This Morning’s Thoughts
“There is nothing worse
than thinking you are well enough.
More than anything, self-complacency
blocks the workmanship.Put your vileness up to a mirror and weep.
Get that self-satisfaction flowing out of you!
Satan thought, ‘I am better than Adam,’
and that better than is still strongly in us.”- The Essential Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks w/ John Moyne
These are good words for me to wake up to this morning. Good, because today I want to make a change. Yesterday was Hell and I don’t want tomorrow to be. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life regretting the rest of my life. I want joy and I want wisdom.
I stay up all night usually, waiting for God knows what, watching television, intoxicating myself, playing music and feeling between sad and hopeless. I fight the darkness with words, writing and singing things I often do not feel, alive when they seem to touch another soul, leaving mine empty after. Such a desperation to connect, I sometimes don’t know what to do with it. I often find myself so miserable and longing, all I can do is obliviate my senses, go underwater, until I can’t hear anything but eternity’s rush.
I think Rumi would tell me this is good. I think Rumi would recognize my agony as premature maturity. My intention is clear, but the object of my longing waxes and wanes like the moon, is obfuscated by clouds, plays tricks on me in the night. I seek her in places I have looked before, places I know she will never be again.
It is foolish to search this way. I’m racing around the house, frantic to get to work, looking for my keys, only to realize they are in my hand. Where did I leave my joy? the heart wonders. When did I begin living this way?
The joy of my son is more radiant than a thousand star-births, but when he is angry, the whole world is ash. He runs through the world, clothes half-on, neither pursuing nor evading happiness. He is life’s mirror speaking to me. Not long from now, he will recognize himself and his perfect mirror will begin to smudge and darken. He will choose the day or the night and be miserable half the time. May such a time pass quickly. May he soon read a good book, hear a good word or meet a kind teacher to explain this error.
May he never go looking for himself in me, for I have looked that way and she is gone. When he finds himself, may be realize it was never lost and we are both saved.
