Sufi Muslims: Children of God

And so it happens again.  A group of believers engaged in prayer are attacked and killed, only this time they didn't  live in South Carolina or Texas, this time they lived in Egypt.  And this time they weren't Christians, this time they were Muslims.  Sufi Muslims.

I imagine most Americans know very little about Sufi Muslims. "If you've seen one Muslim you've seen them all."  That's what many folks believe.  But that is far, far from the truth.  And while love is willing to acknowledge, even celebrate, differences, hate never does.  And while the attack this past weekend is being portrayed as a Muslim against Muslim atrocity, it is really hate versus love.  Exclusion versus inclusion.  Narrowness versus broad acceptance.

I read a poem every day--it's good for the soul!  And for the past two or three months I've been reading through a collection of poems by Hafiz, a  14th 
century Sufi Muslim.   Mysticism is woven through the very fabric of Sufism, and that is reflected in so much of Hafiz' poetry.  In memory of our Islamic brothers and sisters killed this past weekend, I offer this poem written so many centuries ago.  This poem that reminds us we are all children of God.

"I Got Kin"

 

Plant

So that your own heart

Will grow.

Love

So God will think,

"Ahhhhhh,

I go kin in that body!

I should start inviting that soul over

For coffee and

Rolls."

Sing

Because this is a food

Our starving world

Needs.

Laugh

Because that is the purest

Sound.

 

 

--Hafiz