a little something something

I finally finished reading Traveling Mercies the other day, and I love that Anne Lamott included this poem from Rumi:

Keep walking, though there's no place to get to.
Don't try to see through the distances. That's not for human beings.
Move within, but don't move the way fear makes you move.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.


Sometimes it seems I'm walking but in no particular direction. I've been trying to see through the distances, but fear often hinders my movement. I'm trying to figure out how the beauty I love can be what I do. I've been chewing on these words, trying to figure out what exactly they mean.

"Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument." This line, along with the last two lines (and thus, the whole poem), embodies how we view worship. So often we forget that we can just sit back and worship God for who He is and for His beauty. Instead, we tend to think we must be disciplined, straight-edged, scheduled readers, teachers, etc. But you can worship by simply picking up a guitar and starting to create. You can worship by typing or writing out words and articulating a thought. You can worship by picking up a paintbrush or dancing or sitting in silence or by savoring the taste of some kind of food. All of these things are not always worship, but they can be. I think it's important to broaden our perspective of what it means to even study God. It does not only mean to study the Word, though that's one way He displays Himself to us. Let's study His creation as well and there we will find different facets of His own beauty.

I'm just thinkin'...and writing as it comes to mind. What do Rumi's words mean to you?