Grant Wood, "Young Corn"
Spiritual Sunday
It appears that what was going to be a bumper corn crop is now being severely ravaged by high temperatures and drought. Despite the contentions of global warming deniers, extreme weather conditions are on the rise.
So here’s a drought poem to give us hope, although the drought that Rumi is referring to becomes more metaphorical than literal as the poem progresses. The poem tells us how to respond to spiritual dryness such as that described by T. S. Eliot in The Wasteland. Unlike Eliot with his angst, however, the 12th century Sufi mystic sees plenitude in the world, not scarcity, and he recommends that we respond with laughter and gratitude. What we put out is what we will get back:
The man who laughs during a drought
is always smiling. A group comes and asks, “Have you no
compassion for this suffering?”
He answers, “To your eyes this is a drought. To me, it’s a
form of God’s joy. Everywhere
in this desert I see green corn growing waist-high, a sea-
wilderness of young ears
greener than leeks. I reach to touch them. How could I not!
You and your friends are like
Pharaoh drowning in the Red Sea of your body’s blood. Become
friends with Moses and see
the other riverwater.” When you think your father is guilty
of an injustice, his face
looks cruel. Joseph, to the envious brothers, seemed
dangerous. When you make
peace with your father, he will look peaceful and friendly.
The whole world is a form
for truth. When someone does not feel grateful to that,
the forms appear to be as he feels.
They mirror his anger, his greed, his fear. Make peace
with the universe. Take joy
in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every
moment a new beauty.
and never any boredom. Instead, the pouring noise of many
springs in your ears. The tree
limbs will move like people dancing who suddenly know the
mystical life. The leaves
snap their fingers like they’re hearing music. They are!
A sliver of mirror shines out
from under a felt covering. Think how it will be when the
whole thing is open to the air
and sunlight! There are mysteries I’m not telling you.
There’s so much doubt everywhere,
so many opinions that say, “What you announce may be true in
the future. But not now.”
But this form of universal truth that I see says This is not
a prediction. This is here
