Knowing there is work to do

Things are spinning at the moment. My days are long and intense.

Last night, as fires burned in London and the flames of disenfranchisement spread, I took some solace from Rumi:

‘Everything has to do with loving and not loving. 
This night will pass. 
Then we have work to do’.

Tonight I am exhausted. But there is a contentment too, coming from a sense that the work I am doing on Street Feast, in my local community, and on some new creative projects is the kind of work that Rumi is evoking.

At least I hope so. In the thick of I can never can fully tell. Hindsight will do that.

But for now the work is calling me to it and I am trying to listen. So as I lay down with a long list ready to for tomorrow, I am fully aware there a lot more to do. What gives me hope however, is that I know many, many others realise this too. Looking at the news headlines you may not be convinced of this. But I hear about their conviction every day in the stories of people standing up, reaching out, saying no, demanding more, giving voice to possibility, believing in better, knowing there is another way, acting accordingly.

Their work is about bringing us all back to the foundation Rumi so espouses: the simple base of loving.

No matter who we are or where we are from, whether we have thrown bricks in the past, or have been a stray on a path, this is the kind of work we can all do. This I know is true.