The rain continues here, thanks to hurricane Isaac, wonderful rain!  I think about Isaac picking up drops from the ocean and rivers south of here and bringing them to us.

Sometimes in the morning I will open a book to a random page and read whatever is there. This week I used a book of poetry by Rumi. I liked the one this morning:

Real value comes with madness,
matzub below, scientist above.

Whoever finds love
beneath hurt and grief

disappears into emptiness
with a thousand new disguises.

(matzub is a word for whirling dervish. “Turning is an image of how the dervish becomes an empty place where human and divine can meet. To approach the whole the part must become mad, by conventional standards at least.” from Coleman Barks’ translation)

And another, from earlier in the week. This is an excerpt from the poem A Two-Headed Thing:

Jesus can transform a drunk into gold.
If the drunk is already golden,
he can be changed to pure diamond.
If already that, he can become the circling
planets, Jupiter, Venus, the moon.

Never think that you are worthless.
God has paid an enormous amount for you,
and the gifts keep arriving.