Every morning when you wake up, the entire world has changed, entirely…
…it’s just that today it’s more obvious.
I have been thinking about Garrison Keillor who is fond of saying that nothing bad ever happens to an English major; it’s all fodder for stories.
When I left Writing Lab today, my friend Gina called out to me, “It will make for good art and music!”
Woody Guthrie wrote his best work under oppression. Dante wrote The Divine Comedy while in exile. The poet Rabia al Basri was sold into slavery as a child.
I had never encountered Rabia until last night, when I volunteered at our church for an hour so we could keep our sanctuary open for people who needed, on Election Day, to pray. She was the first poet in a book I found at one of our prayer stations. The book is Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West (Daniel Ladinsky).
May we be as faithful to our vision, as she was to hers.
In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?
Thank you. That was something on voting day to have the church open, I loved being there and I love you for volunteering, I didn’t feel I had time to volunteer. I loved the writings of Rabia, the first Bosnian family we sponsored, the wife was named Rabia and she is a strong woman, her story amazing of burying her baby and all in her family in holes in forest in the mountains as they ran to escape the Serbs. So many strong women. We will overcome –
Appreciated this comment, particularly as your political activism puts my efforst to shame. I also am so touched to hear the story of your Rabia. The world is so wounded, and I think being awake (and not curled into a fetal position) is important for all of us.