“God, You who know all that is hidden,
You who speak with compassion,
don’t hide from us the errors of our wrong pursuits—
nor reveal to us the lack within the good we try to do,
lest we become disgusted and lose the heart
to journey on this Path.”

This prayer comes from the hand of the poet Jalal Ud-din Rumi, who lived in the 13th century. He founded an order in the Sufi tradition of Islam and wrote poetry that is much prized today. In fact, Rumi is known to be one of the most popular poets in contemporary America.

Two days from this date, Rumi enthusiasts will mark the 728th anniversary of his death. Ever since the year 1273, members of his order have kept the day of his death as a festival to celebrate his life and work.

This great Muslim mystic wrote in Persian, a language not accessible to most Americans. But even in translation his words have the power to move readers along in their search for God. In reading the poem quoted above, I felt spiritually uplifted by what the writer chose to pray for.

Two sentiments expressed here strike me with special force. The first is the request for God not to hide from us “the errors of our wrong pursuits.” It is so easy for human beings to be carried headlong by strong desires and by illusions about what is good for us. We should not want to be shielded from our own foolishness but rather to become aware of it and face it.

A second prayerful request is for God not to reveal to us “the lack in the good that we try to do.” This petition impresses me as especially wise since it shows the poet’s desire to be spared knowing how imperfect his efforts to do good really remain.

Rumi clearly knows what Jesus also taught, namely that only one is good and that one is God. All other things, including our attempts to put into practice God’s will, remain flawed and imperfect.

The trouble with becoming aware of the defects in even our best actions, Rumi recognizes, is that this awareness of imperfection can easily ruin our morale. Hardly anyone of us has the inner strength to endure knowing how imperfect our actions really are.

For God to shield us from this realization with regard to our actions is compassionate. It frees us to continue on the spiritual path without being overcome by discouragement. Were we to sense that everything we do, even the best of our actions, are riddled with imperfection, that might make the spiritual life odious to us and incline us to drop out of the spiritual struggle.

This truth applies to our efforts to pray. Placing too much importance on the deficiencies in our prayer – – the distractions and restlessness – – could easily lead us to give it up altogether. What counts most in prayer is our desire to be in contact with God rather than our actually succeeding in staying focused on God.

Similarly, imagining that whenever we reach out to others in need our intentions should be entirely pure is also unrealistic. It is only human to have mixed motives, helping another person sometimes because we see some advantage for ourselves. Good works, after all, often bring us rewards and that is no reason for avoiding them.

In his prayer, Rumi indicates the importance of not becoming disgusted and of not losing heart. The Path and the journey hold most importance, as he sees it. The difficulty of this challenge, what a modern poet, Anne Sexton, has called “the awful rowing toward God,” should not be allowed to turn us aside.

At this time of world tension connected with the perverted use of some religious traditions, it comes as a consolation to find Rumi. He was born in Afghanistan and his mysticism came from the religious lore in which he was steeped from his earliest years. He drew inspiration from the Qur’an and the other sacred traditions of Islam.

As one writer has said of him, “If there is any general idea underlying Rumi’s poetry, it is the absolute love of God.” That love emerges forcibly from the poem discussed here and can inspire spiritual seekers everywhere.

Richard Griffin