A Cushion For Your Head

This afternoon I will leave for Holy Spirit Retreat Center for our semi-annual vocation retreat for law students and alumni of the University of St. Thomas School of Law.  Getting law students to take a weekend away from school and work is difficult once the semester starts – hence our timing of the retreats just before the beginning of the fall and spring semesters.  Still, we do try to instill in them the need to take some time away from the craziness of their lives to be still.

It thus seemed fitting that the morning reflection from Inward/Outward (whose daily reflections I have quoted before) was a Hafiz poem titled A Cushion for Your Head.  Here it is:

Just sit there right now
Don’t do a thing
Just rest.

For your separation from God,
From love,

Is the hardest work
In this
World.

Let me bring you trays of food
And something
That you like to
Drink.

You can use my soft words
As a cushion
For your
Head.

Just sit.  Don’t do a thing.  Just rest.

We can’t do that all of the time.  But we need to invitation to “Come away and rest awhile” now and then.

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