Watching the News, lately... @newyorker.com

We are rewarded in relation to the quality of our patience.

Tell us why you write

“The poet doesn’t invent. He listens.” —Jean Cocteau

Why will you take by force what you may obtain by #Love? There is no death, only a change of worlds. All religions are but stepping stones back to #God.. The laws of the spirit remain always the same. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies in yourself. —Native American #proverbs

Writing books is a good way to ask ourselves questions and try to answer them.

You, Again? Music: Shira Z. Carmel / Lyrics: Yahia Lababidi thehazelnuts.bandcamp.com/track/you-ag... #music #song

What a U.S. official tells @axios.com Trump said to Netanyahu during a heated phone call over #Israel 's military attack in #Lebanon.

Do not leave me to myself

Do not speak of evil for it creates curiosity in the hearts of the young. * To gossip is like playing checkers with an evil spirit: you win occasionally but are more often trapped at your own game. * Ask questions from your heart and you will be answered from the heart. #booksky #quotes

He Fumbles at your Soul —Emily Dickinson soundcloud.com/yahia-lababi... #poetry

He fumbles at your Soul He fumbles at your Soul As Players at the Keys — Before they drop full Music on — He stuns you by Degrees — Prepares your brittle Nature For the Ethereal Blow By fainter Hammers — further heard — Then nearer — Then so — slow — Emily Dickinson

Divine courtship, and the dying to the self that must precede mystical union...

we dance on, even on the precipice of an abyss...

...the glorious, tear-stained Dance of Life

Dancing despite it all...

Of Being I know this happiness is provisional: the looming presences— great suffering, great fear— withdraw only into peripheral vision: but ineluctable this shimmering of wind in the blue leaves ... this need to dance, this need to kneel: this mystery: —Denise Levertov #photography Tawfik Dajani

In the mail, new issue of the @christiancentury.bsky.social featuring my review of a fine, interfaith & environmental poetry book: www.christiancentury.org/article/dese... #poetry #booksky #faith

Does man not consider that We created him from a [mere] sperm-drop - then at once he is a clear adversary? —Yaseen 36:77 Quran

“It is out of reverence for God and the knowledge of what is due to Him that you should not complain about your pain, or mention your misfortune.” —Prophet Mohammed ﷺ

“There are two blessings which many people lose: (They are) health and free time for doing good.” —Sahih Bukhari

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. —Beckett

Improving our style means improving our ideas, and nothing else. —Nietzsche

Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth. —Rumi

'Social intercourse seduces one to self contemplation' —Franz Kafka

It is only in the market place that one is assaulted with Yes? or No? Slow is the experience of all deep wells: long must they wait before they know what fell into their depth. —Nietzsche

Stealing from ourselves: sharing an idea or feeling before it has ripened.

unheeded, pricks of conscience return as harpoons of circumstance.

Every time we betray our conscience, we strangle an angel. Yet, it’s not certain we are allotted an infinite supply of winged pardons.

Perhaps, on some level, there's only the inner conversation, and the outer ones are merely reflections of it.

Self image: self-deception. * The small spirit is quick to misperceive an insult; the large spirit slow to receive a compliment. * To give birth to a God, the self ("nafs") must die in the delivery room.

Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros & of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation & despair, Show an affirming flame. soundcloud.com/yahia-lababi...

#art Agostino Arrivabene

For the love of birds

If only we were less impatient, greedy, doubtful... we might be granted a greater Joy than our stolen paltry pleasures...

'He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy, but he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity's sun rise' —William Blake, Eternity

“It is out of reverence for God and the knowledge of what is due to Him that you should not complain about your pain, or mention your misfortune.” —Prophet Mohammed ﷺ

Imam al-Ghazali writes in Ihya Ulum ul Din (Book of Revival of Religious Sciences): To endure with beautiful patience (sabr’n jamil) means to not hate your pain or misfortune inwardly, and to not complain about it outwardly.

Hearts 💔 We must not play with hearts for who can calculate what they are capable of, or what they might become How they slip, change shape practice forgetfulness and purge, surrendering pleasure with pain as unsteady burdens of memory youtube.com/shorts/ZIxC0... #poetry

Do not despair…

“Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.” —Camus

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us. —Emerson

The love you withhold is the pain you carry…

The love we hold back, holds us back.

'Tis no disparagement to be a stranger, or so irksome to be an exile. The rain is a stranger to the earth... The soul is an alien to the body... and such things commonly please us best, which are most strange, and come farthest off.’ —Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy #Photography Tawfik Dajani

"Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary... Looks with its sidecurved head, curious what will come next, Both in and out of the game, and watching and wondering at it." —Happy Birthday, Walt

Heaven help us

“All God's creatures are His family; and he or she is the most beloved of God who tries to do most good to God's creatures." —Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

Do not stay at the psychological level, you have to bring something else, you have to clarify the transcendental dimension. —Nouwen

‘Being able to experience how a deep wound can become a source of beauty in which even the weaknesses seem to give light is a reason for thankfulness’ —Henri Nouwen