If Rumi is the most-read poet in America today, Coleman Barks is in good part responsible. His ear for the truly divine madness in Rumi’s poetry is really remarkable.

First of all, my persuasion is what really breeds violence is political differences. But because religion serves as the soul of community, it gets drawn into the fracas and turns up the heat.

It would be good if we bore one another's burdens.

In the post-individualistic era, science and spirituality will become allies, and human beings will realize a vast potentiality now only dimly felt.

...primal people see the objects of this world not (or not only) as solid but as open windows to their divine source.

The faith I was born into formed me.

As known unknowns become known; unknown unknowns proliferate; the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.