I have just been watching a program I enjoy on our public access TV channel. It is readings from Qur'an, most of it sung in its own language, with beautiful scenery and the faces of people, filled with light. Though I don't understand a word, it is so elegant and so beautiful. When I was in Christ, I spoke in tongues sometimes. Though I am no longer of the Christian religion, sometimes I still do. People do not understand what it is. Like one willing to be hypnotized, you give yourself up to the spirit, and things sometimes well up from within you. You do not understand the words, but they speak to the soul, and the soul responds, and you may weep knowing you are saying something very real and very holy. My soul responds to the words of Qur'an that way and I very much enjoy just listening to it, like Bach or Brubeck.
Sometimes they read passages in English, and I always think if they were read to a group of spiritually conscious Christians or Jews without their knowing what they were, they would find themselves saying again and again, "Amen! That is wisdom, that is beauty, that is the God I know in my heart." It causes me grief therefore to see how badly some Christians and some Muslims misunderstand the message of the prophets, and miss the spirit, and find reason to hate and oppress and kill each other in the pages of the books they have made idols of, each only an image of God, graven in symbol on papyrus wrapped like mummies. We are awash in spleen, and unless we find a way to open our minds beyond those books, and open our hearts to that spirit and to each other, then we are soon awash in blood.
James
"Thank You Jesus, But No Thank You."
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