Friday, November 1, 2013

Rumi Reflection Group back for the Autumn in Chester!

 
Andy (left) from our Zen Peacemaker Circle has offered to start hosting a regular "Rumi Reflection Group" like we offered earlier in the year. He began yesterday evening, meeting in Starbucks in Chester, and I think it'll be nearly every week. Like before, he'll bring along a poem by the Persian Sufi poet Rumi, and we'll read it together and use it as a starting point for reflecting on our own lives and their value, challenges and inspirations...

He began with a poem "Love is the Master":
Love is the One who masters all things;
I am mastered totally by Love.
By my passion of love for Love
I have ground sweet as sugar.
O furious Wind, I am only a straw before you;
How could I know where I will be blown next?
Whoever claims to have made a pact with Destiny
Reveals himself a liar and a fool;
What is any of us but a straw in a storm?
How could anyone make a pact with a hurricane?
God is working everywhere his massive Resurrection;
How can we pretend to act on our own?
In the hand of Love I am like a cat in a sack;
Sometimes Love hoists me into the air,
Sometimes Love flings me into the air,
Love swings me round and round His head;
I have no peace, in this world or any other.
The lovers of God have fallen in a furious river;
They have surrendered themselves to Love's commands.
Like mill wheels they turn, day and night, day and night,
Constantly turning and turning, and crying out.