Topic: "How Very Close" This message is instead of the September IdeaShape newsletter, which was to have been sent out this morning. The newsletter will resume in October. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ "How Very Close" by Rumi, translated by Nader Khalili how very close is your soul with mine i know for sure everything you think goes through my mind i am with you now and doomsday not like a host caring for you at a feast alone with you i am happy all the times the time i offer my life or the time you gift me your love offering my life is a profitable venture each life i give you pay in turn a hundred lives again in this house there are a thousand dead and still souls making you stay as this will be yours a handful of earth cries aloud i used to be hair or i used to be bones and just the moment when you are all confused leaps forth a voice hold me close i'm love and i'm always yours ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Dear friends, I so hope that you and yours are safe on this day of horror and loss. The sadness of lives cut short feels close, even for "strangers." Six degrees of separation seems far too remote a description right now. I have been jolted into intense awareness of how small the world actually is, how connected we really are. I'm sure prayers have been running through your mind, as they have mine: May we be of true use to those who suffer. May justice invite peace over retaliation. May all children, wherever they are in the world, wake up safe and loved tomorrow and the next day and the next. May we be good to one another. Peace, Pam