Why Not Be Polite?

19th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 27), Year B
Texts: Gen 2.18-24; Heb 1.1-4, 2.5-12; Mk 10.2-16

For the last two weeks, I’ve had this poem in my mind:

Everyone
Is God speaking.
Why not be polite and
Listen to
Him? (1)

The poet is Hafiz, who lived during the 14th century in what is now Iran. He was a practitioner of Sufism, which is a mystical tradition within Islam. What speaks to me about the poems of Hafiz—and this poem in particular—is the way he recognizes the Oneness of God in everything and everyone. Although he comes from a completely different faith tradition, he sees and testifies in his own way to the same truths seen and testified to by the Christian mystics, people like Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. One of the ways these mystics often talked about this truth was by using the image of marriage. Teresa and John in particular spoke of the union of the Christian and Christ as a nuptial union, as marriage.