Tag Archives: Rumi

Be Empty and Cry As a Reed Instrument

This Rumi poem explains the mystical power of Ramadan fasting, which begins tomorrow or Tuesday.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , | Comments closed

Subsisting in Layla’s Subsistence

In this Ramadan poem, the Algerian Sufi mystic Ahmad al-Alawi uses erotic imagery to capture the relationship between humans and God.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , | Comments closed

A Mistake to Put God in the Sky

Mystic poet Celan Harkin tries to reimagine God and prayer in “The Worst Thing.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , | Comments closed

Empty Yourself, Taste Sweetness

In this Rumi Ramadan poem, the body empties so that the soul may be filled.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , | Comments closed

Beauty Reflects the Eternal Orchard

Spiritual Sunday I wrote last Sunday about the “centering prayer” workshops that former Sewanee Chaplain Tom Ward is running at the Ayres Spiritual Center in Sewanee. Centering prayer, Tom told us, is “a way of listening to the texts of Scripture as if we were in conversation with Christ and He were suggesting the topics […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , | Comments closed

A Dark Grave Can’t Hold a Deathless Soul

Spiritual Sunday In response to a white terrorist’s slaughter of 49 Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, I turn to two poems by the 13th century Sufi mystic Rumi. Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam, and Rumi helps us move beyond our conventional understanding of death to a deeper understanding of how spirit works in […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , | Comments closed

Open the Love Window and Kiss the Moon

Thursday – Valentine’s Day Kathy Hamman, a dear family friend, alerted my mother and me to this wonderful Rumi poem for Valentine’s Day. (My mother ran it in her Sewanee Messenger poetry column.) I have used other poems suggested by Kathy in the past, but this is particularly meaningful because Kathy is currently fighting late stage cancer. That her […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , | Comments closed

Strangers Are Guides from Beyond

Rather than fear strangers, Rumi says we should welcome them in.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , | Comments closed

Be Wide as the Air To Learn a Secret

In “Bismallah!” (“In the Name of God!”), Rumi speaks of the lightness of spirit that Ramadan makes possible.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , | Comments closed