{"id":11661,"date":"2010-11-23T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2010-11-23T19:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=11661"},"modified":"2010-11-23T12:00:51","modified_gmt":"2010-11-23T19:00:51","slug":"persian-poetry-tuesday-from-saadis-golestan-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=11661","title":{"rendered":"Persian Poetry Tuesday: from Saadi&#039;s Golestan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been many years since I believed in a god the way I did when I was younger and I thought I wanted to be an orthodox rabbi. I&#8217;ve written <a href=\"http:\/\/richardjnewman.com\/2006\/04\/09\/the-rectification-of-names\">here<\/a> about one of the reasons I gave that belief up, but no matter how far I am from the person I was when the monotheistic god as the Jews understand him was central to how I understood the world, I am still moved by poetry steeped in spiritual and religious traditions, because even if you don&#8217;t believe in a god, you can&#8217;t deny the absolute nature of the unknown that lies beyond the boundaries of this life, and I do believe everything that is potentially good in human beings, including how we give our lives meaning, comes from the relationship we have with that absolute. Here, for example, is a passage from Saadi&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/richardjnewman.com\/itsallconnected\/my-books\/selections-from-saadis-gulistan\/\"><em>Golestan<\/em><\/a> that moves me every time I read it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A man of God immersed himself in meditation. When he emerged from the vision that was granted him, a smiling companion welcomed him back, \u201cWhat beautiful gift have you brought us from the garden in which you were walking?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The holy man replied, \u201cI walked until I reached the rosebush, where I gathered up the skirts of my robe to hold the roses I wanted to present to my friends, but the scent of the petals so intoxicated me that I let everything fall from my hands.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Learn love, O morning bird, from the moth&#8217;s<br \/>\ngiving itself in silence to the fire.<br \/>\nPretenders seek enlightenment in vain,<br \/>\nwaiting to follow those who won\u2019t return.<br \/>\nAnd You, who transcend all we can imagine,<br \/>\nwhose existence we can neither guess at<br \/>\nnor claim to know as fact, of whose glory<br \/>\nall the world\u2019s words\u2014spoken or written\u2014fall<br \/>\nimmeasurably short, the end is here,<br \/>\nand we stand as we did when it all began,<br \/>\ntongue-tied lovers, awe-struck at Your beauty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>Cross posted on <a href=\"http:\/\/wp.me\/pCmZ8-sR\">The Poetry in The Politics and The Politics in The Poetry<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been many years since I believed in a god the way I did when I was younger and I thought I wanted to be an orthodox rabbi. I&#8217;ve written here about one of the reasons I gave that belief &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=11661\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[85],"class_list":["post-11661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","tag-saadi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}