“Spirit” in the Mountains

I’m back from the Gay Spirit Visions Fall Conference in the beautiful North Carolina mountains. I was honored to be one of the three main presenters at the conference. My assigned topic was “Spirit” – very open-ended! My presentation combined prayers, poems, and practices from both Christian and Sufi mysticism. It was wonderful to be hugged by so many men (at least sixty!), thanking me for what I had shared.

I’ve gotten several requests for some of the specific poems and prayers that were part of my presentation, so I’ll be posting those to my website soon. Here are just a few . . .

“Gentle Loving God, Mother of my soul, hold me as your own.”
~ a prayer from the Franciscan tradition

“Ultimately it is God that every lover loves in every beloved.”
~ from the Sufi mystic Ibn al-Arabi

All that is born, all that is created,
all the elements of nature
are interwoven and united with each other.
All that is composed shall be decomposed;
everything returns to its roots;
matter returns to the origins of matter.
Those who have ears, let them hear.
~ from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, 7:4-10

Behold the world entirely contained in yourself.
. . . You are a reflection of Adam, “The Adored of Angels,”
For this cause you are worshipped of angels.
Each creature that goes before you [every other creature in the universe] has a soul,
And from that soul is a cord to you.
. . . The soul of each one is hidden in you.
You are the kernel of the world in the midst thereof.
Know yourself that you are the world’s soul.
~ from a poem by Rumi, in The Sufi Doctrine of Rumi