Rumi

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.

~

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.
-- Sufi poet & mystic Rumi

In the latest Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett interviews an expert on Rumi and we hear another side of Islam that we in the West are not familiar with.

From the interview:
"Krista: In your writing, you ask, 'How is one to nurture this God buried like a treasure in one's being and let it permeate all of life?' How does your encounter with Rumi help you to answer that question?
Fatemah: The most important tool that [Rumi has given me] is hope. That is what we need to nurture in ourselves. And hope, the energy to move, the energy to never let go, is what Rumi has given me. Rumi writes, 'I am fire. If you have doubts about that, bring your hands forth.'"