And the Mountains Echoed

Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
—JELALUDDIN RUMI, 13th century

A finger had to be cut, to save the hand.

some laughed, some hurried past for fear

Now I was free to do as I wished, but I found the freedom illusory, for what I wished for the most had been taken from me.

It is impossible to read Hosseini’s novels without feeling at times that your heart is being ripped out and yet somehow you finish the novel feeling as if you have been given a very special gift’ *****

He said that if culture was a house, then language was the key to the front door, to all the rooms inside.

I swear, since seeing Your face,
the whole world is fraud and fantasy.
The garden is bewildered as to what is leaf or blossom.
The distracted birds can’t distinguish the birdseed from the snare.
A Rumi poem, one from Mullah Shekib’s teachings.

Everything she did—the way she spoke, the way she walked, dressed, smiled—was a novelty to me

one is well served by a degree of both humility and charity when judging the inner workings of another person’s heart

winter and its icicles