Saturday, March 28, 2020

Rumi: The Guest House

As necessity asks that we slow down, stay home, and stop and alter our usual busy routines, perhaps many of us are more likely to come face to face with ourselves in deeper ways than we have before. Will we now try to bring greater tenderness to ourselves and others? 

It is my sense that these sad, scary, ever changing and challenging times ask of us to do our best to welcome and become mindful it all what frightens us and pulls us to contract, what opens and breaks and strengthens our hearts, what calls us to heal and grow and stay awake, and what calls us to love. May we each discover and expand our great capacity for truth and wisdom, healing and wholeness, courage and compassion, tenderness and strength, peace and love. 

Bless us all in these perilous times. Molly


The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
  Jalaluddin Rumi

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