Read: 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

Having spent a few years in Iran, I got to know the works of the Sufi poet Rumi. My Farsi was never good enough to read his poetry in the original, but inasmuch as Farsi is celebrated as “the language of the nightingale,” and knowing its beauty as a spoken language, I can only imagine its power. It is certainly beautiful as rendered in my mother tongue. There is a section of 2 Corinthians that reminds me of Rumi in both spirit and cadence: “…genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” I think Rumi would have related to these dualities.

Lord, grant me the wisdom and grace to live gracefully into the duality of the flesh and the spirit. Amen.
-Michael Boss