take care of yourself

Last week, I read two different passages that helped me put things in perspective, mainly because one was written probably near the middle of the thirteen century and the other was written thousands of years before the Common Era. You know what they told me? People have been trying to figure out how to chill from the news of the day for a long time. And people have been trying to connect with spirit or God or the divine or whatever it is that is greater than we are but that we all share in.

On Friday, in my weekly Lectio 360 practice (you can read about what that is here), I read a poem by Rumi called Response to Your Question (Rumi lived between 1207 and 1273.

For those of us on the call, it seemed to come at a good time, as we were feeling stressed over current, local, national and world events. But even if you’re just experiencing the ordinary push and pull of getting through the week, you might find it helpful. Here’s the poem.

Response to Your Question

by Rumi

Why ask about behavior

when you are soul-essence

and a way of seeing into presence?

Plus you are with us. How could you worry?

You may as well free a few words

from your vocabulary: why and how and impossible.

Open the mouth-cage and let those fly away.

We were all born by accident,

but still this wandering caravan

will make camp in perfection.

Forget the nonsense categories

of there and here.

Race and nation and religion.

Starting-point and destination.

You are soul and you are love,

not a sprite or an angel or a human being.

You are a Godman-womanGod-manGod-God woman.

No more questions now

as to what it is we are doing here.

The other reading, written sometime between the 5th and 2nd centuries BCE, is the introduction to the Isha Upanishad,.

All this is full. All that is full.

From fullness, fullness comes.

When fullness is taken from fullness,

fullness still remains.

It’s hard out there. It always has been; so you can pretty much expect it always will be. That's okay. It's our humanity that makes it so. Keep the faith and be kind to yourself.

© 2025 www.megreilly360.com

3/24/2025