A small green island

where one white cow lives alone,

a meadow of an island.

 

The cow grazes till nightfall, full and fat,

but during the night she panics

and grows thin as a single hair. “What shall I eat

tomorrow? There’s nothing left!”

 

By dawn, the grass has grown up again, waist-high.

The cow starts eating and by dark

the meadow is clipped short.

 

She’s full of strength and energy, but she panics

in the dark as before, and grows

abnormally thin overnight.

 

The cow does this over and over,

and this is all she does.

 

She never thinks, “This meadow has never failed

to grow back. Why should I be afraid

every night that it won’t?”

 

The cow is the bodily soul.

The island field is this world where

that grows lean with fear and fat with blessing.

 

Lean and fat. White cow,

don’t make yourself miserable

with what’s to come, or not to come.

Rumi

Translated by Coleman Barks

 

This reminds me of Luke’s lilies of the field story that says to “take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.  But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

I was a person who wasted many, many years worrying about what the morrow might bring, a person who didn’t believe God could be trusted to provide what I needed. Finally, when I had nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to, I learned the power of surrender. What I need (not always what I want) has always been provided. What a blessing trust is!

Rumi (1207 – 1273) was a Persian poet, faqih, Islamic scholar, theologian and Sufi mystic. His influence transcends national borders and his poems have been widely translated into many of the world’s languages.