One of those someones is Aaron Weiss, a humble, spindly man from Philadelphia. Meeting him, one could believe in his city's name. Although he is a poet and a singer (or more accurately, poem-shouter) of the band mewithoutYou, he is a listener. Most nights, still covered in the sweat of frenetic concert dervishes, Weiss listens one by one to the line that has gathered at his feet. With poetic lines such as Why not let's forgive everyone/ everywhere, everything, and If your old man did you wrong/ then maybe his old man did him wrong, the gathering is not surprising.
After my first time seeing his band, I waited to see him too. Other lines of his poetry seemed to fit his stance towards others - No clever talk nor gift to bring/ requires our lowly lovely king./ Come, you empty-handed/ you don't need anything.
Seeing first hand the care he offered hurting folks, and the way they fed on such attention, I wanted to know who fed him -- what writers have helped him see more clearly God and creation within God and man within creation and God.
When I arrived at my turn, he stuttered through a few familiar names, as well as Scripture, and then he mentioned Rumi, an early Persian Sufi poet.
Since I'd heard of neither Rumi nor Sufis, I made that my next mini-research project. As it turns out, he lived in 13th century Persia (modern day Iran) and inherited a leadership position at a religious school at just 25, and was very much within the religious "in-crowd."
Around a dozen or so years later, he met an ascetic named Shams. As a result of their friendship, Rumi transformed to embraced asceticism. Rumi's change prompted such controversy that (allegedly) Shams was kidnapped and killed, probably at the hands of Rumi's son.
Despite (and possibly due to) the pain of that loss, Rumi continued in ascetic Sufism, typically expressed through poetry. As a Sufi, his basic goal was to experience/ sense/ feel/ know the fullness of God every moment.
And, interestingly, Rumi made some jaw-dropping statements regarding Jesus. Here's one:
In the fire of the Divine love,
behold I saw a whole universe
Each particle there possessed Jesus’ Breath.
I'd encourage anyone interested in Christianity, faith, life, art, and/ or poetry to read up on his life, not because he was perfect or always spoke the whole truth, but because his work reveals beauty and compelling affection for Jesus.
