RUMI Quotes
My initial thought for this blog was to sprinkle in some favorite quotes... so that is on for today.
Rumi was a 13th century Persian mystic poet from the Sufi tradition. I got introduced to him during visits to the Episcopal House of Prayer in Collegeville and continue to be amazed by his insights.

Rumi writes:
'All my talk was madness, filled with dos and don'ts. For ages I knocked on a door-when it opened I found that I was knocking from the inside!"

Thinking gives off smoke to prove the existence of fire. A mystic sits inside the burning. There are wonderful shapes in rising smoke that imagination loves to watch. But it's a mistake to leave the fire for that filmy sight. Stay here at the flame's core.

Guest House
This being human is a guest house Every morning a new arrival.A joy, a depression, a meanness,some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.Welcome and entertain them all!Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,still treat each guest honorably.He may be clearing you out for some new delight.The dark thought, the shame, the malice,meet them at the door laughing,and invite them in.Be grateful for whoever comes,because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, 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 sense any more.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.