While my blogs on the Arizona shootings and on Jewish identity has sparked unexpectedly intense controversy, I have done my best to continue with normal work and activities. At times of stress poetry and philosophy have offered me consolation. Recently I finished reading Elif Shafak’s The Forty Rules of Love, which I found instructive about the Sufi worldview, the spiritual education of Rumi (the world’s greatest poet of love), and the abiding magnetism of this 13th century spiritual flourishing for those seeking a deeper experience of contemporary life. Shafak writes knowingly, and skillfully weaves a vivid tapestry of character and narrative, with seamless time shifts between that historical moment in Konya and the present. It almost doesn’t matter that the sub-plot is neither credible nor engaging: an American middle aged Jewish housewife, bored in a loveless marriage in the small college town of Northampton, becomes romantically entwined with a terminally ailing Scottish Sufi convert through email correspondence that takes off in an abrupt flight that crosses the cyber barrier with grace, but a bit too smoothly for my taste. What matters is the moral clarity and depth that Shafak brings to the Sufi tradition as it unfolded in Konya through this fascinating fictionalization of the interplay between Rumi and a wandering Dervish, Shams of Tabriz, who became the spiritual teacher of Rumi, and was murdered by representatives of the local established order who could not abide his virtue or his teaching. The parallels to the life of Jesus are too obvious to explicate, as are the differences.
This book led me to write the following poem that seeks to express my personal encounter with its thought and journey:
After Reading Elif Shafak’s The Forty Rules of Love
You impose
this singular fish
it swims below my surfaces
it swims deep below surfaces
it crisscrosses my heart’s ocean
this singular fish can creep
can creep along slick walls
of deceit, of deception
I can only impose
laughter on subtle strangers
whose delight is frostbite
These who know nothing
nothing at all
of singular fish
and the forty rules of love
will swim away in panic
will ignore the hymnals
of forty hovering angels
in flight below soft clouds
not high above your sea
the water thick with..yes
singular fish
I.24.2011
Global Justice in the 21st Century 
Hi Richard,
I like your new poem. You made me want to read the “Forty Rules of Love” book.
Hi Huyen: I will send it if you tell me how..
I love poetry.
So I hope mine is only ancillary to a man I respect,as a loving response:
The fish lies beneath the surface of the lake;
The lake reflects darkening clouds.
It cannot avoid the downpour anymore than the fish;
Enlarged, the lake better reflects the before hidden blue-sky; the fish simply continues.
yes!
Poetry is a great soother. The following poem by Rabindra Nath Tagore’s Gitanjali (Nobel Prize-winning collection of poems)strikes me particularly as something that brings love, purity and strength all together.
Purity
Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing
that thy living touch is upon all my limbs.
I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing
that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind.
I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my
love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart.
And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it
is thy power gives me strength to act.
— Purity, Rabindra Nath Tagore
Thanks, Deepak, for this Tagore poem that does speak directly to my own
struggle, and helps me rise above the pressures of the moment.
Richard:
This passage of a poem by Kiel has helped me through some difficult times:
“Aflight Adrift Aboard the Alacrity of
Movement
Kinetic float on waves of Treasured Shearling
Unfathomable galleons
Unspeakable”.
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Dear Richard,
Surfing about on the internet, a sleepless night… And I stumble upon your poem and your piece on “The Forty Rules of Love.” I was in Konya this time last year and happened to read Elif Shafak’s book… And Deepak, thank you too for the Tagore poem… All in all, just what I needed before heading off to sleep…
Best,
Deborah