Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, March 4, 2010

When school and mosque and minaret
get torn down, then dervishes
can begin their community.

Not until faithfulness
turns to betrayal
and betrayal into trust
can any human being
become part of the truth.

Rumi, Sufi poet


We have to get beyond “school and mosque and minaret” – I.e, religious sectarianism. We have to get beyond “faithfulness and betrayal”. In other words, we have to emerge out of the darkness of sectarianism into the light of Compassion for all human beings and our often very difficult Journey through this Earthly Life.

The most important point that Rumi makes here is this: “Truth” can only be achieved together, in the appreciation of the Wisdom of all human thought.

This is not to say in any way that persons who warp the “Truth” are to be respected – of which there are many in our World and Time. Pay attention to this. It involves your personal integrity and the fate of the World as we know it.

This includes Republican legislators in contemporary America (which I hope excludes many Republican layfolk, for, if not, I am convinced that America is headed towards civil war), the 700 Club, Focus on the Family, Iraqi tribalists, the President of the Sudan and of Zimbabwe , the Taliban, Hamas, Jewish religious right-wingers, American militarists, Shining Path, the absurdly named Lord’s Resistance Army, etc etc etc. That is, every organization that pits people against each other for ideological or religious or cultural reasons.

I believe that we are all called at this time to “betray” our denominational narrowness. To move beyond “betrayal” – which is in fact a relinquishment of petty religious or cultural “tribalism” – towards the deepest understanding of “truth”.

Only on this path lies survival and peace.

Be a dervish. Dance together in a World community of true Love.

Brian+