Forgiveness: As a Christian Disappears Into Grace

[Guest guest]

>From "The Soul of Rumi" - Coleman Barks

 

 

"Every religion has times of renewal, emptying out and

beginning again, times of forgiveness. Surely this is at the

core of Christianity.

 

Rumi's connection with Jesus stays strong. Christians feel

it when he speaks of the Friend. My friend, the writer Jim

Kilgo, says that the Christian idea that God is available to

human beings as a friend is what he hears when he reads Rumi,

that inner friendship.

 

In the sufi tradition they sense that the energy in Jesus

reappeared in the form of Rumi. He's known to the sufis as

the pole of love, the gutb. The traditional invitation into

Rumi's community sounds very like what I heard in the

Christian gatherings of my youth.

 

~Coleman Barks

 

 

Come, come, whoever you are,

wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

This is not a caravan of despair.

It doesn't matter that you've broken

your vow a thousand times, still

come, and yet again, come.

 

 

~Rumi

 

To You, Beloved,

i will try to say something.

 

Just this -

 

Some time ago, a time

when Wim was a wandering mystic,

or so i've heard,

seventy times seven

was said to be this thousand times

that Rumi said to Hussam when

they were wandering in the Mystery

in some vineyard in Konya,

Korasan,

and Iraq.

 

Remember, they were a garden,

two souls

with one body

with birdsong

and some kind of misty rain

like fog, like

San Francisco fog

moving through them.

 

You move me.

Moving through me,

movement somehow ceases.

 

In this Stillness,

palming an entire pomegranate orchard

in Your right hand,

Scarlet-Dark scattering Hearts burst

into a lake of White-Light Lotus blossoms

as far as the eye can see,

That Eye!

They spring forth from the left,

upturned palm, pouring forth

like the rippling watery waves

weeping into a Sea of Bliss that You

spoke of today.

 

This weeping iss Joy imploding,

imploding into OneHeart knowing

Rumi was and is the Love of Shams.

 

Loving Shams, and the Beloved One,

and yes, the Most Beautiful One is Shams,

Rumi Loves Shams and is Shams' Loving

Rumi like i Love You.

Like You Love me when hearing

someone say -

 

"Where are they?"

 

Where aren't they?!

 

When the Majesty opened this morning

at Dawn, when the bird began singing,

we were entered,

became the entrance,

entered into,

inside One Another again,

again as the Kindness Friend Who enters

every Heart

as Yes, this OneHeart beating again

and yet again as

the Eternal Rhythmic Sound

of Love Loving ItSelf as and for ItSelf

in the heartbeat of every Lover.

 

And everything, everyone, everywhere

is the Lover of the Beloved.

 

Everything Everywhere Forever.

 

See, It's A Gain,

an infinitely multitudinous

single grain of rice appearing

as the idea-seed of hunger being satisfied.

The Satisfaction of One Being fed as many.

Many mouths have not been able to say,

yet again, what i cannot say -

 

This Unspeakable Thing,

 

This Love.

 

It feeds on us as we feed on It.

The bell rings.

 

Sasaki Roshi speaks.

The Unsayable is somehow said.

 

How can i say this to You?

Okay. Just this -

 

The night approaches.

The mountain approaches.

Sasaki Roshi approaches.

 

Now, they are Here.

 

The bell rings clearly.

Hearing only Silence,

we fall into That.

 

LoveAlways,

 

Mazie