On Being

Listeners' Reflections

This is your place to publicly comment on the topics and issues addressed in On Being programs. React in a personal way, and put into words what this program meant to you.

Submit Your Reflection about "The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi."

Mixing God and Romance (April 26, 2009)
Very interesting story of the famous Persian poet. I would also like to draw your attention to Indian poetry about love, romance (and often, sex) which is often directed towards Krishna, (please don't bring images of Hare Krishna in your mind… there is a lot of very good Indian literature written about this man), a God, a mythological hero, and a boy-next-door at the same time. I am often intrigued by the fact that in a religion so conservative today, god and romance get mixed so seamlessly. Many of these poems are not dated, but have been written since 500 BC at least, and keep being written even today. I got that sense from Rumi's poems too.

Yogeshwar Kelkar
State College, Pennsylvania (WNYC, 820 AM)

Constantly Amazed (April 26, 2009)
I just heard the show on Rumi. Simply wonderful. I am constantly amazed at the similarities between faith, which something you showcase very well. It is too bad that people focus on the differences. Please keep it up.

Mike Hartmann
Cary, Illinois (WBEZ, 91.5 FM)

Let The Beauty We Love, Be What We Do (April 26, 2009)
I think Rumi understood that love is a magnet, and love is magnetized as a spiral vortex. I believe this is the concept behind the whirling outer but remaining centered and at peace. A vortex of unconditional love cannot be moved, come what may. Seeing and being loveliness is knowing my Self as as a God-free Being.

Earth she spins like a top going round,
Her surface a buzz on vibrating ground.

Deep in the center one pulse is found,
Remain still within and follow the sound.

Sandy Singer
Arlington, Virginia (WAMU, 88.5 FM)

World of Love (April 24, 2008)
Love according to Rumi is not just a love that is here on earth but is the type of love that is preparing you for the future in heaven with the Divine. Having relationship with friends, family, and loved ones are all important but in the end the only love that counts is the love we have with the Divine spirit above.

Growing up I never realized that the love we have now is just temporary and the guide to love in the end but Rumi makes that clear to us through his ghazals even though they have been reinterpreted over the years.

It is interesting to me, being a young adult female, which long ago a group of people known as the Sufis were always concerned about that others thought about them and the way they viewed themselves. I feel that today that is a key aspect of success in the world no matter what age, what ethnicity, gender, or body type. We all care about our looks way to much. Many thought it was just because of the media which does play a big role but also dating back all the way to the 13th century people cared about their imagine in the world. This makes me take a deep breath out knowing that I am not alone in the world and that even though I might not have the most people to love or that love me back in the end it does not matter. The only thing that matters is what the Divine thinks about me and the love I have for him later on in life which stems off the love I have for as few or as many people.

Love is great and looking good is too but we must remember that it is not everything or truly anything because the Divine is the only think that matters once life continues in heaven. It is hard to think of it that way but it is the truth and man is it a good feeling!

Heidi Mayer
Lamoni, IA (Listens to SOF Podcast)

Tattoos and Love (April 24, 2008)
As a young person who has tattooed on her wrist a Daniel Ladinsky translation and interpretation of a Hafez poem on God, I am interested in how these messages cross cultural lines. Ladinsky has been criticized for taking creative license in his works, but I chose his English over Hafez's Persian because it is in my language that I fell in love with the themes and messages of these peons.

It is the constant excitement, reinterpretation, insight, and surprise that I have found in mystic Sufi poetry that have taught me to love in a new way. From this program I am now inspired to put these words, detached from their language, culture, and geography, into the context in which they were born. I cannot wait for new revelation that I am certain will come in these words that have given me so much already. When I study Rumi with the Qur'an, in Turkey, in Iran (or at least while learning more about the culture), and maybe one day in Persian, I hope that my tattoo and these words with continue to unfold. It is in this journey that I find such joy.

Nicky Kerr
Lamoni, IA (Listens to SOF Podcast)

An Answer for Today's Problems (December 20, 2007)
Dear officials! I have been researching on Rumi since three years, but I knew him very perfectly. Scientists from Russia, Iran, and USA pointed out that Rumi was born in Vakhsh in Tajikistan. But I'm not sure about this fact yet. So today in this confused world of humanity, I think Rumi is a best torch for our darkness aspects of life. Whether we are from West or East we can feel the roar of Rumi, the sound of flute of pain separation.

Listen to the song of the reed
How it wails with the pain of separation
Ever since I was taken from my reedbed
My woeful song has caused men and women to weep.

Rumi's discourses and poetries are answers for today's problems. Let's apply him much more than usual.

Firdavs Khujaev
Greenfield, NH (WEVO, 89.1 FM)

A Source for All (December 19, 2007)
The poetry of Rumi are as songs from the Source of All Being, stirring the spirit in all things. There are no boundaries of religion in his poetry, only the pure song of the Soul. I became acquainted with the beauty of Rumi from a fellow member of the Baha'i Faith when he gifted our family with a book of poems by Rumi. His thoughts, his words, were as though they were mine, which truly showed me the Oneness of All. Perhaps the most important comment made on the show was with regard to "remembering, or memory." The key to knowing who we are and to greater understanding lies in remembering who we are and where we came from, not as human bodies, but as Souls.

Lori Cordini
Boone, NC (WCQS, 88.1 FM)

Memories of Dervish (December 16, 2007)
In November I was fortunate to travel in Turkey for two weeks. The sound of the familiar music and the words of Rumi coming from the radio today sent my mind back into the experiences of seeing Whirling Dervishes in Capadoccia. The somber, yet joyful dancers in white robes moving around and around on the floor, their eyes closed for the most part while never touching. I was impressed by the elegance and grace of the ceremony, if that is what it is, by their seemingly being together with one another and those playing instruments and yet separate.

Never having heard of Rumi until this trip, I appreciated finding out so much more while listening to your conversation today. I am moved to find books to learn about his work.

S Bescher
Clear Lake, IA (KWOI, 90.7 FM)

The Journey Is the Destination (December 16, 2007)
I was introduced to your program thanks to a college course I have been taking. The course has inspired me to look alternatively at things I believed I had previously understood. The poetry of Rumi has inspired me to do the same. Rumi was described in your broadcast as a "voice for spiritual sensibility," and the poetry I have encountered thus far has exemplified that. Your broadcast used a beautiful metaphor for seeing God's love — one cannot look directly at the sun, but the reflection can be seen in the water. We can see God's love in the same way.

Although Rumi's work is still quite new to me, I am inspired by his message — one that transcends religion, ethnicity, and background. As we are all created in God's image, we all share something as humans.

You personify God's message.
You reflect the King's face.
There is nothing in the universe that you are not
Everything you want, look for it within yourself—
You are that.

Rumi's work is timeless and has a unique ability to address each of us individually, even while our spiritual journeys as humans are not so individual. Thank you for sharing his message.

Anna Plonske
Maple Grove, MN (Listens to SOF Podcast)

No One Can Know For Certain (December 16, 2007)
Rumi is a favorite poem of mine and I loved this program today so thank you for airing it. I also wanted to convey my dismay at your assumption about Rumi's relationship with Shams. Although I understand it is accepted that with Rumi's ecstatic faith in God it is likely his relationship with Shams was not a sexual one.

However, the statement by Krista that it was a "not a romantic love" is too much of a leap. No one knows the entire truth about Rumi's love for Shams and the extent of his intimacy with him. Anyone who has read Rumi extensively must wonder what the nature of his love for Shams was. Without documented knowledge that the relationship was for certain platonic, I feel it was careless for the host of a respected show to make such a definitive comment.

Your educated and insightful guest, Fatemeh Keshavarz perhaps described it best when she said that in love, there is no division between the physical, the spiritual and the mystical. Perhaps the conclusions about Rumi and Shams are best left seen through that lens.

Constance Cervone
Jamaica Plain, MA (WBUR, 90.9 FM)

Love and Living (December 16, 2007)
The work of Rumi brings to the forefront universal messages of love and a dedication to living. The beauty of Rumi's poetry seems to transcend culture and faith, as do the messages they carry. This aspect of Islam is one that is far too often overlooked in the modern age, and yet at the very core of what Muhammad preached.

Much as the teachings of Muhammad, the poetry of Rumi is designed with multiple aspects that allow the audience to step slowly into a greater world by first seeing the simpler aspects and later growing through experience into the more complex spectrum. The idea that love among our friends and family is the first stage — or practice — for a greater love of God recalls the teachings of Muhammad and the tradition of salat. In both of these examples we see daily practice and ritual aimed at reorienting our internal posture, easing us step by step toward a better life.

Chase Potter
Buffalo, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)

A Worthy Agenda for Rumi (December 16, 2007)
When you do things for your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
--Rumi

Thank you for "The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi." As the broadcast noted, this year marks the 800th anniversary of the birth of Rumi, one of Iran's greatest poets. Worth further consideration are ways to celebrate and extend this great high point in world literature. Sufi Islam represents the mystical tradition in Islam. The great Sufi mystic Jalal-ud-Din Rumi was born in what we now call Afghanistan. He composed some 3,500 odes (plus hundreds of quatrains), and a compelling epic of the spiritual journey.

He lived most of his adult life in Konya, Turkey, with the largest share of his writing in Persian. His poetry and parables are part of the popular culture of Iran and are commonly quoted and recited. In a December 27, 1998 letter in The New York Times, former Iranian empress Farah Pahlevi, then living in Connecticut, said, "…I am immensely proud and delighted to see that Rumi's work is being widely recognized in the West at a time when my country's image is otherwise tarnished."

Since that time American religionists and religion writers regard Rumi as among the most widely read spiritual writers. Thank you for making the point. Sometimes his poetry is included with that of Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, John Woolman, Hannah Rachel, Thomas Merton, others. Year 2008 may be the opportunity to organize a workshop, or retreat, or spoken word dialogue experience, or an aloud reading of Rumi's poetry.

There are recordings, available on the Internet, of Rumi's poetry set to music. The possibilities for meaningful communal or congregational observances and celebrations, both small and large, are numerous. One common denominator can be a public decision to ground any sharing of Rumi's work with a wider audience. Above all, no matter what the particular experience/activity might look like, lovers of Rumi's verse have the opportunity to grow together in an atmosphere of sacred celebration.

How about a "Wonderment Workshop" stressing the poetic lyricism of Rumi? It could be a morning experience, or instead an afternoon, or instead an early evening—-in duration, maybe two hours. One idea here from an Illinois social justice and faith organization is to structure five different activities around homemade foods and the five senses: the oral (taste); the proclamational (touch); the spoken word (hear); the experiential (smell); and the educational (see).

Suggestions for whom to invite: Involve persons or groups committed to improved ecumenical or interfaith relations, or those seeking to be more deeply engaged with Sufi Islam. Maybe in whatever the experience or activity, you might follow some of the core principles enunciated in the 1965 document Nostra Aetate on interreligious relationships. The document stresses that God is universal and therefore God is revealed in basic human values of universality (e.g., love, compassion, justice, mercy, friendship, reconciliation). Rumi's poetry, in fact, brilliantly captures a sense of the universal in the particular. See as illustration two Rumi poems at the end here.

Rumi fused the highest level of the intellect with vision, passion, and with soul-force. In that he is likened to a Christ or a Buddha or even a Shakespeare or a Walt Whitman. He is one of the world's greatest mystic poets. His poetry guides today toward a new spiritual renaissance of construction, as a replacement to so much world destruction.

An additional idea is to partner, for example, with local spirituality centers, or with faith-based advocacy and education organizations, or with any organization that speaks warmly and unapologetically about the world's religions. Others to involve might include a local religious leadership group or consortium, or the local board of rabbis and the local board of imams, or a human rights organization, or the local faith-based collective of congregations. Consider including such dialogue groups as exist between Muslims and Catholics, or between Protestants and Buddhists, or between Jews and Sikhs, or the many societies of ethical culture, etc. The local experience, small or large, will inevitably speak global and "glocal" messages, among other things, of human connectedness through friendship and neighborliness.

Other option: Ask the groups you involve to financially support the effort to help cover basic expenses of invitation mailing materials and workshop educational materials, plus incidentals. Involve some of the loyalists you depend on from your end, if you have them. If you don't have them, then ask around openly and see what surfaces.

Mention some of these ideas to still others. Many find appealing the idea of doing something special to commemorate the mystic's life and contributions as a way to learn something new. They seem willing to nudge forward their local contacts. If the ideas are not for you yourself, maybe you will mention the 800th anniversary to someone you know. Some of the suggestions made here came about as a result of new data collected from a post-activity questionnaire after our organization did a March presentation on contemplation and contemplative poetry at International Woman's Day conference.

In 1993 in Chicago at the Second Parliament of the World's Religions in a hundred years, Catholic priest and eminent theologian Hans Kung presented for consideration a "Declaration Towards a Global Ethic," saying, "When the religions of the world are at peace, the world will be at peace." Explaining that there can be no peace, meaning no consensus on shared ethical values, without prayer and dialogue, the declaration is now widely regarded by ethicists and religionists worldwide as a clearly compelling agenda for interfaith and inter-religious harmony in the name of saving all creation on our planet. Rumi's poetry is a worthy addition to the agenda.

Jim Boushay and Rickey Sain
Oak Park, IL (WBEZ, 91.5 FM)

Ibn Al-Arabi? (December 15, 2007)
Now that you have considered Rumi, what about a program on Muhyi Al-Din Ibn Al- Arabi? Rumi represents the Sufi path of Love (Chittick); Ibn Al-Arabi represents the Sufi path of Knowledge.

Richard Mitnick
Highland Park, NJ (WNYC, 93.9 FM)

Like a Drum in Maui (December 15, 2007)
The name was familiar, but I had never actually read any of Rumi's poems until I received an invitation to attend the wedding of my dear friends' daughter in Maui. The invitation came in a midnight blue envelope. Inside was a peacock feather and, printed in gold, one of Rumi's poems. It echoed so loudly in me that my skin felt like a drum where the words beat in a powerful rhythm: "Feel the motions of tenderness around you… the buoyancy."

My next encounter was at church. I sat next to a lady who was reading a book of poetry. When she got up for communion, I took a look at her book. This simple gesture started a rich, wonderful friendship.

Bethsy San Millán
Belmont, NC (Listens to On Being OnDemand)

A More Gracious Approach within Catholicism (December 15, 2007)
As a married priest and part of CITI ministries whose founder intended to invite married priests to function again to reach out and serve alienated Catholics as well as others who wanted to be served by a priest, I was moved by the words of your specialist in the poetry of Rumi. As I recall she said, "You must love a tradition before you can subvert it. You must be thoroughly submersed in a tradition before you can open it and go beyond its laws and restrictions." Rumi plays with his Moslem tradition and brings out new understandings and we can do the same with Catholicism, which has become brittle with its laws and regulations. These ideas give me a basis for providing service to people who need what Jesus came to bring us. Regardless of their membership in any denomination, we thereby join the human community and offer what we have to those who come in need.

I also loved the phrase that we must plow the earth of ourselves. We must get moving and plow ourselves without regard to what harvest will come. We must realize that life is not a destination but a journey of longing to find and to share love. Thank you for opening wider my perception of Rumi's ruminations. Peace be with you.

Carroll Mrowicki
Linden, NJ (WNYC, 93.9 FM)

Right into My Soul (December 14, 2007)
Rumi's words are just fascinating to me. They find there way straight into my soul. It gave me such hope and reason. Thank you for this broadcast.

Bryana Grotte
St. Michael, MN (Listens to SOF Podcast)

I Just Want to Say "It Is Perfect" (March 16, 2007)
Rumi is the personality that should be known and followed in this modern world. It is really nice to read his poems in the Persian language in order to find the depth of his thoughts.

Samira Enayati
Nice, France (Listens to SOF Podcast)

Inventing a New Love (November 29, 2007)
The one thing that stands out the most is the overstated fact that Rumi invented his own, new type of love. Not only was he educated in religion, but he added to it and left a legacy of mysical poetry that expresses his love for his God, and his God's love for him.

Katie Thuesen
Billings, MT (Listens to On Being OnDemand)

A Porthole for the Dying (March 15, 2007)
When my friend Jan was dying of cancer, I read to her. Fairy tales and poetry. She was a chemist, a scientist, a writer whose faraway religious background was little support in facing her death and the unknown. But the longing, the search, the quest was in her. When I read "Love Dogs" and "Cry, cry out in your weakness," she motioned to me to lean over so she could whisper, "Leave that on the table, would you?" It was the only book she asked to keep. Perhaps Rumi held the door open for her to pass through.

Mary Lynn White
Spruce Pine, NC (WLRN, 91.3 FM)

Rumi as Exegete of Jesus (March 7, 2007)
I had only heard of Rumi as a frosh in some Western Civ course some 30 years ago. You kind readers will not be surprised by the level of shock I knew when the good professor quoted Rumi on Jesus. (I paraphrase.) Rumi: "If anyone asks how Jesus raised the dead, like this! Kiss me on the lips!" I can only compare Rumi's insight to that of Paul's, Augustine's, and Luther's. And perhaps in its earthiness, even corporeality, Rumi excels them.

John P. Kucinski
Hollywood, FL (WLRN, 91.3 FM)

It Took Me 25 Years to Understand Rumi (March 7, 2007)
I never discovered Rumi, I was born into the world of his poetry. My father, fluent in Persian, would translate the Maulana to me. He never explained his poetry to me, leaving me to interpret it myself. On occasions when I would persist, he would smile and say, if you ever do fall in love, there would be no need for explanation. Of course, he was terribly in love with my mother.

I thought I was in love when I married. However, the words of Maulana Jalaludin were to remain alien to me. Two years later fate brought me to M. It was love at first sight. She is the perfect girl for me. Suddenly, Rumi made perfect sense. As I was browsing his poetry, I suddenly realized that I wasn't reading Rumi, I was him! My father had been right, as always.

Both M and me are trapped in a colorless marriage, and we do not know what God has intended for both of us. Should we leave our partners to be together forever? We do not have any answers. What is important is that we love each other, and I never knew that I could love with such passion. I do pray that one day we end up getting married. I often wonder about the moral implications of our love but then the voice of Maulana Jalaluddin resonates with me:

Let the lovers be disgraceful, crazy,
absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about things going badly.
Let the lovers be

I grew up in Karachi, Pakistan and have been in the USA for 10 years, practicing medicine in Indiana. Like Fatemeh Keshavarz I grew up playing chess, reading literature and poetry, and having lengthy discourses on every subject. I am blessed with an intelligent mind that is inclined towards physical sciences, having no talents for writing poetry or literature. However, I love reading. Only after I left Karachi I realized that is not what all people do all the time.

Syed Hakim
Indianapolis, IN (WFYI, 90.1 FM)

I'll Meet You There (March 6, 2007)
During a homily at Mass at Corpus Christi Church in Baltimore, Maryland in the early 1990s, the priest quoted from the writings of a Sufi mystic. He cited these words: "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." I didn't catch the name of the mystic, but the words burned their way into my memory.

In November of 1999, as I gave the eulogy for my father at his memorial mass in Philadelphia, I spoke about his final days in the hospice and how his dying had been a season of grace for our family. The sense of peace and reconciliation that came over my father, my mother, and all of his children, was a pure gift. In my attempt to capture the spirit of those days, I repeated the words of the Sufi mystic that I had heard years before. I told the people in the congregation that, despite my best efforts, I could not track down the author of those words; I just knew he was a Sufi poet from centuries ago.

A few days after the mass, I received a call from a woman I barely knew — a daughter of my father's closest friend from high school. She had been at my father's mass and heard the words I spoke. Her passion to find the author of those words was so great that she had to know the name of the priest who spoke them at Corpus Christi years before. I gave her the priest's name but told her I had no idea if he was at the parish, or even in Baltimore. We had moved from that parish in 1995.

A week later, the woman called me back. She had tracked down the priest, now stationed in Texas. "The poet's name is Rumi," she told me with a joy that was almost ecstatic. "Rumi gave us those words. Rumi. Rumi."

I thanked her and I knew straightaway that the field he described, the one beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing, is the place where Rumi himself had led me. I knew, also, that I wanted to keep on meeting people in that field for the rest of my life on this earth, and perhaps beyond.

Stephen Stahley
Baltimore, MD (WYPR, 88.1 FM)

Whirling Dervishes (March 5, 2007)
Thanks for your show. Previously, all I knew about the Whirling Dervishes was from the song I've copied below. As you see, it is replete with errors.

(intro)
One fine day I chanced to stray
On a little side street in old Bombay
And met a sentimental Oriental,
She saw me and I saw she
Had a manner too bold and much too free,
Her eyes were positively detrimental,
When I asked about this gay cocquette,
I discovered much to my regret;

(chorus)
She's the girlfriend of the whirling dervish
She's the sweetest one he's found,
But every night in the mellow moonlight,
When he's out dervishing with all his might,
She gives him the runaround.
All the boy friends of the whirling dervish
Are his best friends to his face,
But there's no doubt, when he isn't about,
They all come hurrying to take her out
She leads him a dizzy pace.

He dreams of a Hindu honeymoon,
He doesn't dream that every night
When he goes out to make an honest rupee
She steps out to make a lotta whoopee

Oh! The love song of the whirling dervish
Has a sweet and tender sound,
But will he burn if he ever should learn,
That while he's doing her a real good turn,
She gives him the runaround.

(coda)
She's got a nervish
Throwin' him a curvish
Which of course, he
Doesn't deservish
Poor old whirling dervish!

Hank Bullwinkel
Upper Falls, MD (WYPR, 88.1 FM)

Question about a Book (March 4, 2007)
When I was in England last spring, I found the book Rumi's Daughter by Muriel Maufroy published by Rider's. Does the book have validity to Rumi's life?

Darlene Hardie
Woodburn, OR (KOAP, 88.7 FM)

Rumi Keeps on Giving (March 4, 2007)
As a retired teacher, with over 40 years in the classroom, I have found the current focus on testing, measuring, and evaluating — frequently so inappropriately — a sad commentary upon our approach to education. When such thoughts assailed me in the classroom, I would turn to Rumi.

Any poem that was important to me I always shared with my then 8th grade students. One day Rumi's great poem "There are two kinds of intelligence" quoted at the bottom of this note, played a major role in my students' discussion of what counts as effective learning. In that discussion, Julie said, "Rumi talked about it: what's most effective for me is when there is room for my inner voice. In many classes, much of our time is just spent repeating what the book says, or what the teacher says. It's not very often we get to actually say what we think. I think I really learn when I can share my own thoughts and hear others."

To teachers and students alike, Rumi keeps on giving!

Two Intelligences
by Jellaludin Rumi

There are two kinds of intelligence:
one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining information.
You stroll with this intelligence in and our of fields of knowledge,
getting always more marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet,
One already completed
and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox.
A freshness in the center of the chest.
This other intelligence does not turn yellow or stagnate.
It's fluid, and it doesn't move
from outside to inside
through the conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.

Marianne Novak Houston
Portage, MI (Listens to On Being OnDemand)

Mevlana (March 4, 2007)
I am a faithful listener. I am also an American Sufi/Mevlevi, and have visited Mevlana's tomb in Konya with descendents of Mevlana. I am very moved and impressed that your program on Mevlana covered so many important points. I have read Dr. Keshavarz's book. I found it interesting and informative, but not inspirational. You, however, have brought Dr. Keshavarz's scholarship to life and produced inspirational radio around a subject that may no longer be obscure, but is much misunderstood. This was not a small task, but you consistently succeed across diverse cultures and faith traditions. Thank you so much!

Yes indeed the Mevlevi Order, and all Sufis are officially banned from public practice in Turkey, and the Sema ("Whirling Prayer") seen by non-Sufis is mostly performed by professional dancers as a cultural heritage rather than spiritual practice. I assure you that, although small, the Mevlevi Order (International Mevlana Foundation) is alive and well and lead by the 22nd(?)-generation grandson of Mevlana.

What astounds me is that I have no critique. I assumed that you would not address the issue of "washing out the Islam" — I was wrong — I also wondered if you would use Western music instead of traditional Mevlevi music or Persian. I am quite pleased with this program and SOF in general.

Douglas/Arsalaan Fay
Nokomis, FL (Listens to SOF Podcast)

Perhaps Someone Younger? (March 4, 2007)
I looked forward to and really enjoyed your program. Your guest, the Rumi scholar from Washington University, absolutely was "delightful" as you promised. But she was a middle-aged professor. I assumed someone would have suggested Pir Zia, the son of the beloved and late Western Sufi master Vir Vilayat Inayat Khan, as a guest.

You have lots of scholarly, middle-aged people on your wonderful program. I enjoy it so much. But I want younger people to see faith in a broader context, to see the unity of God behind all religions. So Pir Zia — a young man who organized gatherings on Rumi as a college student — would be a good guest. Maybe have him talk about his interpretation of Sufism in the world today with selections of recordings of his late father. He could talk about the uphill struggle he faces as one so young trying to carry on his father's work. There are hundreds of recordings of Pir Vilayat. Talk about how to give the Muslim religion a better image!

I used to go to his retreats. They were filled with a lot of psychologists. I am sure there are a lot of them who talk about how treasured and important Pir was. And Pir' s father Inayat Khan is little known today but he is so delightful and incredibly wise. He has many writings that are so relevant to my life and our world and problems today. Again he has that innate Sufi sense of joy at his core. Our world is so full of pain. He would be a whole other wonderful program subject. Thanks again for your fabulous program. It means a lot to me.

Zeta Cross
Erdenheim, PA (WHYY, 91.0 FM)

Robbed (March 4, 2007)
Thank you for the program on Rumi. I just wanted to point out that Rumi wrote everything in Persian, not Turkish or Arabic. So why the ambivalence in calling him a Persian poet? (In the first half of the program you only referred to him as a Muslim poet.) Does it matter that he was born in what is today part of Afghanistan and died in what is today part of Turkey, when the borders in that part of the world have changed so much in the intervening years? Nobody calls Shakespeare a Christian poet, Goethe a Weimar poet, or Camus an Algerian writer, so why call Rumi a Muslim poet? It makes any Persian (Iranian) feel robbed of his/her heritage.

Neil Behzad Fazel
New York, NY (WNYC, 93.9 FM)

Back in a Fog (March 4, 2007)
I don't recall exactly how I heard of Rumi. I do recall buying a thin volume from Shambala publishing of a few poems. Later, I bought more books and have attended the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in N.J. and have listened to Coleman Barks read. I recall the first time hearing him read the poems. My whole body trembled. I was sitting with my wife who likes Rumi but is suspect of the underlying religious tradition from which it stems. She's very anti-religious. I trembled and sweated and welled up with tears as I listened.

The other aspect of the poetry that's important to me is how it speaks to the longing of love. I have fallen in love with another woman who's married also. We decided to stay within our marriages — she more willing them I. But as the years have passed (it's been about five years that we've been involved to differing degrees as one or the other pulls back) my love for this woman has not faltered. I think she doesn't feel for me the way I do for her. But the poetry of Rumi has been one of the things I've gone to to try and understand this relentless longing I have for her.

I've sought out advice in the pages — looking for how to manage the longing and understand what to do with the aching I have for her. I was looking for relief from the longing and only found Rumi suggesting that I embrace it instead — a kind of acceptance, a surrender to it. I struggle with that advice and wonder if it would be best to be rid of this love-longing or not. I remember saying to this woman that finding her was like being lifted out of a fog. Perhaps I wasn't ready for love, for this kind of love, for such a powerful longing as sometimes I wish I were back in the fog.

John Smith
Hoboken, NJ (WHYY, 91.0 FM)

Rumi vs. Hafiz (March 1, 2007)
If you think Rumi is ecstatic, you should listen to Hafiz!

Jacquelyn Phillips
Iowa City, IA (KUNI, 90.9 FM)

Permeating a Way (March 1, 2007)
Ten years ago I attended the United Nations Habitat II Conference in Istanbul. Many of my associates visited Rumi's birthplace and first introduced me to his presence. My favorite Rumi poem begins:

"Come for today is a day of festival
Henceforwrd joy and pleausure are on the increase.
Clap hands, say, 'Today is all happiness, from the beginning
it was a manifestly fine day.'"

One of my jobs is to teach a manners class to K-8 grades at a private Catholic school. We talk about the importance of gratitude and we begin class with: "Clap hands, for today is all happiness." The children love it and Rumi has found his way into their beings. His poetry escorts me to the perspective a mystic perceives of the wonder of this world. It is sorely needed right now as a cultural bridge, and a spiritual tool. Thank you for a wonderful show.

Sandra Beckwith
Los Angeles, CA (KPCC, 89.3 FM)

Wedding the Transcendent and the Concrete (March 1, 2007)
My thought on Rumi is round about. Years ago, while studying painting as a graduate student, I met an unusually thoughtful undergraduate (Peter Franklin) who patiently endured my absolute opining. This lover of the good, true, and beautiful recommended a few books and gave a gift at one point: an edition of Rumi.

I've often reflected on the convincing way these verses wed the most transcendent and the most concrete, as if revealing the sensate imperative of the spiritual (and the spiritual imperative of intimacy). Is there not another "silk road" — one connecting Islamic mystics, Cappadocian fathers, and the likes of Julian and Francis? This glistening thread of experienced, divine love — this insistence of the genuinely precious seems central to Rumi. He whispers of divine longing: that we be one in receiving and reflecting Love's other-awareness, in all things?

Peter would like that.

Kevin Sparks
Lexington, KY (Listens to On Being OnDemand)

The Difference (February 28, 2007)
I have been reading Rumi's work for some time now. Here is one of my favorite poetic renderings of Rumi translated by Coleman Barks, and I'm paraphrasing:

The distance between what-if talking and living is a journey of a hundred thousand years, but don't be discouraged. Living can happen at any moment.

God said be moderate when eating and drinking bread and wine, but God never said be satisfied when taking in the light.

The rose'd rarest essence lives in the thorn. Poems are the rough notation for the music we are.

Judy Hickey
Baltimore, MD (WYPR, 88.1 FM)

A Gift of the Sky (February 26, 2007)
Our lives are defined by our losses and how we move forward from the moment our heart receives that reality. For me, no other poem illuminates that better than Rumi's "Sky-Circles." I have shared this poem time and time again, and will continue to do so. It is a small poem with massive dimensions, using only 34 words.

The way of love is not
a subtle argument.

The door there
is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.

How do they learn that?
The fall, and falling,
they're given wings.

My daughter painted this banner to celebrate a brief, shining life. I knew Jason Starfire as the bird interpreter for the Cape May Bird Observatory. Jason loved birds. He was a wonderful guide to the magic in the sky. His death touched many people as his life was such a joy — one filled with wings. We flew this banner in his honor on an evening in late September of 2005 on the beach at Cape May Point, New Jersey, at sunset. Sharing sunset was and is an evening ritual for those of us who make the annual trek to Cape May to bear witness to the glories of autumnal bird migration.

The year before, Jason had been with us at sunset many times. We thought this would be the best way to take a moment to remember Jason. As we stood on the beach, this banner billowing in the soft evening winds, the sun sinking into the water a merlin — a small but mighty falcon — came blasting across the sky, noticed where we stood, and flew a full circle above us before continuing south in the fading light. We all stood on the beach, heads back, hearts beating a bit faster, silently absorbing the moment, this sky gift. I think Rumi would have been very pleased. I know Jason was!

Kathleen Maynard
Cincinnati, OH (WVXU, 91.7 FM)

Rumi as a Bridge Between Civilizations (February 25, 2007)
I am the Islam specialist in the Department of Religion at Rutgers University, and the focus of my research is Rumi. My translation for Oxford University Press of Rumi's greatest work was awarded the Lois Roth Prize, and the next volume is coming out this summer, also as an Oxford World's Classics edition.

I was born in Afghanistan, not far from where Rumi was born, and moved in my childhood to England, then came to the States to work as a professor of Islamic Studies three weeks before 9/11. Based on my experiences here in the States since then, I offer the following comments.

"Rumi as a Bridge Between Civilizations"
A person's worth lies in his thoughts alone;
Apart from that we're only flesh and bone:
You'll be a rose, if all your thoughts are selfless;
If selfish, just a thorn which is deemed worthless. (Rumi)

These couplets are taken from The Masnavi, the masterpiece of the Persian mystic Rumi. It is a poem of some 26 thousand couplets which was written to urge readers to look beyond appearances and rediscover their divine origins. As many are aware, 2006 was referred to as "The Year of Mozart" due to official recognition by UNESCO of the 250th anniversary of his birth. 2007 will be known as "The Year of Rumi." It could be fortuitous that next September will mark the 800th anniversary of Rumi's birth, because ever since he was first identified ten years ago as the best-selling poet in the United States, Rumi has arguably been the missed opportunity we should regret the most. I say this because, despite the fact that millions of American readers are now familiar with Rumi's poetry, none the less it is common to hear talk about an inevitable "clash of civilizations" against Muslims, who are frequently vilified as a fanatical and xenophobic mass. It needs to be pointed out that the same poet who now outsells Chaucer and T. S. Eliot, has been just as popular and influential for several centuries in the Muslim heartlands. Today, one can find copies of Rumi's Masnavi in very many households in Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and Pakistan. Although few clues are given to Rumi's Muslim background when he is quoted out of context by celebrities and self-help gurus, in fact he was brought up in a Muslim seminary and steeped in his Islamic heritage.

While one cannot ignore the increasing prominence of militant interpretations of Islam, Rumi can serve as an important reminder to us all of the diversity in the religion. It is too easily forgotten that not so long ago Islam was associated more with mysticism than fundamentalism; for instance, Allen Ginsberg alluded in his influential 1956 poem Howl to "Mohammedan angels," while a decade later Bob Dylan associated his muse with "the sad-eyed Prophet" and "Arabian drums." It is unlikely that a poet would use such imagery in a love song these days.

Political developments since the mid-sixties have affected both Muslims and the perception of them by outsiders, yet many visitors to Muslim countries even today return overwhelmed by their hosts' hospitality, shattering the usual stereotypes. At a time when fewer people are venturing that far, we can remind ourselves of all that is beautiful in Islamic culture by reading Rumi's widely available poetry, and if we celebrate the 800th anniversary of his birth with a more nuanced appreciation of his Muslim background, we can help prevent the demonization of millions of innocent people, and instead reaffirm the common values and aspirations which can unite humanity.

Jawid Mojaddedi
Princeton, NJ (WHYY, 91.0 FM)

Someone Digging in the Ground (February 25, 2007)
The name "Rumi" had been one of many pieces of knowledge that, as an old librarian, I had stored along the way. However, not until four years ago, after I lost my youngest son to suicide did Rumi's poetry take on new meaning.

One dark night, on my way back from a concert in Minneapolis, the beginning verse of one of Rumi's poems kept replaying in my mind:

"Someone Digging in the Ground"
An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.
The head has one use: For loving a true love.
Legs: To run after.

I looked at "the soul is here for its own joy" for the entire 40 minutes drive, mulling it over, looking at it from different directions, finally coming to the conclusing that my son's soul had lived for its own joy and had left for places unknown to me and that I needed to let it go. This sentences has been a source of consolation for me.

Even though I am not a person of conventional faith, I listen to your program most Sundays. And, I am most grateful for it.

Gudrun Nordby
Stillwater, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)

Not Content with Longing (February 25, 2007)
Seven years ago I attended a weekend conference in NYC. The final speaker on Sunday afternoon, while telling a story about her divorce, quoted Rumi: "There are those who are content with longing; I am not one of them. I grabbed my book and my pen and wrote this down feeling that it was somehow important for me."

"There are those who are content with longing; I am not one of them" became a mantra that I repeated several times a day that next week. The next Saturday night, less than a week later, I made a party. My house was filled with friends, music, drumming and dancing. A man that I knew but hadn't invited, showed up. When everyone else left, Ed was still sitting in my den. Different than the emotionally distant men I dated before, he was present and available. I felt drawn to him which confused me because I was not used to feeling attracted to the kind of man that I did not need to long for. Ed and I have been married for six years now thanks, in part, to Rumi.

Lisa Levine-Bernstein
Great Neck, NY (Listens to SOF Podcast)

Random Rumi (February 25, 2007)
The poetry of Rumi first appeared to me during a sabbatical, at a "tempest-tossed" time of transition in my life. After fourteen years of active ministry as a Roman Catholic priest, the reality of my heart's longing began leading me to a new way of loving. In the year following my sabbatical, decisions made led to many changes including the blossoming of a relationship.

Through all the changes and challenges Rumi remained a companion to us in the midst of our fears and our dreams of sharing a life of intimacy and commitment. He was the earth-bound mystic who made us laugh at ourselves when the weight of tradition pressed in upon us and who gave us words to match our passionate desires to taste all of life's beauty. In the early days of what is currently a six-year married relationship, we enjoyed sharing "random Rumi" poetry moments with our bodies touching and our hearts becoming one. In such times we would listen, sometimes cry, but most often simply smile with our friend.

This is the prayer of each:
You are the source of my life.
You separate essence from mud.
You honor my soul.
You bring rivers from the mountain springs.
You brighten my eyes.
The wine you offer takes me out of myself
Into the self we share.
Doing that is religion.
—from The Self We Share

May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
A seal of happiness here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
An omen as welcome
As the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe
How spirit mingles in this marriage.
—from This Marriage

Bob and Jean Wells
Brown Deer, WI (Listens to SOF Podcast)

There Is a Field (February 25, 2007)
I have been a fan of Rumi for at least 26 years. My most poignant memory was at a conference in 1981. Robert Bly had a poetry conference for many years. It was an annual conference that rotated at different sites around the country in the month of June. At first it was called the Great Mother Conference then the Great Mother and the New Father Conference. The conference later became an Annual Men's Conference. These conferences concentrated on poetry and Jungian psychology.

The 1981 conference was memorable because it featured Robert Bly and Coleman Barks reading Kabir and Rumi to sitar and tabla music. I consider Robert Bly and Coleman Barks the two best translators of Rumi's poetry. They really "get it." But to really get it, you have to listen to it with sitar and tabla. The sitar and tabla players were both from Minneapolis and had pla yed with Robert Bly many times before. The sitar player was David Whetstone and the tabla player was Marc Anderson I think. The 1981 conference was at a camp in rural Tennessee. One morning was devoted to Kabir and Rumi's poetry read to music. This was the most exciting and spiritual reading of my life. Luckily, I have a recording of this reading. It is not a professional recording but I would be willing to share it if you are interested. Robert Bly may have a better recording of that reading. Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing there is a field. I will meet you there.

Paul Trumm
Alexandria, MN (Listens to On Being OnDemand)

It Doesn't Matter (February 24, 2007)
A friend in Walla Walla, Washington, introduced me to Rumi a number of years ago, and after reading "there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground" I was hooked. I took several Rumi books to Azerbaijan, where I worked for 3 1/2 years on a health project. Living in a rural part of the country, I would often take Rumi on hikes and read from places with spectacular views. I made many Turkish and Kurdish friends while living there, and we often talked about Rumi, Konya, Sufism — and it didn't matter who was Muslim and who was Christian. When I eventually get around to visiting Konya it is comforting to know I can call up my "Rumi friends" and we can make the visit together.

Jenny Sequeira
Keizer, OR (Listens to On Being OnDemand)

A New Pilgrimage (February 24, 2007)
Two years ago I began a pilgrimage from Le Puy, France to Santiago, Spain. My book of choice was the Gospel, Psalms, and Proverbs. Reading them on the road made vivid so many passages about walking, trust, having enough to eat, etc. Strangely, when I returned home, I found that I could no longer be a part of organized religion (this from a former organist!). As I continued to walk at home, I became assured that this departure from the norm, was a part of my pilgrimage.

Last summer, I picked up my journey where I had left off, in Condom, France, and walked to Burgos, Spain. My texts were The Gift, Landinsky's translations of Rumi, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence. Every time time I tasted of Rumi, I came away both nourished and hungry for more. More times than I can count, the texts paralleled my experiences on the path. Rumi is a part of my daily meditation. The glimmers of clarity that shine through his opaque writings sustain and inspire my life.

The attached photo was taken by my hospitallier in St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port, as I set off across the Pyrenees. I plan to return to Burgos in June to finish my journey. My pilgrimage, however, has just begun.

Melody Doering
Bronx, NY (WNYC, 93.9 FM)

A New Pilgrimage (February 24, 2007)
I wasn't your typical seminarian. The thought of worshipping a god "up there" or "out there" seemed to me to be seriously off the mark. And the thought of worshipping a man as God (i.e., Jesus) was nauseating. Both of these concepts ran counter to my own individual sense of spirituality — of Divinity. In retrospect, I think I was in seminary more so to disprove the central tenets of Christianity — and thus be "free" from any obligation to the religion of my birth — than to prepare for a career in ministry. But at that time, in the spring of 1997, drawing near to the end of my 1ast year, I hadn't yet framed my journey in that manner. I hadn't yet found the courage — the voice — to express myself in such heretical terms.

So there we were, in a class being taught by my favorite professor (a Jungian analyst), being instructed on a practice (Active Imagination) which Carl Jung developed to help one commune or develop a relationship with important internal figures, be they from one's dreams, or one's spiritual tradition, or mythology. As we were led in what was (for most of us) our first experience of this practice, I didn't have much faith in it, thinking I'd probably just semi-subconsciously conjure up some figure from one of the New Testament texts I'd recently been studying. As we were instructed to open our minds to a sacred or spiritually important place, I was somewhat surprised to find myself in a barren, desert setting watching a young woman weeping incessantly, apparently about the fate of her infant son, who was laying a short distance away. I immediately recognized the scene as being that of Hagar (Abraham's maid) and Ishmael (Abraham's son with Hagar), shortly after they were kicked out of Abraham's home at the bidding of Abraham's wife, Sarah — a story from the book of Genesis.

We were then instructed to open a dialogue with our sacred figure. As much of my interaction is with children, and as one of my favorite ice-breakers is offering chewing gum, it seemed only natural for me to offer Ishmael a piece of gum, which, after he rapidly grew to an age of 10 or so, he readily accepted. As we both sat down and looked at Hagar weeping, I said something to the effect that, "Your mom's pretty sad, huh?" Ishmael responded, "Yeh, she doesn't yet know that I will grow to become a great nation."

We were then instructed to ask our sacred figure for some guidance. I asked Ishmael, "Do you have anything to tell me?" He responded, "Read the Rumi." As the professor brought the session to a close, my mind, still somewhat in a spin, went back a few days to a book I'd bought entitled, The Essential Mystics: The Soul's Journey into Truth, edited by Andrew Harvey. It was a compilation of mystical texts from across a wide variety of spiritual traditions (Native American, Taoist, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Ancient Greek, Islamic, and Christian). Rumi, I'd noticed, was included, though I hadn't yet had a chance to read any of it. When I later had a chance to read it, I was quite pleasantly surprised to find a selection of his which seemed to epitomize — give voice to — my own sense of Divinity:

"Admit It and Change Everything"
Define and narrow me, you starve yourself of yourself.
Nail me down in a box of cold words, that box is your coffin.
I do not know who I am.
I am in astounded lucid confusion.
I am not a Christian, I am not a Jew, I am not a Zoroastrian,
And I am not even a Muslim.
I do not belong to the land, or to any known or unknown sea.
Nature cannot own or claim me, nor can heaven,
Nor can India, China, Bulgaria,
My birthplace is placelessness,
My sign to have and give no sign.
You say you see my mouth, ears, eyes, nose-they are not mine.
I am the life of life.
I am that cat, this stone, no one.
I have thrown duality away like an old dishrag,
I see and know all times and worlds,
As one, one, always one.
So what do I have to do to get you to admit who is speaking?
Admit it and change everything!
This is your own voice echoing off the walls of God.

Art Robinson
Chicago, IL (WBEZ, 91.5 FM)

One Must Begin from Afar (February 24, 2007)
My first contact with the work of the Sufi saint, Jellaludin Rumi, came from a visit to a school in West Virginia known as The Claymont Society for Continuous Education. Claymont was at the time a "4th Way School" founded on the principles of George Gurdjieff and JG Bennett. To me, the teachings of Rumi and the teachings of Gurdjieff and Mr. Bennett are inseparable — so much of the nature of spiritual search and the way it is articulated by Mr. G and Mr. B is echoed in the poetry and writings of Rumi. It is clear that these teachers are all part of a greater, emerging tradition that in time should bear fruit, Inshillah.

From the start, we were reminded of the ways we fidgeted between Movements or the various ways we sat down as a class. We had finished working with Number 17 and Walter told us to sit. This time, when the some 36 of us lowered ourselves, it sounded as if one person had just sat on the floor of the Octagon. There was one sound. Everyone heard it; everyone knew it. Walter was moved as well and asked the pianist to play a hymn from the Gurdjieff/De Hartmann canon, the only time we ever closed a class with music as we sat together in a collected state. This was a moment in which God smiled on us, a moment that Rumi writes about in so many of his poems, when one and all can be given a taste of that state of spiritual ecstasy and union with the Beloved.

One can read Rumi's poetry as an intellectual exercise and appreciate it certainly. It must be a real delight to hear the music of his poetry in the original Farsi; and the fragrance is still sweet in English translations. But the real value of Rumi's poetry just as in the real value of the Gurdjieff Movements is in each seeker's work to make contact with the essential core of our Being. Each hints that something else is required of us in order to make that connection. And once that connection is made, everything changes. Prayer ceases to be words, it becomes an action.

And both Rumi and Gurdjieff remind me that I am still incomplete, still cooking. But in all worthy searches, one must begin from afar.

"We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time."
—T.S. Eliot "Four Quartets"

James Farrelly
Hanover, PA (WHYY, 91.0 FM)

Coleman's Help with My Husband's Cancer (February 23, 2007)
By 1995 my husband had been living with an incurable blood cancer for six years, and poetry was one of the things that sustained me through many uncertainties. It was my husband who encouraged me to watch the Bill Moyers PBS special called "The Language of Life" about the Dodge Poetry Festival. And on that program was Coleman Barks, one of the main translators of Rumi.

Many words of Barks' and Rumi's, including these, were special mentors to me as my husband and I began spending more and more time in emergency rooms, listening to a shrinking list of treatment options, and planning for a bone marrow transplant:

Keep walking, though there's no place to get to.
Don't try to see through the distances.
That's not for human beings. Move within,
but don't move the way fear makes you move.

After my husband's death, I finally met Coleman Barks and heard him read his translations of Rumi at the Dodge Poetry Festival in the fall of 2002.

Roberta Kilstrom
St. Louis, MO (KWMU, 90.7 FM)

Helping Me to Heal Others (February 22, 2007)
As a chaplain, I first heard bits of his poetry in my CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) groups from my "out-of-the-box" Adrian Dominican supervisor, who quoted his poetry. Rumi's "out-of-the-boxness" (in the 13th century, no less!) spoke to my same condition, especially his quote: "Let the beauty of what you love be what you do; there are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground." In my work at a prison, with people with chemical dependency and with people in chronic pain, I have found these words and their liberating and nourishing hopefulness to be a profound way to bring healing to them on many levels.

The idea that what we love can lead us to feed our spirits and nourish our souls is a constant source of soul food. I have journeyed with many people who have defined their religious life very narrowly and have come away dissatisfied, hurt, confused, and longing. Rumi's life of fervent love of his God, the whirling dervish devotion, the joyous dance of love has informed me of the possibilities of my own soul, and therefore, helped me inspire others to find their own healing, joyous way.

Gudrun Witrak
Duluth, MN (Listens to On Being OnDemand)

Barks at Dodge (February 22, 2007)
Coleman Barks's books exposed me to Rumi. I attended the Dodge Poetry Festival and heard Coleman recite his translations. Coleman's reading was a spritual experience. Rumi articulates my experience of God better than any sacred text I've ever read.

Jo Crabb
Decatur, GA (WABE, 90.1 FM)

Rumi Liberated My Music (February 22, 2007)
I first came into contact with Rumi as a young lad in Mexico in 1968. I was deep in the midst of transformative experiences. Walking along one day I was lost in a set of thoughts that were perplexing me. I passed by a bookstore that had a book with a miniature painting on the cover. It was a painting of Rumi. The image captivated me with tremendous attraction. I went in a flipped the book open; it was a collection of teaching tales. The story I landed on held the answer for the question that had been on my mind. I bought the book and from then on I searched, read, and celebrated anything that had to do with Rumi and other precious few like him such as Hafiz and Attar.

Being a musician, my interests and experiences found their way into hundreds of songs I composed and sang over the next 30 years. In 2000 I collected a group of these songs and released a CD called When Days Have No Nights — the songs of Rumi. The translations for these songs were done in collaboration with a Persian friend of mine who is well versed in Sufi poetry. We spent evenings going back to the original sources of these poems. He would elaborate on a variety of multiple meanings many words have. I took the liberty of writing song verses in English that reflected these multiple meanings. The song form liberated me from having to try making a quatrain in Farsi or Persian equal a quatrain in English. These two languages have very different qualities.

These beautiful poems have relevance today because, although external life has changed radically, the internal life is still perfectly described by his profound and beautiful poetry. A musician friend of mine who has also worked extensively with the poetry of Rumi brought this to my attention. I am so pleased you will be presenting information about Rumi.

Some years ago I was invited to do a program on KPFA radio in Berkeley. The radio host wanted to interview me and share my music. I was not inclined to talk about my personal life but I was happy to share the music. What I did that night was tell an abbreviated version of Rumi's life interspersed with songs that fit.

Mischa Rutenberg
San Francisco, CA (Listens to SOF Podcast)

Kneel and Kiss the Ground (February 22, 2007)
I first heard of Rumi in the late 1980s from some people I met in a meditation group. His life story was told many times, including his being a scholar and meeting his teacher, Shams of Tabriz. I realize now his story may have been embellished, but it really moved me the way I heard it.

In the story, he was a well-known scholar and was sitting by a fountain teaching. Shams came by and pushed his books into the fountain. Rumi began cursing Shams. Shams laughed at him and made some kind of esoteric statement to the effect that Rumi didn't understand any of what he taught because he had never experienced it, and he walked away. When Rumi reached into the fountain to retrieve his books, they were dry. Rumi knew then that Shams was his teacher and found him and begged him to teach him. They stayed together for a year, I think, barely having any other contact with others. Then Shams disappeared. There were rumors that jealous students had had him killed. Rumi searched everywhere and followed up tips on where Shams had been seen, etc. but never saw him again. His longing for Shams was to last for the rest of his life and his poetry of longing and love was for Shams, his teacher.

I realize I may have a detail or two not quite right, but this was the gist of what I heard. This story really struck me in the heart because I, too, have had a few very choice, life-changing teachers in my life, and I know the pain I experienced when they were no longer there. I, too, can't imagine my life without them. So his story always struck me as tender and oh so human. I think my favorite lines from his poems are ones I first saw on a card and I followed up and found the poem from which they were taken. They make so much to me because that had been my experience — that there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground, to honor this life in the way that makes our own heart happy. Here is the way I found it quoted:

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Don't open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Catherine Jones
Atlanta, GA (WABE, 90.1 FM)

Hard to Analyze (February 22, 2007)
As for my Rumi story, the interesting thing is I'm not sure I have one. That is, as a writer trained in critical deconstruction of poetry and other literature, I have nonetheless avoided applying such analysis to Rumi. It feels counterintuitive, and I think the reason is that each poem is so organic and whole and self-evident (though its evidence may spark differently on each reading), and there is so much tactile sensuality and other use of sense, analysis seems not only counterintuitive, but counterproductive. That seems very Sufi and appropriate to me.

Denise Showers
Janesville, WI (KZSE, 90.7 FM)

Meaning in Strife (February 22, 2007)
I first encountered Rumi's writing while reading The New American Spirituality: A Seeker's Guide by Elizabeth Lesser. After reading excerpts of his writing, I bought two of his books. His writings are timeless, deal with life and relationships and personal journey. I enjoy curling up and reading his works when I am searching for meaning about a problem or strife. His poetry is always uplifting and I find meaning in his words that resonate within me.

Kathy Truax
Rochester, MN (KZSE, 90.7 FM)

Intro by Bly (February 21, 2007)
I suppose I first heard of Rumi via Robert Bly. I lived in Minnesota at the time, and several of my friends who were involved with the men's movement were reciting poetry by Rumi, Kabir, and Mirabai. Although the poetry spoke to me almost immediately, speaking to those mysteries which I, myself, have been working to penetrate for as long as I can remember, it was an evening with Robert Bly, and friends, which brought the power of this ecstatic poetry home full force. Robert performed (read doesn't do it justice) his own versions of Rumi and Kabir, while David Whetstone played sitar, and Marcus Wise the tablas.

It was then I understood the full meaning of the term "ecstatic poetry," for I was transported to a place beyond ordinary reality and consciousness, never to be quite the same.

An image of the artwork I do relates to this whole realm of discussion. I make labyrinth and sacred geometry quilts. This one (with me standing next to it) was made for River Guerguerian, master percussionist and sound healer. He uses it, primarily, as a ground cover for people to lie on when they receive healing work from him.

Laurel Reinhardt
Asheville, NC (WCQS, 88.1 FM)

Osmosis (February 21, 2007)
I became aware of Rumi by osmosis. I started seeing sayings that were very much in keeping with the peace taught by twelve-step recovery. I learned that he comes from Islam but embraces many faiths. I recently was able to see his school in Konya, Turkey and a ceremony of the Dervishes on a tour connected to the total eclipse of the sun that went through there in March 2006.

David McGaw
Canaan, NH (Listens to On Being OnDemand)

Whirling Within (February 19, 2007)
I sat down to finally read Coleman Barks' translation of Rumi's poetry. In the introduction I was struck by the notion that Rumi thought that our death day was to be celebrated more so than our birth day. He thought that this was the day of our true liberation.

The day Rumi died was Dec. 17th, the same day that I was reading the book. Somehow I had picked up that book on that day. The next evening with Rumi on my mind I put some Turkish music in and unconsciously started dancing, whirling dervish style, something I have never done before. Soon I was unaware of myself and spinning completely balanced and in trance. Ten minutes went by in a second. I was left feeling blissful and in shock of this spiritual experience. Every year around the time of Rumi's death day I read his poetry and whirl in the privacy of my home.

Kelly Fairchild
Greensboro, VT (Listens to SOF Podcast)

We Need to Hear More of Rumi (February 19, 2007)
It was the summer of 2004 and my wife and I used book tapes to help maintain sanity during our long commute. I had dug out my audio collection of the 1994 Bill Moyer's Language of Life show and, as we listened to one tape which contained Coleman Barks' reading his translations of Rumi, I gleefully recognized a kindred spirit.

My mind soared and said, "Yes, yes, yes!" hearing the glorious words which had been translated with such care and feeling. Without question the deepest part of us knows when the truth is spoken.

Here was one of the missing voices of Islam, missing, at least, from the mainstream media. In our country, where the news gathering organizations are required to turn a profit, a voice such as Rumi — a voice that must still speak through many Muslims — is not heard because it lacks the adrenalin-rush of an extremist-Christian/Muslim/Jew/etc. screaming for revenge. Instead of killing over our differences, we need more of this:

I, you, he, she, we.
In the garden of mystic lovers,
these are not true distinctions.

and

We can't help being thirsty,
moving towards the voice of water

Milk-drinkers draw close to the mother.
Muslims, Christians, Jews,
Buddhists, Hindus, shamans,
everyone hears the intelligent sound
and moves, with thirst, to meet it.

Clean your ears. Don't listen
for something you've heard before.

Invisible camel bells.
slight footfalls in sand.

Almost in sight! The first word they call out
will be the last word of our last poem.

Today, we need to hear more people speak of faith rather than rant for or against faith.

Davis Chung
Manassas, VA (Listens to SOF Podcast)

Through the Eyes of Rassouli (February 19, 2007)
I first heard of Rumi as Jalaleddin Mowlana in Iran when I was a little girl. I studied a few of his writings during school on a limited scale. Many years later in California, after repeated failures in self searching by new age gurus and their teachings, I encountered an opportunity to learn about Rumi from a man who had devoted most of his life to the discovery of the unknown pearls in the ocean of the meaning called Rumi. The result of this encounter has been many years of joyful togetherness.

What I want to share of Rumi is a man named Rassouli, a mystic and an artist who has been living with the spirit of Rumi, and has been creating magnificent works of art inspired by Rumi's poetry. Rassouli has been sharing Rumi with thousands of people not only through his paintings, but by his translations of Rumi's works in many writings and books, and in a new upcoming book titled: Rumi Revealed, as well as presenting seminars and retreats in creative living through the poetry of Rumi.

Gitty Rassouli
Encino, CA (KPCC, 89.3 FM)

Discovering Mevalana in Turkey (February 17, 2007)
I first heard of Rumi not by that name, but by the name of Mevlana. In 1989 I was driving throughout Turkey with my girlfriend, Martha, and as beginning students of Gurdjieff we were interested in going to Konya when we learned that a Dervish school had been founded there in the 13th century by a great spiritual teacher. As I read on in the guide book I was told the story of this teacher's experiencing of God through his love for his male companion, Shems, and how this love inspired a local spiritual rebirth and the founding of Mevlana's Dervish brotherhood.

It was only when Paul Gorman, on WBAI, read from Rumi after giving a short biography of him, including that he is also known to history as Mevlana that I put the spiritual dance teacher and lover in the shoes of the poet. And the poetry! Written eight hundred years ago and as contemporary as my view of heaven in my lover's eyes.

David Mendelsohn
New York, NY (WNYC, 93.9 FM)

A Friendship Founded on Rumi (February 16, 2007)
I'm an announcer for NET Radio, Nebraska's NPR Station, in Lincoln, Nebraska. When I'm not working at the station, I'm a jazz and blues singer, poet, and a temporary data entry typist at the Nebraska Department of Revenue. It was at the latter job that I met my co-worker Tess whom I befriended because we both have a love of books and spirituality — and we both have endured hardship and disappointments in our life, as well as economic hardship.

While I had heard of Rumi, I confess that I've never read him, and it was Tess who has shared her love of his writing with me. When I told Tess about the upcoming program on Rumi on On Being (which is one of my favorite shows and the reason I chose to working the Sunday morning shift at the radio station) she was excited and I asked her to write something about Rumi I could share on your Web site. Following is what Tess wrote and it moved me greatly.

After reading various selections of verses from Book 2 of the Mystical Poems of Rumi, I find myself reading Verse 251 many times over: "Last night I saw poverty in a dream. I became beside myself from its beauty. From the loveliness and perfection of the grace of poverty I was dumbfounded until dawn. From the midst of my soul a hundred surgings rose when I beheld the surging of the sea."

Imagine if you can beauty and grace in poverty or feeling your soul surge as you look out upon the ocean and are in awe of the majestic surgings. Another book of the wondrous writings of Rumi is The Teachings of Rumi: Obstacles on the Path has made me curious about imagination and illusion. "Do Not Despair, My Soul" is another favorite reading. Rumi writings bring a feeling of calmness to my being. His words make my spirit soar from the chaotic depths it struggles to be free of.

Like my friend Tess, I too struggle to allow my soul to soar above its chaotic depths. I too marvel at Rumi's ability to see poverty and suffering not as ugliness but as divine beauty.

Annette Murrell
Lincoln, NE (KUCV, 91.1 FM)

First Time I Grasped God's Presence in History (February 16, 2007)
I first heard of Rumi when my sister gave me a book of his poetry for my birthday (maybe 23). I had never heard of him before. She gave the book to me because I like poetry. I liked his writing because it was the first time I had really read any poetry from a different religion than my own (Christianity). My favorite line that he wrote was "Be melting snow. Cleanse yourself of yourself."

When he speaks of God being in you — that we should remember that and draw upon Him to heal ourselves. I loved how simple but profound it was. It was probably one of the first times that I actually grasped how God has been present through so many generations, so many regions, so many hearts.

Regina Sarmiento
Atlanta, GA (Listens to SOF Podcast)

Leading Me to the Religion of Pluralism (February 15, 2007)
When I graduated from high school, my godfather gave me a copy of a Coleman Barks' translation of popular Rumi poems. I thanked him kindly, and promptly added the book to my bookshelf, and it remained untouched until I packed it up for college. It remained on my college bookshelf for a full semester, until my roommate borrowed it first.

After hearing a few of her comments about Rumi's poems, I realized I needed to read a few myself. So, my first upstate New York springtime is laced with memories of reading Rumi at a spot on campus secluded in the woods overlooking the Hudson River and the traintracks running along its banks. Of course, suiting the time in which I was reading Rumi, his springtime poems struck me first.

Through my sophomore year, Rumi guided me along a more intellectual route, as well as an erotic one. As I made a choice to study religion, Rumi's poems filled my papers for my classes on Islam, and for a final paper, I linked parts of Al Ghazzali's works, Rumi's poems, and the Qur'an to decipher an Islam that made sense to me. Now, I look to Rumi's truths about all religions. There is always something striking about the mystical poems of any religion, and while I've read bhakti poems and Rainer Maria Rilke's poems, and a number of others from mystical dimensions, Rumi's relation directly to the text of the Qur'an, and the passion the Qur'an and Islam and God can evoke within someoene continue to draw me nightly into a world of something more than simple spirituality. Rumi guided me to my real religion — that of pluralism.

Meg Gatza
Bel Air, MD (Listens to SOF Podcast)

Like a Seductive Koan (February 14, 2007)
Oddly enough, I first encountered Rumi through the Christian Contemplative connections I have made over the past 13 years — speakers, books, articles, etc. There is a place in the human heart where Rumi leads the reader that is the same place that contemplative practice leads. It is beyond the world of duality and into that state of unitive consciousness that I have only glimpsed. In one of his poems, roughly paraphrased, he speaks about a field beyond judgements of good and evil. He says "I will meet you there." Almost like a koan from a Zen master. That quality is seductive in his poetry.

Maggie Little
Huntsville, AL (Listens to SOF Podcast)

Rumi on War (February 14, 2007)
When Coleman Barks was in Baltimore, I (a Rumi lover) asked him about Rumi vis-a-vis non-violence and the present war in Iraq. What would he say? Since in matters of "religion" to me it is what we do to change the world that counts (see Amos and Isaiah), Coleman's answer was great! He said that a (was it Mongolian?) general came to capture the town where Rumi lived, but his scout came back and told him, "They're all like Rumi" and the general left (in disgust? in fear? in respect?). Whatever it was the general left, he left! As should we from Iraq.

David Eberhardt
Baltimore, MD (WYPR, 88.1 FM)

The Neurotic Duck (February 13, 2007)
I first came across Rumi in the discount section of Barnes and Noble — a Coleman Barks' anthology of his work. As an artist and an undisciplined spiritual seeker, I fell in love with this work that was bawdy, funny, visually vivid, and forgiving. It was the first time I realized that the absurd experience of the everyday can be a spiritual awakening if viewed with the right lens, a lens like Rumi's.

My first readings of Rumi roughly coincided with moving to NYC, which came roughly a year after 9/11, which also was roughly the time that I began to experience chronic insomnia and anxiety. I came to NYC to attend art school, and Rumi played a key role in helping me get through that anxious time, and making a thesis project that reflected my tumultuous experience in the city.

The central text of this project was from Rumi's poem about the four birds living in every person that keeps her/him from loving:
- the crow of ownership
- the rooster of lust
- the peacock of wanting to be famous
- the duck of urgency

The poem then proceeds to focus on that neurotic duck, always searching, its bill never still, worrying that there's no time! It was interesting to find these birds again later, in reading the work of Rumi's father, Bahuddin. I wonder if the four birds are a longstanding image in Sufi poetry?

Arlene Ducao
Brooklyn, NY (WNYC, 93.9 FM)

Needing More Grace (February 12, 2007)
I met Rumi for the first time a few years ago while going through my own spiritual crisis. The faith that I had followed my whole life was failing me and nothing seemed to hold vision and truth. I am a poet, and as I tried to articulate my frustration with belief through writing, I found myself unable to articulate what it was that had died in me. A dear friend had told me that my poetry reminded her of Rumi, so I bought a copy of Coleman Barks' translation (The Essentail Rumi). It was like finding the words I wanted to say. In "Brunt Kabob" Rumi says:

But listen to me: for one moment,
quit being sad. Hear blessings
dropping their blossoms
around you. God.

His voice, from a time and place so long in the past, seemed to talk to me. It was not God that I was grieving for, but the loss of an ideal that I had lived with my whole life. God was still dropping blossoms.

Rumi is the kind of companion that allows for all the possibilites of faith and belief, without any constraints or divisiveness. I am constantly surprised by the clarity of his words and their vision for my own life. He has the ability to make the world fly to pieces and then he puts it back together again in a way I've never thought of before. He's full of a boundless passion and a deep humility. Just when I think I understand him, I find something new to think about. His spirituality is the kind that embraces rather than the kind that pushes people apart. When I read his words:

I need more grace
than I thought

I felt that finally someone had put into words the real problem of our century. With a belief in that kind of ultimate humility, the idea that we need more grace, maybe this world could be healed.

Maureen Clark
Bountiful, UT (KUER, 93.9 FM)

Tangible and Intangible (February 11, 2007)
A healer friend said to me many years ago, "you are ready for Rumi." Instantly Rumi became one of my favorites along with Hafiz, another Persian mystic. To me, his treatment of love bridges earth and heaven, human and Divine. He moves me away from the abstract and intellectual to the emotional and spiritual. He holds up a model of what we might become: "Love is reckless; not reason. Reason seeks a profit."

Gene Thompson
Wilmington, DE (Listens to On Being OnDemand)

Rumi's Poetry as a Raft (February 11, 2007)
My father's car had spun off the road. I had said my final goodbyes to a dear mother-figure of my childhood. My best friend from an important period of my life would soon succumb to brain cancer. And my infant son's ashes in my hand weighed much more than their tiny volume could justify. All in the same six months of time.

As I struggled to care about living, about my young daughter, about my grieving husband, about the work I had wanted to do about a lifetime ago, a friend gave me Rumi's poem "The Guest House." He recited it to me from memory, gently. Yet it crumbled the exoskeleton I had strained to grow, trying to protect myself and fool the world into seeing a me that no longer existed. Every "new arrival" lately had stormed through my life, leaving me puddled on the floor. And I should embrace the violence? Honor it? Surely the next visitor, fin ding no furniture left to sweep away, would blow down what remained of the structure holding me up? How could I possibly welcome anything new? Yet this poem represented a solid raft to which I could cling, swirling through the treacherous river of grief in which I felt myself drowning. I didn't have to understand, only live, and trust that life held something for me however inscrutable. The poem remains a touchstone and an important friend now, on the other side of that river.

This being human is a guesthouse.
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 …

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Jacqueline Hamilton
Los Angeles, CA (KPCC, 89.3 FM)

An Entry Point to Opening My Heart (February 11, 2007)
Rumi came to me in a time of my life when I was questioning the connections to family, tradition, and religious matters altogether. I was a college student seeing a real dilemma all around me. I was seeing the rifts of class, race, and spiritual stagnancy tear the threads of connection and community, not only in my own town, but worldwide.

I grew up in a small town in the Midwest, where there is a church on virtually every corner, and most of those churches were of the denomination "Reformed" or "Christian Reformed." These two branches of Protestant Calvinism are very close in theology, and yet the history of our town implies families being torn and anger arising over interpretation of rule and tradition. Actually, Calvinism fits into a long and riveting history of the church over the centuries trying to come to grips with how Jesus' powerful and revolutionary ideas translate into realities of a growing church, extreme paradigm shift, culture wars, and thousands of years of interpretation. These rifts persist, and come from the hearts of those who say, within their tradition, they should be living as a body of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 12:12-31).

When I learned about my denomination's history during college, I learned that this confrontation and split gave birth to the religious faith and spiritual sentiment I grew up with. I remember feeling this split in my gut. Most poignantly, I have heard my grandfather say numerous times that he is baffled and very perturbed by the fact that Christians on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would kill each other even though they profess to be followers of Jesus. Even as a younger child, I remember understanding the answer to his question instinctively.

I think I am like many people that grew up internalizing this struggle of how spiritual law and faith plays out in our daily joys and struggles. My faith community as a child gave me safety, a place and a language to explore my spiritual identity. Sitting in the pews of the sanctuary of our church during Sunday school as a child, singing songs about Bible stories and Bible verses gave me true joy and peace, and I remember thinking that my voice and song were direct intercessions to God, and that I was heard. A communion was taking place, and I knew it in every note and song.

When I first read Rumi, this communion that I felt as a child came upon me with an expansive fresh newness. His ecstatic poetry gave me yet another language with which to open my heart. His ties between the sacred and the profane beckoned me. His insight into the Bible characters I loved as a child — Moses, Abraham, and Jesus — brought a mystical and universal perspective that children intuitively understand and I had forgotten. I was lured into Rumi's world and stumbled along my way.

I have learned from Rumi that the very things that bind us can also set us free. My mother was instrumental in my playing music. Growing up in a poor farming family, she always wanted to play the piano, but her mother and father couldn't afford to pay for lessons. She, therefore, insisted on my taking lessons, and for the first few years, I detested having to sit in front of this instrument, learning chords and practicing scales. I still remember the day it all finally made sense, and I learned I could make beautiful music with those little black notes on the page. After that, I dove into the music, practicing hours and hours at a time like no time had passed. Not only were connections happening in my brain and translating to notes on a keyboard, but my soul was expanding, from a little box in my chest to the whole instrument, which became my intimate companion, and instrument to express the longing Rumi so intimately speaks of.

I am now a few years older, live a thousand miles away from that little Midwest community, and don't play music nearly as much as I used to. I have fallen in love with Rumi like I fell in love with music, using his soul language as an instrument with which to play my everyday existence, learning everyday how to bring my heart and passion into my work and my community. It's not always easy, like practicing scales and translating notes from page to fingers. But then a door opens, and words on a page turn into the big, fluid, freedom Rumi talks about. Rumi's words are a guide from beyond, a finger pointing us to the mystical moon. They can be just words, or an instrument to lift us into a place where everything is music:

Love has taken away my practices
and filled me with poetry.

I tried to keep quietly repeating,
No strength but yours,
but I couldn't.

I had to clap and sing.
I used to be respectable and chaste and stable,
but who can stand in this strong wind
and remember those things?

A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself.
That's how I hold your voice.

I am scrap wood thrown in your fire,
and quickly reduced to smoke.

I saw you and became empty.
This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,
it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes,
existence thrives and creates more existence!

The sky is blue. The world is a blind man
squatting on the road.

But whoever sees your emptiness
sees beyond blue and beyond the blind man.

A great soul hides like Muhammed, or Jesus,
moving through a crowd in a city
where no one knows him.

To praise is to praise
how one surrenders
to the emptiness.

To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.
Praise, the ocean. What we say, a little ship.

So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where!
Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck
we could have. It's a total waking up!

Why should we grieve that we've been sleeping?
It doesn't matter how long we've been unconscious.

We're groggy, but let the guilt go.
Feel the motions of tenderness
around you, the buoyancy.

—"Buoyancy," from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

Discovering Rumi has allowed me to open the door to my true home.

Kelli Koning
Carolina Beach, NC (Listens to On Being OnDemand)

Rumi Is Now (February 11, 2007)
I first heard the poetry of Rumi sitting next to a rocky tidepool in Hawaii after spending hours snorkeling among brilliant corals and fish. Our friends brought a book out of their beach bag and started to read his poems aloud, and it opened a world to me as full of life and vibrant color as the reef. Since then, his words follow me through my days. I have verses written on my office wall, in my book of favorite poems, and I include his words in letters to friends. Whenever I read Rumi now, the poetry is infused with sunlight and salt and the warm breezes of the day I first heard his name.

Julie Hursey
Petersburg , AK (Listens to On Being OnDemand)

In My Bones (February 11, 2007)
I was a teaching fellow at Wayne State University, in Detroit, and planning a dissertation on Doris Lessing, when in 1969 she published The Four-Gated City. This was to be the final book in the series, "Children of Violence," which I believe was more than 15 years in the making. The final book was a surprise to me because it departed from mainly social and political commitment. The dedication of the book was from a Sufi teaching story and Doris Lessing had come under the influence of Idies Shah, a Sufi teacher.

Part Four of the book has an epigraph from Rumi that says, man "shall pass beyond the current forms of perception," but he must wake from his sleep. "Come, leave such asses to their meadow. Because of necessity, man acquires organs. So, necessitous one, increase your need…"

This has got into my bones and I cannot forget it. There was a turning point in my life. I stayed with the Sufis and Rumi for a long time, though not with Doris Lessing.

Bruce Balter
Oak Bluffs, MA (WCAI, 90.1 FM)

Rumi Is Now (February 11, 2007)
I am a musician and private music instructor, and Rumi's voice has been with me since 1968, when my husband and I bought the book Rumi, Poet, and Mystic by Reynold A. Nicholson. When I opened the book for the first time, it fell open to "The Song of the Reed" and, as I read, I seemed to hear an echo of melody from just beyond physical hearing. By 4 a.m. the next morning, Rumi's words were set to a simple melody with guitar accompaniment. This was the first of several poems that were set to music from that book and sung at many American Sufi gatherings lead by Pir Vilayat Khan in the 1970s.

Though I rarely sing the songs in public anymore, Rumi's poetry has remained my spiritual friend and inspiration throughout my life. Nicholson's book is still with me, now quite battered; but lately joined by Coleman Barks' The Essential Rumi. Between these two translations I have held many deep conversations. To me, Rumi isn't just a poet of the 13th century. He is my friend, and he is now.

Sharda Brody
Paris, TX (KETR, 88.9 FM)

Tangible and Intangible (February 11, 2007)
I first heard of Rumi about ten years ago when a friend presented me with The Illuminated Rumi on my birthday. The first thing that drew me in was the lyrical quality of his poetry; in his poetry, he communicates music and spiritual depth: a longing that is universal pervades his poetry. It is poetic. It is tangible and intangible at the same time. When I read his poetry, I nurture a sense of wonder at the beauty of his vision, and I see in Rumi an ability for secular and religious people to find meaning. In reading his poetry, I receive a sense of transcendence that occurs in meditation.

"Body flowing out of Spirit. Spirit flowing from body" (The Illustrated Rumi, 28).

Thank you for the opportunity to share my love of Rumi.

Deborah Gottner
Greeley, CO (Listens to On Being OnDemand)

Comfort in English (February 11, 2007)
I was teaching a second-semester course (at a community college in New Haven) in Composition which doubles as an Introduction to Literature. One of my students, Nazdanin, was an attractive young Iranian whose papers indicated that she was not yet entirely comfortable with English. Mechanical problems held her grade somewhat below the level of her interest in the material. Toward the end of the semester, to judge by her comments in class, she was obviously engaged with what we were reading, and it was unfortunate that her writing skills did not match her intelligence and enthusiasm.

In a gesture I took as a compliment, she came up after class one evening to ask if I were familiar with a Persian poet named Rumi. I was not, and when she offered to lend me a book of his work, translated by Coleman Barks, I promised to take a look at it. It was more than a week before I began reading some of it, struck immediately by an attitude toward writing which reminded me of my own:

"The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
who says words with my mouth?"

Adding to the gift of the poetry were the penciled check marks and occasional comments placed in the margins, Nazdanin clearly having read the material many times over. In certain places, Rumi spoke of matters that may have meant less to her than to me. Did she write, also? Could she appreciate his incomprehension in the face of his own achievements?

"Do you think I know what I'm doing?
that for one breath, or half-breath I belong to myself?
as much as a pen knows what it's writing,
or the ball can guess where it's going next."

I did not get very far into the book, a section or two, plus a few passages noted here and there as I thumbed through the pages. At one point, in case I wondered whether she understood what he was saying, she had penciled a paraphrase of a small passage that had stopped me, as well.

"a lover's food is the love of bread,
not the bread.
[nazdanin's note: "it's not you;
it's the love
that I have
for you."]

She told me later, incidentally, that she liked this particular translation of the poetry, in some cases more accessible to her than the original. Rumi is understood to be a mystic, whatever that means. Perhaps he can tell us himself how it feels to be one:

"Every thirst gets satisfied except
that of these fish, the mystics,
who swim a vast ocean of grace
still somehow longing for it."

James Brogan
New Haven, CT (WNPR, 89.1 FM)

The Greatest Teacher (February 11, 2007)
I am a non-theist. Rumi's poetry is not religious to me but truly human. He speaks of the "beloved" as in and around us. I read in his words the true meaning of love. "I only know what's not here: resentment seeds, back scratching greed, worrying about out-come, fear of people." ("What's not here") He touches in me an organic need for connection and understanding.

"I am a universe in a handful of dirt. Whole when totally demolished."

When I fall in love I reach for Rumi. He assures me that it is good to love. "Be drunk with love, for love is all that exists. Where is intimacy found if not in the give and take of love."

When I am feeling betrayed and lost, his words comfort me. "You are cold, but you expect kindness. What you do comes back in the same form." Reading these lines I know that he has felt the pain I am feeling and lived to understand and love again and to forgive.

To me Rumi is the greatest teacher of all life has to offer. I give his poetry to every new friend in my life. I share him with those I love.

Lesli Harrer
Vineyard Haven, MA (Listens to On Being OnDemand)