Call & Response

There is often a call and response in prayer — as indeed there is in song. I like to think it is this way with reading, and so with every encounter in life. Sometimes, though, we must wait to surface before the response arrives. And sometimes the response, especially when we are grieving, is a lifeline — a gentle thread that reaches us when we feel adrift, carrying solace, guidance, and the quiet pulse of life itself.

And so here is my call and response to reading The Wise One Can See in a Brick… from Rumi’s Sun: The Teachings of Shams of Tabriz — a spiritual encounter that points us toward what is already present if we have eyes to see and hearts to wait.

Call:

For years, a man had been searching for a spiritual guide. Whenever he heard someone, he used to run to that person, but no door opened. One day, he put his head on a brick and fell asleep. Then, in his dream, he saw what he had been searching for. When he awoke, immediately he began to kiss the brick, he embraced it. Then wherever he went, he tucked it under his arm. He didn't make prayers without it; he didn't go visiting people without it; when he went to express condolences to someone, or when he went to a wedding, or when he went to sleep, always, he and the brick were together. Whenever he was sick and defecating, he was never without the brick. If someone came and wanted to praise him, he would say, "First tell it to this brick of mine, this jewel of mine!" If a visitor approached him and wanted to shake his hand, he would say, "First acknowledge this brick with your hand." And to those who asked, "What is this?!" he would say, "What isn't it–whatever good comes from it, and the bad goes. For thirty years I had lost something, but the night I put my head on this brick, I found it."

O Darling! O Soul! How can my heart believe this?

I never guessed I would reach you!

I wasn't grieving, but heaven

disliked this state of mine–

yet the time when I was longing for you

was to me even more pleasing.

Response:

Lost…

So I awoke and embraced my camera,

and wherever I went,

tucked it beneath my arm.

Each photograph, for me, is a prayer.

I go nowhere without it—

in hardship and in celebration—

always together.

This camera, this jewel of mine,

helps transform this state of mine,

awakening this heart of mine,

until I can see spirit again

infused in every grain.

Ordinary photographs,

like an ordinary brick,

become my spiritual guide—

reminding me of the rhythms of our lives,

and now in seeing spirit shape it so,

I return to a rhythm of my own.

How did I lose touch so easily… again?

These strands of seaweed—

so fragile, yet still here—

moving with the waters,

shaping themselves to the shore

among small rocks and drifting debris.

Like the seaweed to the tide, I too

somehow keep returning.