There Is Beauty In The World

Sitting here at my desk, with a cup of piping hot tea. The reason I'm starting this blog? A poem.

I read a poem and it touched me. I thought, perhaps, someone else might need it, might stumble upon it and find nourishment. The poem is Rumi's, that 13th century Sufi mystic who had such a beautiful way with words that I am touched, tonight, seven centuries later:

My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around
to that place, I'll be
completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another
continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I'll fly off,
but who is it now in my ear,
who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes?

What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip
of an answer, I could break out
of this prison for drunks.

I didn't come here of my own accord,
and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here
will have to take me home.

To me, the drunkenness does not refer to alcohol, but the drunkenness of being in this life. In our time we are so drunk on images, on sounds, on the horrible neverending noise of television and traffic. It is a drunkenness on materialism and thoughts about nothing that have no meaning.

The only meaning is connection with others. That is the only thing that raises our days above the insects that crawl upon the ground.

And I was struck tonight by the beauty of the people I was with. I met in a real space, in an authentic space, to Mastermind.

The group is sacrosanct. I will write nothing about the members except to say that a group of strangers became beautiful in one meeting. As hopes and dreams and fears were expressed, I was struck with the wonder of my own species.

And this is good. For the news teaches us all the stupidity in our species, while the church rails about our sinfulness.

Yes, it is all there, the stupidity and the sinfulness, but who speaks about the beauty? The almost unbearable beauty of the honest and loving heart?

My faith in humanity needs restoration. Last night I fell in love with the coffee growers in Africa and Costa Rica in a documentary about coffee.

They are not besieged with images or besotted with cell phones. They are real and honest and know what is important.

But so do the people in the group that I am so privileged to have joined.

The tea is cooling in the cup. The night grows late and I've promised myself I will no longer force myself to stay up when my eyes are closing.

There is beauty in the world everywhere. I must look for it, again, tomorrow.