I received a Christmas card from one of our colleagues, a Christian who has a substantial business in the Middle East.
He chose for his message a poem by Ibn Al-Arabi who lived in Andalusia, Spain from 1165 to 1240 C.E. I had not known of his poetry before but found his sense of the spirit compelling for our times of distrust and hard-edged competition.
He wrote:
A Garden Among the Flames
My heart is capable of wearing all forms.
It is a pasture for gazelles and a monastery for monks,
A temple for idols and the Kaaba for the pilgrim.
It is the tablets of the Torah and it is the book of the Koran.
I profess the religion of love, wherever the destination of it caravan may be.
That is the belief, the faith I keep.
Happy New Year.