The body is like Mary, and each of us has a Jesus inside.
Who is not in labour, holy labour? Every creature is.
See the value of true art, when the earth or a soul is in
the mood to create beauty;
for the witness might then for a moment know beyond
any doubt, God is really there within,
so innocently drawing life from us with Her umbilical
universe – infinite existence …
though also needing to be born. yes, God also needs
to be born!
Birth from a hand’s loving touch. Birth from a song,
from a dance, breathing life into this world.
The body is like Mary, and each of us, each of us has
a Christ within.
– Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
Michael's reflection to Mosaic gathering 17th December 2017
For my reflection I will concentrate on the Rumi poem – I hope you don’t mind;
In the Celtic tradition, the story explaining the birth of Soul Friends or Anam Cara presents the picture of God bending down to the earth and picking up a clump of clay in each hand; God fashions each clump of clay into a human being, and puts them back rather randomly onto the ground – for the two clumps of clay, that were next to each other in the earth, are now, fashioned as human beings, put back onto the earth in far apart lands, and I like to think, at far apart times and epochs. When they meet, or come together through their poetry, there is a connection, a certain : Je ne sais quoi, a certain, close friendship.
And that’s how it feels when I read Rumi’s poetry.
So, this is really my reflection on Rumi’s poem; I hope you enjoy it.
“when earth and a soul are in the mood to create beauty”
what happens? -
deep within the womb
in darkness and in stillness
in a place before knowing
in the space of being
in the grace of becoming
there emerges
quarks become atoms
atoms become molecules
molecules become cells
then emerges the photosynthetic krebs cycle
the organ systems
the neural net
the reptilian brain stem
the mammalian limbic system
the primate cortex
the complex neuro-cortex
with as many connections and more
as the stars in the universe
“when earth and a soul are in the mood to create beauty”
“Who is not in labour?”
We live in an emerging universe, and we are emerging parts of the universe.
We have within us far more than our life of conscious thoughts;
far more than the vast amount of information that excites our senses
far more than the words we utter
far more than human DNA
We, and the universe, are, at each stage of our emerging, more than simply the sum total of our parts.
Here lies the wildness of the emergent process – for there is a creativity, a something radically new, drawing the process on, pulling us from simplicity to complexity.
“Who is not in labour?”
“For the witness might then go beyond”
This movement, this dynamic of evolution, this hum of the universe, holds our vocation, our individual calling, personally tailored in our DNA. We are called personally to go beyond.
And so, the dynamic emerges –
“God is really within; and God needs to be born”
We must include all that has gone before, so that we can go beyond. If we deny something deep within us, it will re-emerge in a twisted form; if we do not resist suppression, we will shrivel up; if we fence off a part of us, or something in our past, it will be a barrier.
This is the “holy labour” we are engaged in.
And finally, this emergent process bestows on us the freedom to be wild; the freedom not to be restrained by the formulas of the past, not to put our faith in dogmas claiming to be absolute, not to allow ourselves to be imprisoned by doctrines purporting finality.
The guarantor of this freedom is that it will not create exclusion, it will not lead to oppression, it will not engender alienation, but rather it will
“create beauty”
“God there within” “God needing to be born”