty is what I find as I explore Sufism.
As I rifle through a jumble of historical facts, social, political and religious contexts, saints and sheiks, my fingers wrap around the glowing gem of mysticism that ignites the heart of Sufism. Drawing it towards me, I breathe deeply. It brushes against my lips, and even as the terror of consumption by fire seizes my mortal heart, I swallow.
No longer the consumer, I am consumed. The glow of this gem melts me from the inside out, and I become a river for it to flow on. As soon as I conceive of “me” and “it", those conceptions are also consumed. Now there is no difference. How could I have ever imagined that I was separate from this glowing river of divine Truth?
The fullness of the devastating realization of past separation washes over me, and I am drowned in the awareness that this river is a rushing torrent of tears, the eternal grief of lost loves.
What a God who cries, calling out for the lover’s return! Always at the ready for the glorious moment of re-union, God waits.
I see this life, this world, as being full of God’s mementos: little love notes left under garden stones and in the pockets of last winter’s coat. They wait, lonesome and gathering dust until serendipity merges with action and they are found, we are found, and Oneness is reclaimed.
The river flows out into a still lake. The salt from the tears makes the water so buoyant that I float on the surface. Half of me below and half of me above, I am fully supported. Here in this quiet place of Union, no more questions are necessary, for the one answer is so profoundly clear: LOVE.
Love is this perfect balance between support and freedom, containment and flow. Somehow in the stillness my silent heart sings, and the paradox is made sense of without explanation.
Overwhelm. Overwhelmed, inundated, annihilated by God, by my own doing. Exalted! Awestruck! Grief-stricken! Enamored! Joyous!
The ninety-nine names of God turn into a million in my heart. And if I spent every day reciting a name with each new breath, I would die having only spoken God’s waistcoat, God’s style of dress.
But I will speak anyway.
As small as my mouth is, it will speak the truth that it discovers.
My eyes will search out love notes.
My heart will open to the hidden gems.
_______________________________
God’s Wounds
Through the great pain of stretching
Beyond all that pain has taught me,
The soft well at the base
Has opened, and life
Touching me there
Has turned me into a flower
That prays for rain. Now
I understand: to blossom
Is to pray, to wilt and shed
Is to pray, to turn to mulch
Is to pray, to break the surface
After great months of ice
Is to pray, and to squeeze love
Up the stalky center toward the sky
With only dreams of color
Is to pray, and finally to unfold
Again as if never before
Is to be the prayer.
~Mark Nepo