More Range
We’re friends with one who kills us,
who gives us to the ocean waves.
We love this death. Only ignorance
says, Put it off awhile, day after
Tomorrow. Don’t avoid the knife.
This friend only seems fierce, bringing
your soul more range, perching your
falcon on a cliff of the wind. Jesus
on his cross, Hallaj on his. Those
absurd executions hold a secret.
Cautious cynics claim they know what
they’re doing every moment and why.
Submit to love without thinking, as
the sun rose this morning recklessly
extinguishing our star-candle minds.
(Rumi: translated by Coleman Barks, Copyright © 2003 “Rumi, The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy & Longing”)
For as long as I remember, I’ve been most often described as friendly, happy and outgoing; and, these aspects of me are so present and true. But the depth of the unexpressed, and sometimes dark, churning waters within had often left me feeling confusedly on the inside looking out.
The more I understand, the more I see I really don’t know anything at all! Yet, I am at last aware that I do love that knife that pierces me into new life. Again and again, God is dancing my soul in this way; teaching me in contrast; cutting me into the fullness of my expansive range of being. David Whyte writes, in No One Told Me, “The blade is so sharp – it cuts things together – not apart.”
Perhaps my greatest learning will be how to allow for this dance in me, without the suffering I’ve often chosen for the accompanying soundtrack? Is it possible to move with loving grace from a waltz to a rumba without too much hurky jerky? Is it possible to grow in range with some semblance of grace and some sense of comfort? I don’t really know.
How do we allow ourselves to be peacefully at home on the range, the full spectrum of our being? How do we not fall, heartfirst, on that knife; but let it gently cut away that which no longer serves and bring us into a new fullness of life?
For reasons I may never understand, it feels my Sufi soul wants me to know, la ilaha ila Allahu. There is no God but God. Perhaps what is most essential is simply to have comfort in that faith, no matter the discomfort.
It Is All Love.
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