“If your pain is great enough and your longing for it to end great enough, a response will come. We need to listen hard, and to watch carefully. Life-saving wells can come in many forms, and we might need to try waltzing to unexpected tunes.”
Rabbi Richard N. Levy, Commentary for Psalm 30 from Songs Ascending, The Book of Psalms
Whether we understand or not, we are guided to express our need outwardly to our Creator, who is pointed to with many names but in truth is beyond naming. Rumi’s poetic storytelling mirrors for us the invisible dance of crying out, seeking the living well. In his story of The King and the Handmaiden and the Doctor he brings in sage advice, echoed throughout time in the scriptures of all religions, as I understand them, to include an explicit declaration that the knowledge lies beyond your reach, the tune beyond your comprehension. It is through our trembling awe and sorrow that we open the portal to Mystery where we can absorb the reality that we are lying in a “bed that is too small to stretch out in and the blanket is too small to wrap [us].” (Isaiah 28). The King, in Rumi’s story cries out to Allah saying:
“You know what’s hidden here. I don’t know what to do. You have said, ‘Even though I know all secrets, still declare it outwardly with an action.'”
He cried out loud for help, and the ocean of grace surged over him. He slept in the midst of his weeping on the prayer rug.
In his dream an old man appeared.
“Good king, I have news. Tomorrow a stranger will come. I have sent him. He is a physician you can trust. Listen to him.”
As dawn came, the king was sitting up in the belvedere on his roof. He saw someone coming, a person like the dawn. He ran to meet this guest.
Like two swimmers who love the water, their souls knit together without being seen, no seam.
Like two swimmers who love the water, their souls knit together without being seen, no seam.
The king said, “You are my beloved, not the girl! But actions spring from actions in this reality. What should I do?”
We should always ask for discipline. One who has no self-control cannot receive grace. And it’s not just himself he hurts. Undisciplined people set fire to the landscape!
At last, I have found what patience can bring. This one whose face answers any question, who simply by looking can loosen the knot of intellectual discussion.
You translate what is inside us. If you were to vanish, this vast meeting room would shrink to a closet. Protect us.”
Rumi, The King and the Handmaiden and the Doctor, from The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks with John Moyne.
