Looking for the shining of the Friend

"One day I was going along
looking to see in people the shining of the Friend."

Rumi as translated by Coleman Barks

Every day I go along hoping to see in people the shining of the Friend and most days in most people I see It if I look hard enough and deep enough. Often time, though, It is buried very deeply and the person herself does not even know what she is hiding. I have learned that seeing the Blessing is more in the eyes of the beholder than in the vessel looked upon. But even though well hidden, there is always a spark, sometimes a flame, and once in a great while a bonfire, a conflagration like the sun.

Do you ever look behind the screen?

"The puppet show looks charming,
but go behind the screen and see who runs it."

Rumi as translated by Coleman Barks

What have you sold your soul for?

"Imagine a man selling his donkey
to be with Jesus.

Now imagine him selling Jesus
to get a ride on a donkey.
This does happen."

Rumi as translated by Coleman Barks

Daddy, where does art come from?

In your light I learn how to love.
In our beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you.

but sometimes I do,
and that light becomes this art.

Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

A Just-finishing Candle

A candle is made to become entirely flame.
In that annihilating moment
it has no shadow.

It is nothing but a tongue of light
describing a refuge.

Looking at this
just finishing candle stub
as someone who is finally safe
from virtue and vice,

the pride and the shame
we claim from those.

Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks