First Day Back

I am several hours into my first day back in the office after a month of rest. It was a tremendous blessing to take time to unwind. I feel like I have been given an amazing gift by God and God's community in Chesapeake City. Stress, worry, and anxiety are like a memory right now. I expect they will return, but I do hope that I have acquired a spiritual habit or two to bring me through them.

I am reminded of a woman in Wed. Bible Study ("BS" on the calendar...always good for a chuckle). She talked about how when she feels knocked down, God always builds her back up four feet taller so that it's harder to knock her down the next time.

I feel more centered, more focused, and much more at peace. I am currently trying to ease myself back into a routine without feeling guilty that I have not yet gotten through the 400 or so email that are waiting for my review.

I have done things today like yoga and taking time to read things that I put on my bulletin board over the past few years. You know what? They are pretty good!

After a few minutes of yoga (my new love- great way to meditate and center- I feel like I was created to do yoga) I felt led to a book of poetry I have not picked up in a while. This book first crossed my path on a retreat that must have been about 6-7 years ago... it was used by the retreat leader. They are poems by Hafiz, the great Sufi poet from Persia (Iran).

Sufism is a the mystical side of Islam. I looked it up for a definition and found this on answers.com
Sufism (sū'fĭzəm) , an umbrella term for the ascetic and mystical movements within Islam. While Sufism is said to have incorporated elements of Christian monasticism, gnosticism, and Indian mysticism, its origins are traced to forms of devotion and groups of penitents (zuhhad) in the formative period of Islam. The early pious figures, later appropriated by Sufism, include Ali, Hasan al-Basri (d. 801), and Rabia al-Adawiyya, a woman from Basra (Iraq) who rejected worship motivated by the desire for heavenly reward or the fear of punishment and insisted on the love of God as the sole valid form of adoration.

I am usually not so keen on poetry. I am not sure what exactly it takes to appreciate poetry, but whatever it is, I don't have much of it. But Hafiz is different. He writes about the Divine Love, and every time I pick up The Gift I am touched.

Here is what spoke to my heart:

THE HEART'S CORONATION

The pawn

Always sits stunned,

Chained, unalbe to move

Beneath God's magnficent power,

It is essential for the heart's coronation

For the pawn to realize

There is nothing but divine movement

In this

World.

I feel like that captures my perspective on the world right now.