"The Beloved needs both good and evil, but only welcomes and blesses the good . . . God is like a teacher who wants to teach; what can he teach if the pupil is not ignorant? To desire something is also to desire what makes it possible. The teacher does not, however, bless the pupil's ignorance, otherwise he would not teach him. Doesn't a doctor need people to be ill for him to be able to heal them? Yet he doesn't bless the fact that people are ill, otherwise he wouldn't attend to them with such care. A baker requires people to be hungry, otherwise how would she sell her bread and support her family? But she doesn't bless hunger and want it to continue, otherwise why would she sell bread at all?"
Jelaluddin Rumi
Photo: A spot of sunlight illuminates a dark mountainside, Mummy Range, CO, September 16, 2011
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