Meditations on loving God, neighbor & self: themes from Mark
How do you place God — holy healing Love — first? How do you care for yourself? How do you care for your neighbor? How do you love the home — creation — in which you and your neighbor abide? How do you love the un-loveable?
What are the edges of how and who you love? What are the limits of how you allow yourself to be loved in return?
Fire of love, crazy over what You have made. Oh, divine Madman. — Prayer of Catherine Siena
O you who’ve gone on pilgrimage – where are you, where, oh where?
Here, here is the Beloved! Oh come now, come, oh come!
Your friend, he is your neighbor, he is next to your wall –
You, erring in the desert – what air of love is this?
If you’d see the Beloved’s form without any form –
You are the house, the master, You are the Kaaba, you! . . .
Where is a bunch of roses, if you would be this garden?
Where, one soul’s pearly essence when you’re the Sea of God?
That’s true – and yet your troubles may turn to treasures rich –
How sad that you yourself veil the treasure that is yours!
— Rumi ‘I Am Wind, You are Fire’
Translation by Annemarie Schimmel
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