Now Is The Time

One of the things that speaks to me deeply in sufi poetry is how it so resonates in my life for today.  I have really tried to keep listening closely to what President Obama says.  How he continues to carry a message that carries the belief in the integrity, worth, value of us all.  He does believe, so as I read the poem below this morning I was struck by how in unison the times of our beloved Persian (that which is now Iran) Sufi Poets carries a message as vital and as provocative as it was in the time they were living.  Words live in one, and the heart continues to be ignited!  

NOW IS THE TIME

 

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 of 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.

The Gift

Poems by Hafiz

The Great Sufi Master

Translations by Daniel Ladinsky