Page 16 - The Book of Rumi

master storytellers of the past, we edit out the unnecessary infelicities and
shine our light on the unforgettable characteristics and achievements we are
witness to and, in the process, create yet another indelible substory, some of
which may be told in years and even generations to come.
Prophets and preachers of all religions and creeds, too, have been masters
of the practice and have relied on parables and maxims to communicate com-
plex theologies to their followers. Parables of the tragedies of martyrs have
drawn, and continue to draw, men and women to places of worship around
the world, to shrines and town squares; such parables often comprise bits of
truth side by side with bits of myth, using literary fi nesse to stir passions and
breathe new life into common themes.
Those who hear or read these stories never seem to fi nd the new variants
of old themes tedious. Perhaps there is some reassurance in the predictability
of how these tales of morality inevitably conclude. Modern-day fi lms depict-
ing the lives of greed merchants on Wall Street, spiced up with titillating
subplots, are, in essence, adaptations of ancient lessons that one cannot serve
both God and money. Furthermore, almost all morality tales ascertain that
“lust for the fl esh and the lust of the eye” invariably lead to trouble.
Hungry for stories that give us respite from the drudgery of our lives, we
now gather before the pulpit of Instagram and Facebook and YouTube to get
our daily fi ll of the antics of the modern deities, the 21st-century gods and
goddesses and gurus who inhabit the heights of Hollywood and its tinseled
replicas throughout the world.
For many communities and in many cultures, the most trustworthy narra-
tors of irresistible tales are the poets. Poets, in their own inimitable ways, tell
us about the challenges and failures of fi nding love and the joys of forming
friendship. They warn us of the pitfalls, of the betrayals and injustices, that
we always encounter along the way, yet encourage us to banish envy and the
desire for revenge from our hearts. It is almost always the poets who teach us
how to gauge the enormity of a loss, to grieve with dignity, and ultimately to
accept mortality.
For more than eight hundred years, countless numbers of people in the
Persian-speaking lands, and in recent decades many more around the world

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