• Home
  • Biography
  • Services
  • Links & Resources
  • Blog
  • Contact
 

NOW IS THE TIME

8/31/2018

0 Comments

 
                        Now is the time to know
                     That all that you do is sacred.
 
                        Now, why not consider
               A lasting truce with yourself and God.

                        Now is the time to understand 
                   That all your ideas of right and wrong
                      Were just a child's training wheels
                              To be laid aside
                        When you can finally live
                               With veracity
                                   And love. 

                          Hafiz is a divine envoy
                            Whom the Beloved
                     Has written a holy message upon.

                            My dear, please tell me,
                                Why do you still
                         Throw sticks at your heart
                                    And God?

                      What is it in that sweet voice inside
                               That incites you to fear?

                     Now is the time for the world to know
                    That every thought and action is sacred.

                                     This is the time
                  For you to deeply compute the impossibility

                                  That there is anything
                                         But Grace.

                              Now is the season to know
                                That everything you do
                                           Is sacred.

              (Poem by Hafiz, Trans. by Daniel Ladinsky, The Gift)

This remarkable poem by the Persian poet Hafiz arrests us on many levels. Had we time here in this blog, we might spend the night musing together about the meaning of each verse. But, for the moment, I am thinking about the sixth verse that slips in unexpectedly with a startling question:

                        What is it in that sweet voice inside
                                 That incites you to fear?

With this one sentence, Hafiz turns the table on us, prompting us back to the preceding verse for a slower rereading:

                                  My dear, please tell me,
                                       Why do you still
                                Throw sticks at your heart
                                             and God?

Now we realize Hafiz has gotten very personal! I did not realize I was throwing sticks at my own heart, much less throwing sticks at God! And, while we're at this unveiling of "secrets," what makes you, Hafiz, think I have been covering over a voice that "incites" me to fear?

Here I was looking forward to enjoying a comforting, "spiritual" poem by this fourteenth century poet, and suddenly the cat is out of the bag, to insert yet another metaphor. And, as happens with our dear cat Sheba, there is no rest until her meowings and nudgings are investigated!

So here we are with Hafiz who, not unlike an insightful psychotherapist, slips in a question that moves us into the subterranean depths of our psyches, leading us down through the cobwebs of long unattended memories, the shadows of play between light and dark, and the creepy descent through realms we may not even knew existed.

Hafiz is extending an invitation to put aside his book of poems for the moment and reflect back through the long, dimly-lit corridors of our lives to the basic fear that has incited our histories of fears. For fear is not just a primal emotion, it may be the primal emotion. We come into the world afraid of life, and we leave the world afraid of death. And each step  along the way has been preceded by the fear that we do not know what lies ahead, we may not like what we find, we may not be up to what the new thing demands of us, or we might not do it as well as whomever it is we are falsely setting up as the measuring rod for our life, or we may fear that we will have to give up whatever we find -- the treasure, the lover, the distraction that covers up our fundamental fear!

Our fundamental fear: What is it? We probably first think of fear as an emotion arising from a sense of danger, a threat of some kind -- physical, emotional, mental. But there is another way that we use the word to describe something of another nature. This connotation of fear might be most closely associated with the experience of awe or reverence. We fear the most basic objects that we believe might threaten us in some way; but we also "fear" those objects, places, and/or experiences that connect us with the deepest and highest aspirations of life. This is most fundamental because it is archetypal, "hard-wired" within the neural networks of our psyche.

Looked at this way, we may understand "fear" as the primary emotion that anchors our humanity. Without fear, we would be vulnerable at the point of not recognizing the dangers that can kill us. But, also, without fear we would miss that magnificent dimension of life in which our humanity flowers. For example, think of how we welcome home those persons who have faced danger in whatever arena, prevailed, and returned to remind us that the highest point of human achievement is the "baptism by fire" in which we face the "dragon of death" and overcome. Daily, often without fanfare or recognition, persons around the world encounter their deepest fears, and in their acts of courage find their lives to be ennobled. Without these heroic acts, we would be enshrouded in cowardice and unconsciousness.

Which brings us back to the question Hafiz raises, "What is it in that sweet voice inside that incites you to fear? Why does he call it a "sweet" voice?

I think the voice is "sweet" because it prompts us to face not just the surface level of our fears but the archetypal level of fear, which we know as awe, reverence, the dimension of depth. On our long journey through space and time, it is the nature of our species to recognize danger, feel fear, and make adjustments. But is is also our nature not to fear fear! 

To be conscious of this is to escape the paralyzing fears of childhood in which we feared the "bogeyman" in our closets and underneath our beds. To be conscious of this is to escape the suffocating imprisonment of relationships in which "love" is lived out as control and the need to carry the others' feelings. To be conscious of this is to recognize the dehumanizing policies of dictatorial regimes and would-be dictators who exploit others in the service of their own narcissisms.

To be conscious of this is to experience the grace of being fully human.
                        










0 Comments

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    March 2011

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

  • Email: [email protected]
  • Tel: 704-344-1100