In some Christian nations, Easter Monday is a national holiday, a day to recover and recollect on the significance of the holy day that preceded it. No such day exists in the States, but that’s no reason for us not to continue our Easter reflections! Here are a few more poems by Rumi, celebrating new life and the splendor of our lived existence.

 

“This Day”

This is not a day for asking questions,

not a day on any calendar.

This day is conscious of itself.

This day is a lover, bread and gentleness.

 

“Rumi, Pay Homage”

If God said,

“Rumi, pay homage to everything

that has helped you

enter my

arms,”

there would not be one experience of my life,

not one thought, not one feeling,

not any act, I

would not

bow

to.

 

“Filled”

I am filled with You.

Mere existence is a dance of joy.

Skin, blood, and bone,

brain and soul,

You fill me completely.

There’s no room in me now

for either doubt or belief.

None of that matters anymore.

My life is only

Your life.

 

I hope you don’t mind three poems. They were so brief, though each could be meditated on over the course of a lifetime. With each return, a new insight, a deeper understanding.

None of us has reached the level of Rumi’s enlightenment, but hopefully, we have had glimpses, tastes of the sublime oneness he experienced with God. If you’re anything like me, you’d like to have more, but we cannot force it. To paraphrase one of my teachers: we cannot make moments of Divine Oneness happen, but we can adopt a stance that offers the least resistance to being overtaken by them. How? Through contemplation, poetry, prayer, surrender, kindness, compassion for self and others, authenticity, patience, curiosity, openness, etc.  The list could include anything that de-centers our mind and pride, certainty and ego from running the show.

When I look at the life of Jesus, not just in this last week, but over the course of his ministry, I see all those things in spades, and I read all of these poems as illustrations of how he might experienced his new life as the resurrected Christ on Easter Sunday, Easter Monday and beyond.