Do you hear what the stringed instrument says about longing?

The same as the stick, I was once a green branch in the wind.

We are all far from home.
Language is our caravan bell.

-- Rumi
(in Rumi:  The Big Red Book,
translated by Coleman Barks)

The poet who praises the splendors and terrors of life in the dance-measures of his verse, the musician who sounds them in a pure, eternal present -- these are bringers of light, increasers of joy and brightness on earth, even if they lead us first through tears and stress.  Perhaps the poet whose verses gladden us was a sad solitary, and the musician a melancholic dreamer; but even so their work shares in the cheerful serenity of the gods and the stars.  What they give us is no longer their darkness, their suffering or fears, but a drop of pure light, eternal cheerfulness.

-- Hermann Hesse
(in The Glass Bead Game, or Magister Ludi,
translated by Richard and Clara Winston)

Now a bird with elegantly colored wings lights in a nearby tree
to sing the mystery of beginning again.
What a fine song that is.

-- Rumi
(in Rumi:  The Big Red Book,
translated by Coleman Barks)

He ought above all to possess the cheerful serenity of music, for after all music is nothing but an act of courage, a serene, smiling, striding forward and dancing through the terrors and flames of the world, the festive offering of a sacrifice.

-- Hermann Hesse
(in The Glass Bead Game, or Magister Ludi, 
translated by Richard and Clara Winston)

We sing the melody to our life's song, but the people who touch us provide the harmony.  And underneath it all, guiding us and supporting us, is the rhythm of our faith.

--Robin Roberts
(from "My Mom, My Inspiration,"
in Guideposts Magazine, August 2012)