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My heart is a wine glass and only Allah can make it sing. Only He can fill it. Only His touch to the lips of my heart has the right pressure and friction to produce the resonance that makes it sing and shatter into a million pieces. Only the voice of God can speak my pieces back into the Oneness that can only be filled by Him. I long to be Sufi.
Whether I be Sufi or Christian, I don’t know. I know the basics of what I believe. I know what my heart believes. I know that my faith always seems to be walking on the razor’s edge. CERTAINLY i don’t boast with this. So much i wish i had a normal faith like everyone else that is easily “explainable”. Will I always struggle with this feeling of being an outcast? Jesus was an outcast, and look. So I should be thankful of my “problem” I guess. Maybe belonging to man’s delineation of God’s Kingdom is not my purpose. I don’t know. All I know is that Allah chooses to fill my cup through the Sufis and the Christians. For some reason I don’t find fullness in Sufism or Christianity alone. My cup is filled through Allah and Christ. I know my God, because even when I think I don’t, He knows me. I rest in that.
Christ is in our midst, Insha’Allah.
If you were married or had a Beloved you would come to realize…
The good you do for your beloved is the same good or actually better than the good you do for yourself.
Why serve yourself for the moment, when the fruits of serving your beloved in the midst of suffering, make your heart and belly full of peace, love, joy and satisfaction?
To serve The Beloved is to serve my beloved. To serve my beloved is to serve The Beloved and to serve My Beloved beats serving myself. If only I could finally learn this lesson…
may you have deep peace…
To be a manager at Starbucks always teaches me of the tension between justice and mercy, judgment and grace. It helps me to learn the subtlety of loving people, while still holding them accountable. That we be accountable to the corporation I could care less, fuck “The Corporation”. Rather that we would be accountable to God in our own hearts or (at least) to each other out of the intrinsic god-person in the core of each human heart (whether you acknowledge God or not). This tension constantly pulls at the sinews of this god-muscle.
So with that I present this chapter of Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet”
“
Then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, “Speak to us of Crime and Punishment.”
And he answered saying:
It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.
Like the ocean is your god-self;
It remains for ever undefiled.
And like the ether it lifts but the winged.
Even like the sun is your god-self;
It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.
But your god-self does not dwell alone in your being.
Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,
But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.
And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:
The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder,
And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.
The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,
And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.
Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,
And still more often the condemned is the burden-bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.
You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;
For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together.
And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.
If any of you would bring judgment the unfaithful wife,
Let him also weight the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.
And let him who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended.
And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots;
And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.
And you judges who would be just,
What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?
What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?
And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,
Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?
And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?
Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?
Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.
Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.
And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?
Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self,
And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.
So this is what I got on this question. Very open to input on the answer.
I was asked by someone recently:
“Why should we pray the same prayer over and over if scripture says, ‘Do not pray in vain repetitions like the pagans do.’?”
To say that the Remembrance of God’s Name is part of the History, Tradition and Ritual of Christ’s Body the Church, seemed to have less of a convincing impact than the following arguments … in other words, ’show me in Scripture and Reason’ and I will believe. So here are my thoughts on the subject of the constant remembrance of the Name of God.
There are a few ways of looking at this question, first there’s reason, next there’s syntax, after that the context of scripture and lastly (my favorite) there is the wisdom of the heart. In other words, from what or where do you draw your motivation for prayer and meditation?
So what about praying in vain repetitions?
If you had a statement that read, “Do not pluck and eat unripe or rotten fruit!”, would one gather from this statement that one should not gather or eat fruit period? Of course not! You would say, “Good fruit is good to eat and good for the body and is a gift from the Creator for our nourishment and well being. Unripe fruit should be left on the tree to mature. Rotten fruit should be allowed to fall to the ground and return to the dust of the earth!”
What about praying with repetition?
The scripture does command prayer without ceasing. It speaks of an unceasing knocking on the door of the heart waiting for God to answer. If knocking is not repetitive then I don’t know what is?
What about praying in vanity?
Prayer does not require repetitiveness to be vain. There are practically endless ways in which prayer can be vain or self serving. To the contemplative, any personal desire that draws one’s attention away from unification with God is a vane desire. Taken to the extreme this would seem to be a long list of distractions. (It is a long list so you probably shouldn’t dwell on it while meditating lest you become distracted. 
hah, just kidding… maybe… i don’t know… whatever…)
But when it comes to the practice of the remembrance of God’s name, the extremity of The Love is at the root of the Heart. Mercy, grace, understanding, forbearance and service are at the reach of your arms, legs, ears, eyes, tong, thoughts and relationships.
Approaching God
To approach God with desire or motivation for personal gain or change in ones state or station, is to approach God in vanity. One must sacrifice their desires on the alter of their Heart! I want to only desire complete annihilation into the person-hood of God. So that not my will but God’s will is done. So that the battle of my will vs. Divine Will is finished and ceases. It is to submit to the humanly abasing will of the Divine. To even submit one’s own sense of ‘fairness’, justice or righteousness to the larger reality of God’s Divine Justice, Righteousness, Mercy, Grace and Love. It is to have an ‘I don’t know’ mind. It is to submit the depths of the heart to the all consuming fire of God’s love. The Love that can be a heaven of unending ecstatic Annihilation or a hell of unending all engulfing, yet never consuming fire of eternal agony. (This reminds me of “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis. Heaven being more real than this ‘real’ corporeal world, which is in turn itself more real than hell.)
some vein pursuits I am guilty of in life (contemplative or otherwise):
- not being the Beloved to my beloved
- seeking the experience of mystical graces
- seeking Divine favor for personal ease in daily life
- seeking Divine favor in personal or egotistical desires for success or advancement in the world
- seeking the ease of my spouses distress for the sake of my own comfort
- seeking the mystical power of God as desired by and for my own will
- seeking assurances in this mysterious path God has laid before me, instead of throwing my full faith into his predestined will, and accepting that there’s no plan B
- desiring some other job than the one that I find myself in
- thinking that an ‘ideal’ job would be the culmination of my fulfillment
- not practicing radical acceptance of the present moment
- not being content in states and stations of this life
- the list goes on, but these are the ways I follow my vanity, that are most visible to myself.
Lord have mercy.
Christ of mercy.
Lord have mercy.
I am looking at my wedding ring. It tells a story. it tells the the story of the tension between singularity and plurality. This is why i consider myself a “traditionalist”.
I remember when I received the weld spot on my wedding ring. It was while I was Ironworking for Lewis Herrera. I was tack welding a jig for some job… near the end of the day… very mundane work… no fuss, no grand piece of art. it was “just” a jig. a “tool” which was created for one specific job and would be discarded after the job was done. I was rushing along tacking my jig together (without gloves, because whats the chance that I would injure myself from a few tack welds) and suddenly… INTENSE PAIN on my left hand… on my ring finger.
OH MY GOD IT WON’T STOP! FUCK IT HURTS FUCK FUCK FUCK!
A piece of weld spatter had stuck to my 18K white gold wedding band and had supper heated it and burned a semi-circular scar into my finger. I couldn’t flick it off, I couldn’t make the pain stop until the red hot ring of fire had cooled on its own. Then I thought of plunging my hand into the quench tank, but by then it was already cooled.
The pain is gone and even the scare is mostly gone, but the spot of hard steel remains on the soft tissue of my wedding ring.
It reminds me of the sacrifice that my beloved has made for me to follow my dreams and how she has never once held it against me or used them as cannon fodder for her rage.
Thank you my sweet. I love you with all my Heart!
-john
Oh Saturn my heart is your moon,
a satellite that drifts round through the heavens.
In the clutch of your cool refuge gravity pulls me
close into the blinding damp, midst your earthen roots
weave a baskets for my cradle
your fog is a cloak of protection shielding me
as I drift through the unknown my body is
pelted and cratered from the impact of suffering,
the soul mourns for the loss of youth,
the heart cries for bombing of beauty,
the spirit groans too deep for words…
rest you say
-jfs
Once a friend of mine whom I love, said to me (i’m paraphrasing), “I pray that you don’t go down with the ship, I’m not suggesting anything, but I hope that if she decides to go down she doesn’t take you with her. All I’m saying is that you never know how thing’s will work out and you should be prepared for the possibility that your marriage may not work out.” Let me say I love this person and accept their advise from the standpoint of the their life experience. But I have to disagree… not with their stance as a realist, but with the reluctance to throw ones entire lot in with the body of Christ, though it is painful and gut-wrenching to say. I don’t mean to judge, but if the Body of Jesus cannot contain or exist in the downward spiral, death, despair, anxiety and depression, delusion, illusion of humanity… …then Jesus failed.
I believe he did not.
If I am to be christ to my wife as Christ is to His Body, then that means indeed going down with the ship if the ship is going down; Just as Christ went down with this earthship! And when all hope is lost, the new hope of the kingdom of God rises from the depths of the ocean that is the spirit and grace of God.
There are times I think I should have become a monk. That I could have learned more of God or become closer to Him or that my life would be more closely aligned with Him or that the sign of my trials… her trials… means I made a mistake and God is… or I am just reaping the the harvest of my choices. Really it’s a dream of a cop out. An addiction. Because I somehow think that then I wouldn’t have to face the hardship or suffering that I and my beloved face today. In addition there’s so much that I feel I would be the poorer for if I had not married Her. Frankly even though I have no experience in this and am a total fool saying this… But that is… that if followed with much love, dedication and sobriety of spirit, marriage to a wife is just as deeply and mystically refining, perfecting and rewarding as marriage to Christ through monasticism. It is marriage to Christ either way. One can be a David or Judas in both. One can be a saint or a satan in either.
The Truth is, when my beloved is suffering and I have to choose either shirking my love and covenant to her or swallowing my self-ness, fatigue, frustration, anger, resentment, bitterness… I cannot swallow anything really. The only way I am able to love my beloved in these moments (I am poor in myself, forgive me) is through Christ, through Christ living in me, through sacrificing my self with Christ in the moments of despair and rage and bitterness.
… and I fail miserably at this… the battle between forgiveness and bitterness, between rage and acceptance, erupts in my chest.
أيها الرب يسوع المسيح ابن الله, إرحمني أنا الخاطئ – Ayyuha-r-Rabbu Yasū` al-Masīħ, Ibnu-l-Lāh, irħamnī ana-l-khāti’ – Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
I Love You,
Your Beloved
Thank you immensely for doing so.
Here’s a really beautiful poem by a lady named Oriah.
http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/
check this out…
This list touched me so so deeply. Not out of simple bitterness, but rather out of, “thank god someone’s finally willing to say it.” Everything registered as true to one side of my experience of this planet.
-jfs
———
The other side of being human.
http://www.metagifted.org/
—
I’m tired of trying to prove myself to people who seem determined to dislike me.
I just hope I can get through another day of this crap.
I can’t stand humanity any more. Why is everyone so cruel?!
My life is intrinsically small and meaningless.
I can’t help wanting to hurt people.
I try to channel my rage and fury into good things, but it doesn’t always work.
I can’t help but see other people as objects.
No one even makes an effort to understand me.
I wish people would just LEAVE ME ALONE!!!
I can’t get far enough from the people that want to get close to me.
I don’t want to deal with your pain!
I try to care about what you’re saying, but I don’t.
Life IS all about me.
No one likes it when I’m really honest.
If you could see what I truly am, you’d think I was insane.
You cannot fully comprehend my sadness or my pain.
You do not understand the magnitude of my rage.
The day ahead seems insurmountable.
Life mostly sucks.
Being human HURTS.
Most people are mean.
No matter how hard I try, I cannot be completely sympathetic with you.
Sympathy does not seem worthwhile.
I have enough problems of my own.
Opinions are judgments!
Even when you think you’re being kind, I want to hide from you.
Teaching me a lesson won’t work.
I don’t really care what you believe.
The reward of affection is too complicated to obtain.
Affection is always overcomplicated.
Being empathic really sucks.
I don’t always want to know what’s going to happen.
How come I have to be the aware one?
Even being around other people hurts!
I want someone to understand me, but I don’t want to be be a part of any group.
People are overcomplicated and I just want to push them away.
If you really cared about me, you’d let me be myself.
I know you don’t believe most of the things you say.
Your responsibility is not my responsibility.
Please don’t indoctrinate me.
You can’t fix me; don’t even try.
Just because we don’t agree doesn’t mean I’m broken.
It doesn’t seem like humanity is improving, no matter how hard we try.
Everyone’s reality is different; don’t force yours upon me.
I can’t stand more than a tiny bit of interaction.
I don’t really care what I’m supposed to do.
I’m not a sheep, don’t herd me.
You shouldn’t be telling anyone what to be doing if you’re not perfect.
Why do we keep trying so hard?
My own humanity feels incredibly restrictive.
The world doesn’t want to be helped.
I won’t be a part of your dog and pony show.
Why don’t you just shut the hell up?
Can’t you tell I really don’t like you?
Other people do not truly understand me.
There is no real point to mutual understanding.
There’s nothing I have to do.
Your requirements can go fish.
I have had just about enough.
What is the point of your aspirations?
You don’t seem to be actually getting anywhere.
Did you think I was talking to you?
How many indigos does it take to change the world?
The world doesn’t really need either one of us.
Why the hell did we choose to reincarnate?
It’s impossible to keep higher goals in mind all the time.
If you truly don’t believe time doesn’t exist, why do you force your schedule upon me?
Why do you play by the rules if there are none?
Why do you force arbitrary rules upon me?
I doubt you can actually practice what you preach.
It’s too bad you can’t be honest about your emotions.
I can’t stand being around a lot of people.
Preachy assholes annoy the hell out of me.
Having you tell me how human I am is not what I came here for.
I don’t like how you live your life.
The status quo sucks.
You are making my life harder.
I never feel like I have a home.
Interacting with you weakens my sense of self.
When I exert effort to make the world a better place, mostly no one cares.
I feel alone and tiny in the Universe.
We are NOT ONE.
Being around others makes me want to hide my individuality.
Even my most aspiring thoughts seem to have no effect.
I am not always happy. Why should I be?
My life feels purposeless and difficult.
Trying to be myself or speak my mind only has harmful repercussions.
There is a feeling of tension, isolation, and discord that never goes away.
Most activities people think are fun leave me empty and disillusioned.
Violence begets violence, yet unconditional love is a shroud of denial. There IS no solution in any situation.
Absolutely everything is completely out of control.
You pretend you’re tough, but inside you secretly feel lost and terrified like me.
Reality Bites.
— Patrick M. Jordan
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