You Put Yourself In The Receptive Frame

Islam Is A Religion Of Success. Unlike Christianity, Which Has As Its Main Image, In The West At Least, A Man Dying In A Devastating, Disgraceful, Helpless Death.

Let Us Bring Something New To The Table. Let Us Use Our Pain Always To Remember The Others, Bring Them Into The Conversation, And Get Beyond The Stereotypes And Prejudices That Create Injustice All Over The World.

Theology Is-- Or Should Be-- A Species Of Poetry,which Read Quickly Or Encountered In A Hubbub Of Noise Makes No Sense. You Have To Open Yourself To A Poem With A Quiet, Receptive Mind, In The Same Way You Might Listen To A Difficult Piece Of Music... If You Seize Upon A Poem And Try To Extort Its Meaning Before You Are Ready, It Remains Opaque. If You Bring Your Own Personal Agenda To Bear Upon It, The Poem Will Close Upon Itself Like A Clam, Because You Have Denied Its Unique And Separate Identity, Its Inviolate Holiness.

Beethoven's String Quartets Express Pain Itself; It Is Not My Pain.

It's Quite Common For A Sufi Mystic To Cry In Ecstasy That He's Neither A Jew, A Christian, Nor A Muslim. He Is At Home Equally In A Synagogue, A Mosque, A Temple, Or A Church Because When One's Glimpsed The Divine, One's Left These Man-made Distinctions Behind.