Responses to Jalaluddin Rumi's Piece

How Have You Spent Your Life
Jalaluddin Rumi

Community Comments

Sara Brant, Book Club Guide

In reading Rumi's poem "How Have You Spent Your Life" along with Kozol's essay, what about the two writer's language or themes strikes you as interesting? I was particularly struck by how Kozol's essay seemed to document the ways in which he is using his "hands and feet as spade and mattock / for tilling the soil of good works." Beyond that, I love Rumi's poem because it doesn't shame me; it instead inspires me to think of my hands and feet as spades and to ruminate on how I have lately been tilling my own garden of social justice and political inquiry. As for you, what have you grown lately in yours?

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