by Rumi

Our death is our wedding with eternity.
What is the secret? "God is One."
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
It is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.
Regarding him, say neither bad nor good,
For he is gone beyond the good and the bad.
Fix your eyes on God and do not talk about what is invisible,
So that he may place another look in your eyes.
It is in the vision of the physical eyes
That no invisible or secret thing exists.
But when the eye is turned toward the Light of God
What thing could remain hidden under such a Light?
Although all lights emanate from the Divine Light
Don't call all these lights "the Light of God";
It is the eternal light which is the Light of God,
The ephemeral light is an attribute of the body and the flesh.
...Oh God who gives the grace of vision!
The bird of vision is flying towards you with the wings of desire.

Rumi

When Bad Shit Happens

Over the past several months, my self-esteem has begun to drop and all my little insecurities have begun to grown into huge doubts.  Doubts about who I am, what I believe, and whether my beliefs are the right ones.

For about three hours today I thought my luck had finally changed.  I thought I would finally be able to close the book on the whole job situation.  I was trying to be cautiously optimistic but as the hours wore on I became more and more confident and I shouldn't have.  As soon as I received the news that I was back to square one I wanted to cry.

I came home and to wonder how much wrong have I done that Karma has spent the last seven months raining down on my head?  How bad have I been?  And, exactly what have I done?  I mean, I know some of the things I've done but I also know lots of people who have done far worse and as far as I know they've never had to deal with the unrelenting stream of bad shit I've been juggling.  

Coin Toss

So, as many of you may remember I've been vacillating on whether to take this new teaching job or not.  I hit a real low last Friday night/Saturday morning.  It started on Wednesday night when I couldn't sleep.  My choices and the consequences of my choices kept running through my head.

It was all this that caused me to cry an ocean of tears at 2 a.m.  I cried out of frustration, confusing and fear. I began to think --not for the first time-- that I'd managed to waste three years of my life and wracked up even more debt by getting an M.A. and that I wasn't even sure I wanted to bother with a PhD if this was how my life was going to continue to be.

I cried and cried until I was caught and assured that I was making the right decision and in fact, needed to leave my current job for the unknown.  However, I remained unsure.  Part of the problem is trusting someone with my well being.  It's not just trusting this particular person.  It's trusting anyone with paying bills.