For Love of Poetry
Today I discovered quite possibly the most beautiful writer I've ever read. During STP, Gabriela and I shared a futon mattress for a few days, and one night we couldn't sleep so she started reading to me passages from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran. It's scary how good he is, and best of all, he writes about God. Praises to God for a person so gifted in translating into discrete words the most obscure and formless expressions of our souls. I found the same book and his collected works at Barnes & Noble. Sigh..I will buy them someday.
One of my favorites:
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.
When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.
I cannot teach you how to pray in words. God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.
And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.
But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,
And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,
"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.
It is thy desire in us that desireth.
It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.
We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."
-------
Amen :)
..The first poem of many I will be posting from him.
On another note, I was sitting in my car this evening, and felt a sudden urge to meet up with a friend over dessert. I'm not sure whether I was just wanting a treat in my recent craze over applying to study abroad and med school, but I couldn't really think of anyone who'd be available or closeby enough to call. But then I thought of God..He's my best friend, He's always with me, but I just wish He were really real, physically real, so He could eat dessert with me, haha. But if He were really real, we wouldn't need dessert to have a good time. I started picturing what it would be like, me and God hanging out. I imagined us sitting on a cloud looking down at the city lights, and He'd be telling me all about how He made the stars and oceans, and all that sciencey stuff He knows I like. And since He knows I don't like talking, He'd continue telling me everything I've always wanted to know. He'd tell me things about my life, what He thought when I did this, how that person really felt about me, it'd be the best conversation in my whole history of conversations haha. Reminds me of the lyrics in one of my favorite songs.."I try to hear from heaven, but I talk the whole time." I'm tired of talking..I want to hear you God.
One of my favorites:
On Prayer
Kahlil Gibran
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.
When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.
I cannot teach you how to pray in words. God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.
And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.
But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,
And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,
"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.
It is thy desire in us that desireth.
It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.
We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."
-------
Amen :)
..The first poem of many I will be posting from him.
On another note, I was sitting in my car this evening, and felt a sudden urge to meet up with a friend over dessert. I'm not sure whether I was just wanting a treat in my recent craze over applying to study abroad and med school, but I couldn't really think of anyone who'd be available or closeby enough to call. But then I thought of God..He's my best friend, He's always with me, but I just wish He were really real, physically real, so He could eat dessert with me, haha. But if He were really real, we wouldn't need dessert to have a good time. I started picturing what it would be like, me and God hanging out. I imagined us sitting on a cloud looking down at the city lights, and He'd be telling me all about how He made the stars and oceans, and all that sciencey stuff He knows I like. And since He knows I don't like talking, He'd continue telling me everything I've always wanted to know. He'd tell me things about my life, what He thought when I did this, how that person really felt about me, it'd be the best conversation in my whole history of conversations haha. Reminds me of the lyrics in one of my favorite songs.."I try to hear from heaven, but I talk the whole time." I'm tired of talking..I want to hear you God.
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