Readings

At Every Instant - Excerpt Read by Eboo Patel

At every instant and from every side, resounds the call of Love: 
We are going to sky, who wants to come with us? 
We have gone to heaven, we have been the friends of the angels, 
And now we will go back there, for there is our country. 
We are higher than heaven, more noble than the angels: 
Our goal is the Supreme Majesty.

The wave named 'Am I not your Lord' has come, it has broken the vessel of the body; 
And when the vessel is broken, the vision comes back, and the union with Him.

Untitled – Read by Art Sussman (with a final line added by Art)

Birth is a beginning

and death a destination

And life is a journey:

From childhood to maturity

and youth to age;

From innocence to awareness

and ignorance to knowing;

From foolishness to desecration

and then perhaps to wisdom.

From weakness to strength or

from strength to weakness

and often back again;

From health to sickness

and we pray to health again.

From offense to forgiveness

from loneliness to love

from joy to gratitude

from pain to compassion

from grief to understanding

from fear to faith.

From defeat to defeat to defeat

until looking backwards or ahead

We see that victory lies not

at some high point along the way

but in having made the journey

step by step

a sacred pilgrimage.

Birth is a beginning

and death a destination

And life is a journey;

A sacred journey to life everlasting.

You journeyed well, my friend.