Come Back to Love; Turn Away from Despair
"Come, come, whoever you are,
wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
This is not a caravan of despair.
It doesn’t matter that you’ve broken
your vow a thousand times, still
come, and yet again, come.
Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks in "The Soul of Rumi"
My friend, Nancy, brought this and two other Rumi poems to our prayer circle last night. This well-known poem struck me anew in its simplicity that belies a deep truth.
What struck me about this wisdom is the expansive, forgiving nature of the Divine, who tells us that it doesn’t matter that you’ve broken your vow a thousand times. Come back to me and start anew, it seems to say.
I have been living too much in fear lately – I have broken my vow to live in love and acceptance at least a thousand times, just in the last week! You see, I am eager to get my new business off the ground (you, as reader, are a part of my support group in this effort and I thank you for that). At the same time, I am grieving leaving the comfort, income and satisfaction that I used to derive from my old business. Not that I’m turning away completely from KR Consulting (www.krconsulting.com), but I am turning toward wherever Brio Leadership will take me.
I lived in fear, judgment and comparisons for most of last week. Fear of the new, fear of not bringing in income for awhile until this new endeavor takes off, judgment of myself and comparisons between me and other "more successful" people. Judgment of myself that a spiritual person shouldn’t be stuck in these dense, dark emotions. I not only joined a caravan of despair, I was the lead camel-driver and my camel’s saddlebags were heavy-laden with despair!
And then I read Rumi. Ahhhhh. Rumi reminds me that the Divine does not judge me, but beckons me to "come, and yet again, come" – come back to love, back to the Divine lap in which I sit, comforted and secure. Come back to love, in which all things are possible. Come back to myself – my true self – that loves me, cheers for my success and believes in me. Come, and yet again, come.
Don’t we all break our vow to live in love a thousand times? Rumi reminds us we are not part of a caravan of despair, and to come back to the Divine essence. We can start anew – once, twice, a thousand times – and it is OK. The Divine Creator allows us to come, and yet again, come back to love as many times as we need to.
