The hunger for oneness

I had actually intended to go to church this morning, but I'm at the sneezy, nose-blowing stage of this cold, so I'm staying home. 

I'm out of fresh images to play with -- or, at least, there's nothing singing to me -- so I decided instead to play with just layering abstracts.  This one is made up of three images: one of graffiti, one of rusted metal, and one treated underwater image.

It doesn't say much of anything, but it pleases me, and somehow makes me think of stone patterns I've seen in places like New Mexico and Arizona.  It also would look great printed on metal and hanging in the lobby of my church.  So I guess, in a way, this is my spirit's way of going to church without me.  There's even a hint of purple to remind us that Advent is now officially underway...

But somehow it also seems to be an echo of the latter verses of the Rumi poem for today in Coleman Barks' book, A Year with Rumi:


The longing you feel for this love
comes from inside you.


When you become the Friend,
your longing will be as the man in the ocean
who holds to a piece of wood.


Eventually, wood, man, and ocean
become one swaying being,
Shams Tabriz, the secret of God.

In it, I see the ocean, and the clinging, and the wood.  And together they somehow become unified in a way that expresses both the hunger for oneness and Oneness itself.

But maybe that's just me...