“The things that you love in life, the things that bring you joy, the things that bring you blessing, the things that bring you love: go towards those things, live into those things, embrace those things…. Let’s surround ourselves with people who love us in our fullness, insha’allah!”

– Ibrahim Baba Farajaje

Funny creatures that we are, we need to be reminded to love, to seek joy, to let ourselves be blessed. It’s easier most times to worry, to fret, to frown and put our head back into our work, to be consumed with the potential disaster of tomorrow and miss the present joys of today. I’ve met many a person who could easily express anger, sorrow or fear, but felt uncomfortable expressing too much happiness!

This is a learned response; no baby is born like this. But through years of learned anxiety, guilt or disappointment, we slowly settle for the safe, the sane and the mundane. Maybe it’s time for a little revolutionary action- expressing pure joy! Rumi reminds us:

“Today like every other day we wake up empty and afraid.

Don’t go to the study and start reading. Pick up the dulcimer.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

So let that email go, the garbage sit in the pail awhile longer, that task wait for a moment. Let’s be the beauty we love, and move into life from that place.

What can you do today to run toward joy?

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Dr. Ibrahim Baba Farajaje (1953-2016) was a pioneer in building bridges across bountaries that usually separate people. Deeply learned in Islam and Sufism, in Judaism and Jewish mysticism, in Christianity and Buddhism, fluent in 16 lauguages, equally at home in Istanbul, Turkey and Berkeley, California, he travelled the world for decades, leading studies, producing videos, and delivering papers on the interrelatedness of the world’s spiritual traditions as they play out through the rich diversity of the world’s cultural contexts.

Joe Laur is a father, husband, naturalist, executive, consultant, and a lowly rabbinic student. He can be reached at joe.laur@godsdog.net.