Nevermind the Source

I recently spent the day in Grand Junction, where Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, a poet I’ve know of for close to a decade, was giving an afternoon workshop followed by a reading that evening. The subject of the workshop was Rumi, a 12^th century Islamic mystic, whose poems can turn our beliefs and perceptions on their heads—much like Christ’s teachings. One of the poems we discussed closed with the couplet: Take sips of this pure wine being poured./Don’t mind that you’ve been given a dirty cup. (Coleman Barks translation)

All but one of the poems Rosemerry read that evening came from the same collection. Before starting, she told the story of how that collection had come about. A fellow poet approached her about doing a collection for a publishing house he’d just started. However, she was going through a tumultuous time, and didn’t feel up to doing so. Nonetheless, he patiently persisted, which wound up helping Rosemerry out of her dark forest.

“One of the most important things can we do,” Rosemerry said, “is to shine a light for one another.”

While I don’t think hindsight is truly 20/20, things do often seem clearer after the fact. And we frequently don’t initially recognize the assistance we’re being offered because it’s coming from an unexpected source: say pure wine in a dirty glass. Likewise, I think we often discount the times we’ve shone a light upon someone’s murky path, (or we choose not to help even though we want to), because we’re too focused on our perceived “dirtiness,” rather than the purity of our offerings.

The bumper sticker does have it right: “We’re all alone in this, together.”