Hey Christians & Muslims! Where's the love? - A Dissenter's Plea for Sanity

I recently sent out two emails that caused a smidge of angry backlash from some of the people on my mailing list. In particular, one person was extremely offended and called Rumi (the compassionate poet) EVIL - even spelling it with all caps as if to really emphasize that she knew what she was talking about.

I am neither staunchly Christian nor Muslim but study and embrace teachings from both faiths. As a result I get rejected by modern fundamentalists from both sides. No big deal. Sometimes that's what it takes. The reason I do not wholly embrace either religion is because they both cling to interpretive belief systems that contradict my personal sense of truth and the nature of an inclusive God, and because they require devotion and absolute belief without dissent. That's it in a nutshell.

So by now you gather this is not an intellectual dissertation. Speaking from a personal point of view I am filled with grief in the realization that many followers of both Christianity and Islam are full of anger and greed for the rightness of their beliefs, even though it means turning their backs on the deepest truths that faith has to offer.

Yes - both religions condone "righteous" violence. They do. But really, who is to be the judge of when the time is right? Where's the love? Christians calling Muslims terrorists and not even knowing who Muhammad was and what the Quran says. That's nuts.

These traditions are brothers, founded one within the other and both stemming from Judaism. There are more similarities than differences. The fundamental common point is compassion. And where can compassion more readily be shown than in refusing to succumb to hate and choosing instead to love, setting differences aside.

People, are we so blind that we cannot see ourselves in our enemies? Can we not see that we are the enemy as well? I pray for the day we begin again to look for the Friend and embrace the core message of Christ and Muhammad: GOD is LOVE

Fringe: Rumi sings the song of the modern codependent

Consider the verse presented here. It is the poetic heart-song of every codependent whose love and lover tear them apart. As I say, calling myself Poetreearborist, I claim the right to be ripped "limb from limb". If they are addicted to their chemical, we are addicted to them. Through complete destruction we are seeking God - but when do we know we have found what was right there all along?

You wreck my shop and my house and now my heart, but how can I run from what gives me life?

I'm weary of personal worrying, in love with the art of madness!

Tear open my shame and show the mystery. How much longer do I have to fret with self-restraint and fear?

Friends, this is how it is: we are fringe sewn inside the lining of a robe.

Soon we'll be loosened, the binding threads torn out.

The beloved is a lion.

We're the lame deer in his paws.

Consider what choices we have!

Acquiesce when the Friend says, Come into me. Let me show my face. You saw it once in preexistence, now you want to be quickened and quickened again.

We have been secretly fed from beyond space and time.

That's why we look for something more than this.

Addicts in denial misuse AA concepts to rationalize continuance

The denial of the relapsed addict who knows concepts of AA and has lived them and walked others through the steps for years may sound like this:

"I cannot and do not choose this addiction. I am powerless here! If I could choose to get better I would, but I can't. I am waiting for God to pull me through in a moment of divine grace. Therefore, until God elects for me to become sober I am unable to do so because I am powerless over my addiction."

The rational and yet emotional person who loves and cares about this person who appears to be suffering from demonic possession (for it seems his soul is ensnared) cannot argue the point further. Indeed, it appears that if choice were possible, he/she would choose life over death, health over disease, love over grief. But in the world of addiction all cycles are flipped and actions are inside out.

So turn now to the mystic Rumi who understood this great paradox - choosing and total submission: both are true. Rumi wrote,

Every human choice bows like a slave in submission to the absolute's creative will, yet this does not deprive us of freedom or of taking responsibility for what we choose. (Masnavi, V, 3097-98)

God gives free will so that each and all may choose to submit to God. The Universe provides opportunities to receive this lesson (for example, the addict suffers extreme consequences). Some see they are powerless unless they choose to submit. Others do not see, or else they do not choose to submit. They continue to say, "If God wills" - but fail to see that God wills for us to submit out of choice, not out of design.

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