"This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond."
    ~Rumi

I ran across this poem yesterday while searching through a book for something else. I have come back to this poem, written hundreds of years ago, many times. It is challenging, isn't it? The idea that even our sorrows, even our down times are guests that are meant to offer us gifts. That even a meanness or malice carry things we should invite into our lives. It seems to require an openness to daily life that most of us would want to avoid. I know I do.

And yet in the very next breath I can utter that "God is everywhere, in it all, moving in the cells of my body and the ideas of my imagination. The Holy is in our relationships and the turning of the seasons, the birth of a baby and the death of an elderly friend." If this is a truth I cling to, why then is the idea that the Divine is also moving and making meaning in the more desperate moments of our lives so difficult to embrace? There are so many possible answers to that question and greater minds than mine have spent years writing, discussing and theorizing about them.

Instead, today, I want to make myself a guest house. I want to open the windows, clean the cobwebs out of the corners, and let the fresh air of the Spirit blow through the moments and the hours of this day which is, lest we forget,  pure gift. I want to keep awake to each detail that makes up the comings and goings of this day, noticing especially the rich and beautiful faces of those I meet, and not miss a single minute. I want to set a feast of hope on my table and make a dessert of love and compassion. And then I want to accept with gratitude the guests that arrive. Perhaps in embracing this wisdom of Rumi, I will encounter the gifts of the Holy in new ways.

Join me?