I find these beautiful words by Omid Safi very inspiring and heartening. I remind myself that it’s okay – and indeed valuable –, to slow down and to carefully choose my words, that I don’t need to shout louder and more often than all the others, to make my voice heard above the roar of hungry posts and crying tweets!
For me, listening to Omid’s podcast “Sufi Heart” and hearing about the mystical teachings of “Radical Love”, is like soothing balm for my longing heart.
In his third episode, titled “The Flame of Justice“, he reflects on the teachings of social-activist Vincent Harding and examines the way that love sparks the flame of justice within us.
In Omid’s words:
I (and maybe you) live in a world, where we are rewarded for being “quit witted” – it’s this ability, to think fast and speak even faster (and for some of us tweet fastest), which is taken as a sign of intelligence. And Uncle Vincent reminded me that there is something else, that is also a possibility. It’s where your words come out of lived experience, where there is a truth to what you say and a lifetime of insight that you distill into these carefully chosen words.
P.S.: I took the liberty to shorten and adapt Omid’s words (careful to keep the heart alive), to play well with the photograph.
Photo by Ihor Malytskyi on Unsplash