Portrait of Jalal al-Din Rumi by Haydar Hatemi . “We are the mirror as well as the face in it. We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity. We are pain and what cures pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.” --Jalal al-Din Rumi as interpreted by Coleman Barks in The Essential Rumi War is an addiction to chaos that shreds human souls into tattered rags of trauma.   In acknowledgement of Rumi’s 806th birthday, I’m all for Syria, Al Qaeda, Al Shabaab, and all other countries and organizations at war with each other to exchange their guns and bombs for poems by Mevlana. Replace tanks and drones with open mics and let everyone brave enough go at it. Whoever spits the most verses, quatrains, long poems, or quotes by Rumi wins the right to proclaim peace and throw a feast in honor of sanity, brotherhood, sisterhood, and childhood. Is that likely to happen? No, not very, but the ecstatic beauty and soulful grace of Rumi’s poetry inspires human hea...

Not far from the scene of the Boston Marathon bombing, a toddler kneels before a memorial to the victims of the atrocity.  ( Photo by Jim Bourg and Reuters ) For those so inclined, it was and is natural in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing to share prayers and thoughts for healing on behalf of victims and their families. Many have conditioned themselves to respond in such a manner partly because it is within their power to do so and partly because they hope others would feel moved in the same way toward them if they were the ones whose bodies and sanity had been shattered so brutally. Victims, after all, within the context of terrorism––whether homegrown or imported––are much like newborn innocents simply because they have not signed up for a war. In this particular case, they had simply stepped out into the light of day intending to honor, preserve, and celebrate a long-standing tradition. Some might argue (and in fact some do) that America, like much of th...

                        (graphic courtesy of  Global March for Peace and Unity  on Facebook) “A vision of humanity as a unified force for peace had come alive in the form of millions of living breathing souls and an ideal of international democracy had been realized on a small but unprecedented scale.  History was not only made––history was tremendously honored.” – from The American Poet Who Went Home Again (Aberjhani) During this Easter Holy Week 2013, I find myself thinking about the challenges that Peace faces in our world and wonder why humanity seems to insist more on its destruction than its empowerment. From the recent murder of a 13-month-old baby in Brunswick, Georgia (allegedly by a 15-year-old boy), to the nearly two dozen wars (plus two dozen more conflicts of a similar nature) currently devouring human sanity from sunrise to sunrise, the suicidal lust for the annihilation of life on every...