nothing ahead

Lovers think they're looking for each other,

but there's only one search: wandering

this world is wandering that,

both inside one

transparent sky.  In here there is

no dogma and no heresy.

The miracle of Jesus is himself, not what he said

or did about the future.  Forget the future.

I'd worship someone who could do that.

On the way you may want to look back, or not.

But if you can say, There's nothing ahead,

there will be nothing there.

Stretch your arms

and take hold the cloth of your clothes

with both hands.  The cure for pain is in the pain.

Good and bad are mixed.  If you don't have both,

you don't belong with us.

When one of us gets lost,

is not here, he must be inside us.  There's no

place like that anywhere in the world.

~ Rumi

from The Book of Love

translations by Coleman Barks