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+ Ninth Day of Christmas + How about some Rumi wisdom? >

How will you know the difficulties
of being human, if you're always
flying off to blue perfection?

Where will you plant your grief seeds?
Workers need ground to scrape and hoe,
not the sky of unspecified desire.

Love is the way messengers

from the mystery tell us things.

 

Love is the mother.

We are her children.

 

She shines inside us,

visible-invisible, as we trust

or lose trust, or feel it start to grow again.

Source: THE SOUL OF RUMI: Translations by Coleman Barks, pages 32-33

+ It's a Feast Day (of course) > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Basil_the_Great

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+ updated at 11:53am EST on Thursday, January 17, 2013

 

+

If you could get rid
of yourself just once,
The secret of secrets
Would open to you.
The face of the unknown,
Hidden beyond the universe
Would appear on the
Mirror of your perception.
-- Rumi

 

I found that quote at http://www.allspirit.co.uk/sufism.html

 

+ Urgent > Deadline Monday: Fight the largest coal export terminal in the United States

Dear Friend,

As climate change wreaks havoc across the globe and scientists issue dire warnings of a 9-15 degree increase in temperatures this century, the coal industry wants to ship more than a hundred million tons of dirty coal to Asia each year and make the problem much worse.

Peabody Coal and SSA Marine are moving forward with plans to build the largest coal export terminal in the country in Washington -- the Gateway Pacific Terminal. This is one of the most important fights against coal in the country right now, because if we lose, it will seriously undermine much of the progress we've made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the amount of dirty coal burned in the United States.

The Army Corps of Engineers is accepting public comments on the outrageous Gateway Pacific Terminal proposal to determine which environmental impacts of the project it should study.

Whether or not the Gateway Pacific Terminal is allowed to move forward could be determined by which factors the Corps includes in its impact statement. A full accounting of Gateway Pacific's impact on global greenhouse gas emissions would be devastating for the project, so our public comments are crucial.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/gpt_coal_exports/?r_by=53456-10635-Cesx_Mx&rc=paste2

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+ The Spiritual Literacy Blog invites us to dance! Read "Chief Unready" by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat. They reflect on some recent thoughts about dancing by Robert Fulghum and they offer this great quote by Rumi: 

Dance, when you're broken open.

Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.

Dance in the middle of the fighting.

Dance in your blood.

Dance, when you're perfectly free.

LOVE'S UNIVERSE -- 4

The Retreat leader this week is Zakiuddin McNulty. Yesterday, he introduced the topic of Single-minded Remembrance with some insightful thoughts such as these:

We all know how easy it is to be led astray by our outer circumstances and thoughts, living our days in what appears to be a benign state of preoccupation or in the grip of reactive, unhelpful patterns. Such thinking and behavior is governed by what Sufis call our lower self, in a Pharaoh-like desire to control and manipulate. Growing up in an affluent society, moreover, we may have grown complacent through the excessive consumption of God's bounty, or dim in our awareness of the relationship we have with our Creator.

AND:

Remembering God single-mindedly implies abandoning every agenda for the sake of this return to our primary relationship, meeting with our Source face-to-face during our busy, short lives. In so doing, we resume our special relationship as a most beloved creature, participating in the concert of praise that all of creation continually sings to its Creator. This is perpetual communion, reciprocity, sustenance, and guidance of the created by a most-loving Creator: "Everything perishes except His Face." [28:88].

This Online retreat is available and you can catch up. Go to http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/ecourses/ecourses.php?id=83

LOVE'S UNIVERSE -- 3

I wrote the following today in the Love's Universe Practice Circle:

Sophia wrote: "I have discovered that this is not work for the weak. I am in a continual fierce struggle with my ego — that self-important one looking for the easy way out, that master of disguises looking to trick and distract me at every turn."

+++

Well written and very powerful.

Israel literally means something like struggling with God. Jacob's name is changed to Israel after he wrestles with an agent of God all night. I believe we are in a struggle for our very existence as a human race and a lot of people are not aware of the dangers we are facing on this planet.

So, yes it is an individual struggle but, far more important, it is a collective struggle and we all need to find the courage to face the demons that are threatening all of us. John Shuck, an active Presbyterian blogger with a passion for peace and justice and sustainable abundance reviews a new book, All My Bones Shake by Robert Jensen.

Go to http://www.shuckandjive.org/2009/05/all-my-bones-shake-review.html

In one important chapter, Jensen says we need to overcome the four fundamentalisms. Let me offer John Shuck's summary of them here:

Religious fundamentalism. We know this one all too well. But it is only number four on the list of ascending dangers.

National fundamentalism. This he calls "pathological hyper-patriotism that tends to suppress internal dissent and leave many unable to hear criticism from outside." p. 109. America, the "city on the hill" practically-perfect-in-every-way blinds us to any form of self-critique. We have had a love affair with ourselves that has put the world at risk.

Economic fundamentalism. "The dominant assumption about corporate capitalism in the United States is not simply that it is the best among competing economic systems, but that it is the only sane and rational
way to organize an economy in the contemporary world." p. 112

Technological fundamentalism. The most dangerous of all. "Technological fundamentalists believe that the increasing use of evermore sophisticated high-energy, advanced technology is always a good thing and that any problems caused by the unintended consequences of such technology eventually can be remedied by more technology." p. 116

I believe these 4 fundamentalisms are all the collective face of "that master of disguises looking to trick and distract me at every turn."

LOVE'S UNIVERSE -- 2

+ Here is an excerpt from my post today on the Practice forum for Love's Universe.

Rumi says: "Sometimes, in order to help, (God) makes us miserable ... " Does God make us miserable? I think I would have to say that I don't know and even dare to say that Rumi doesn't know. It's a mystery and as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers put it: We are "working on a mystery."

Always.

I do believe that it does make sense in this sense: Creation means that we can differentiate. As soon as there is differentiation, there is misery. The more differentiation, the more there is misery or at least the possibility of misery. I am over-simplifying but the point is: God created everything and therefore misery has to be a part of it all. There is simply no way around it. I guess that I don't believe that it is God's will to ever make me or anyone else miserable but that God knows that misery comes with life, with creation.

But Rumi reminds us that misery is temporary and is overcome by joy over and over again even in every moment of life as we breathe and feel and see and ear and touch and taste and smell and sing and dance and laugh. All is well.

LOVE'S UNIVERSE -- 1

+ Love's Universe has just begun. It is a wonderful 49-day internet retreat led by Sufi teachers who love the spiritual guidance of the great Sufi poet, Rumi. Today is day 2. It's not too late to sign up at the Spirituality & Practice website. The cost is $40. I don't mind paying for these special courses because the S&P website is loaded with resources for the spiritual journey.