Poem Shards
 today in Poem Shards we have an editorial
 
Fall down and Go Blind
     I'm praying for Rev. Terry Jones to fall down and go blind.  That's really
the best thing for him right now.  And then Jesus can talk to him, from a cloud,
and tell him to read the Koran.  And tell him to go to Mecca and try to
understand that God doesn't, Allah doesn't, just live in a book but everywhere. 
Rumi says that there are many Korans.  Rumi's point:  the Bible is the Koran for
Christians.  Rumi says that that there is not enough water in the oceans,
if it were ink, to write all of the different Koran's that could be
written.
     So, Rev Terry Jones, you rabble-rouser, if you burn the Koran it is just
like burning The Bible.  What kind of a Christian does that make you?
Get Back Up and Have Your Sight Back
     And then, after Jones has fallen down, blind, 
he'll understand what a jack-ass he is.  He understand how swinish what he is 
doing is.  We get angry about some group of folks who seem to hate us and we 
want to burn the book that they misinterpret? It's a book that a billion 
people revere?
     In the Discourses of Rumi a student questions Rumi about why it is that the
whole world has not yet gone Muslim, as Allah is all powerful.  Rumi's response
is most enlightening.  Basically, he says, it is because the task is impossible.
And the one who tries to achieve such a task, out of love of Allah, must come 
to realize this and fall down on the road.  And then the Angels carry that person 
to the destination.  Basic idea:  the jihad is to be fought but . . . it is impossible
and the call for it is merely to get people to a farther place in their
consciousness where they accept the futility of their actions to try to force God 
(Allah) who is already, and always, with us.  No real battle, except within your own
consciousness, is thus needed or necessary.
     OK, now I understand that many Muslims have probably never read the
Discourses of Rumi.  And I understand that there are some that do not
like Christians and think of them as Infidels.  But there are Methodists who
don't like Baptists and Catholics who don't like Jews.  And visa-versa for all
of them.  It isn't all of these groups who don't like the other groups.  It is
the bigots of those groups.
     And just as there are Christian bigots, there are Muslim and Jewish
bigots. There are bigots of any group!  It is just a common trait of humanity. 
In some sense it is the reason that many people support organized religions
because most organized religions do not agree with bigotry in any form!  Part of
the teachings of organized religions is to overcome and flay the evil
devil-thoughts of bigotry.  The bad things live within us:  it is the rancid
ideas that we call bigoted.  Saint Micheal uses his sword to fight it down and
slay the evil 
inner demons in Christian mythology.
     Let us hope and pray that Saint Micheal can slay the demon in Rev. Terry
Jones before he unleashes the fury of many with his stupid and bigoted act of
burning holy books.
 Sept 8, 2010