Ordeal

While meditating with Rumi this morning, a variation on one of his poetic themes emerged out of the time of contemplative reflection:


Ordeal: the time of testing has come.
Words like fortitude and valor mean something
among us again.
But old agreements weaken and break,
old patterns fail.
When the knife reaches the bone,
your life must change.
Be glad the refining fire is all around you.
Laugh as you stand on this threshold into the new.
Out of your dry thorns a rose garden is opening.
I orient my "north" to You, because it is from You
that a joy comes which cannot be spoken.
And when heavy blows beat about my head, I need your compassion.
Yeshua has come from his cross to comfort me.
Muhammad's warriors have come from the Ka'aba
to help me in this fight.
My reason says: Keep still--you do not know 
what you are talking about.
I try to be silent, but my weeping comes anyway.
The Prophets say: When you think it is you who are acting--
it is not you alone, but something far greater.
I feel this deeply in my being,
and like an arrow I am released into this present moment.