As my friend Mike Morrell recently said on his blog regarding It’s Really All About God,

Do yourself a favor and read it. If you’re too cheap to immediately spring for a copy merely on my recommendation, listen to this recent talk he gave. And hear him read excerpts from his book. But then buy it! You’ll be glad you did.

Here’s Samir in his own words:

What are you reading right now that’s giving you life?

     I have a thousand brilliant lies

                For the question:

                  How are you?

      I have a thousand brilliant lies

                For the question:

                  What is God?

If you think that the Truth can be known

                    From words,

  If you think that the Sun and the Ocean

     Can pass through that tiny opening

                Called the mouth,

     O someone should start laughing!

Someone should start wildly laughing –

                        Now!

I love this poem because it is something I have lived – something I believe all of us have lived. In contrast to assemblies and seminars and meetings and spiritual gatherings of all sorts where mounts of information is heaped upon us and all sorts of admonishment is coming fast and furious, it only takes one trip to the ocean to hear the voice of creation and know it is here that our Beloved sings.

I do my best to make it to the Caribbean at least once a year just to unwind, release and embrace that primal energy resonating at the waters’ edge. Even as I type these words, with little reflection I can feel the breeze – part air, part vapor – much heavier than the mountain air I’m accustomed to breathing. As I close my eyes and enter into stillness even now I can hear the waves lapping the shoreline, I can picture the rising or setting sun and hear the sounds of the gulls singing that all is well. And it is. All is very well. In the midst of ‘what is,’ all is perfect.

Mine is often a world filled with conversation; struggling for words to bridge transformative concepts between disparate nations, people-groups and sometimes the greatest of adversaries. It is a world of endless dialogue and attempts to mine beneath the surface of the ego and false self. It is here that the true self might be invited out to play.

And while all this talking is going on, all around creation sings. If we would just be ‘still,’ maybe we would discover that the answer to peace and abundance for all humankind is whistling in the wind or found tapping us on the shoulder in the drip, drip, dripping of the falling rain. Maybe we could all just use a dose of lying in the sun, allowing it to warm us in its embrace.

There are days I just want to say ‘enough with words and meetings and memories over past grievances!’ Would it not be more productive and appropriate to stop and look around; to feel our smallness and to regain our life’s rhythm by sensing the flow of nature? Could we not gain from sitting in anticipatory stillness and allowing our meditation to flood our souls with ecstatic realizations rising from the deepest parts of who we are as we’re immersed with the realization that Presence is both within and beyond all things?

Sometimes it is laughable that we, humanity, believe there is such power in our words. It is laughable how often we gather to praise and speak and plan and plot the good things of tomorrow while not taking time to notice that everything within and round-about-us is singing the song of the One, the One who said “Let there be…” and everything changed.

Whatever you do this weekend, be sure you make time for stillness… for there, creation sings.

So often our resistance to reframing our past – often what is a sad and tragic past – is because we have come to identify with it. Our past, we believe, defines us. However, as you are about to see, I have reason to believe that nothing could be further from the truth.

My friend Mark is one of the happiest, upbeat, positive, giving, over-flowing-with-joy people I know. One day at lunch I asked him, “Mark, what’s the deal? You’re always so energetic, full of life, positive in outlook, is it real? Are you really this way all the time? And if so, what’s your secret?”

His answer was one I wasn’t expecting: His explanation one I will never forget.

Tim, I’m this way because I choose to be this way. The choice is ours, even in the most difficult of circumstances. And believe me, I know about difficult circumstances. You see, one evening when I was ten years old, I heard my mother and father arguing in the living room of our home. It was so loud and angry that it awoke me from my sleep.  When you hear your parents argue and you’re a little kid it startles you to your core. So I got out of bed and quietly slipped down the hallway toward the living room to see what was going on. As I rounded the corner, I saw my father holding a shotgun, pointing it at my mother. In an instant it was as if my ears went numb, the explosion was unbearable, the site unfathomable. My mother lay on the floor, blood spattered on the wall, pooling on the carpet. I screamed out, horrified. My father turned, looked at me, put the gun to his chin and pulled the trigger.

In an instant, and in the most unimaginable way, my parents were gone. Even at ten I knew I had to shield my little brother and sister from this. I ran to their rooms, we climbed out the window and went to the neighbors so they could call for help.

Over time I came to realize that these things happen because people buy into the illusion that the darkness inside is greater than the light. And that’s a lie. It isn’t. It never can be – unless you’re deluded. And so I decided to spend the rest of my life taking to heart the lesson my parents never got – ‘God is love and God is light.’ Every morning I make the conscious decision to live in love and to be a vessel of that light. It’s a choice. It’s a choice so powerful that it can even overcome the greatest emotional scars that can be inflicted in this life. Any other story is a lie. Any other story is a great delusion.

His story rocked my world and his faith gave me a new anchor for life – especially the darkest parts. To this day it is the most powerful testimony I’ve ever heard and its truth has stood the test of time in my own journey. How often I’ve repeated his words for myself – especially when I’ve wanted to give up: “Tim, the darkness inside is NOT greater than the light. Embrace the light.”

The poet Hafiz wrote:

“I wish I could show you,

When you are lonely or in darkness,

The Astonishing Light

Of your own Being!”

Today and every day hereafter that is my prayer for you, for the world: May you see “The Astonishing Light of your own Being!”