{"id":1471,"date":"2015-09-07T00:00:02","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T04:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=1471"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:49:19","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:49:19","slug":"labor-day-a-community-of-the-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2015\/09\/07\/labor-day-a-community-of-the-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"Labor Day — “A Community of the Spirit”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sept 7 \u2014 “Open your hands, if you want to be held. . . . “<\/strong><\/p>\n

I seem to keep meeting Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi lately. This poem is part of the weekly 7 poem selection edited by \u201cA Year of Being Here\u201d http:\/\/www.ayearofbeinghere.com\/<\/a>. Labor Day should be lazy time so I\u2019ll just send another Rumi poem, originally written in Farsi.<\/p>\n

Have a lovely day off.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

p.s. In the kinship of our families probably all of us can remember women and men who worked with hand and muscle skills that helped us to be born and to live. This Labor Day I remember Grandma Clara who managed the family dairy farm about 10 miles from my house. There, as a kid, I learned not to be afraid of large animals like cows or sudden animals like guinea hens. Only many years later did I perceive that she also knew how to welcome this little town boy to play among the tools, the manure, the pastures and the animals with the freedom of knowing that I was not only welcome but also safe. Safe to explore and run little kid risks. Grandma Clara did all that when I didn\u2019t yet know enough to notice. But I must have noticed; here I am still remembering that great woman.<\/p>\n

Image result for guinea hens<\/p>\n

\"Guinea-Hen\"<\/a>
\na guinea hen;<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post: “A Community of the Spirit” by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a community of the spirit.
\nJoin it, and feel the delight
\nof walking in the noisy street
\nand being the noise.<\/p>\n

Drink all your passion,
\nand be a disgrace.<\/p>\n

Close both eyes
\nto see with the other eye.<\/p>\n

Open your hands,
\nif you want to be held.<\/p>\n

Sit down in this circle.<\/p>\n

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
\nthe shepherd’s love filling you.<\/p>\n

At night, your beloved wanders.
\nDon’t accept consolations.<\/p>\n

Close your mouth against food.
\nTaste the lover’s mouth in yours.<\/p>\n

You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”
\nTwenty more will come.<\/p>\n

Be empty of worrying.
\nThink of who created thought!<\/p>\n

Why do you stay in prison
\nwhen the door is so wide open?<\/p>\n

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
\nLive in silence.<\/p>\n

Flow down and down in always
\nwidening rings of being.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rumi\"<\/a>Text as published in The Essential Rumi<\/a>, translated from the original Farsi by Coleman Barks with John Moyne (HarperCollins Publishers, 1995). An online version of the original Farsi text couldn’t be located.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sept 7 \u2014 “Open your hands, if you want to be held. . . . “ I seem to keep meeting Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi lately. This poem is part of the weekly 7 poem selection edited by \u201cA Year … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1471"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1476,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}