A friend and I often greet each other with the Arabic words, “Ishq Allah.” Ishq is passionate love for God. Crazy love for spirit in matter and matter in spirit. The Sufi-dervish-wonder that whirls and says, Ishq Allah ma’būd lillāh, God is love, lover, and beloved ...

Our pointer-dogs, Sara and Bartie hike with me in the mountains where Sara brings a special brand of Ishq. Whenever she senses a bird, she freezes in a perfect point. Time stops as she leans forward, her front leg bent, her stubby tail extended. It’s dog yoga, downward pointing God, as she claims union with her ordained purpose.

I hold my breath. The earth holds its breath.

Then Sara hears a sacred starting gun, discernible only in dog-land. She barrels into the underbrush. Twenty grey quail fling themselves up out of the bushes, no chirping, only the sound of insistent wings that say, “I Am.” I inhale the sound of wings and say, “So Am I, beloved quail—I Am.” Sara barks at the quail then races back down the mountain to share her excitement
with Bartie and me. “You are the beloved, too, sweet dogs,” I say. Together, we continue our ishq-intoxicated hike.

What did I do to deserve this microcosm of audacious grace? Who created a dog that points so clearly and dearly? What offers a flock of quail the adventure of a shared get-away? How do air, feathers, and flight conspire to break one’s heart into beauty with sounds only love can hear? Who submits us to this drunken recklessness?

Ishq allāh ma’būd lillāh, God as love, lover, and beloved ...

What a privilege it is to listen to the three in one. No definitions, no reasoning required. Simply wonder in the wordless wings.

Love, lover, and beloved sing to us constantly. But will we listen? Will we hear?

With love’s help, I’ll try and listen better. I’ll start with the high school band that rehearses every day, inches from my house. I’ll fall in love with their raucous On Wisconsin. I’ll shimmy to the salsa version of Beethoven’s Für Elise. I’ll dance to the drum line. I’ll trust love to transform out-of-tune band music to the sound of teenagers pointing their clarinets and saxophones toward the intangible angle of grace. I’ll know the music hasn’t changed. The
beloved changes me. The lover tempts my ears to hear differently. And the alchemy of love transforms annoyance into amazement.

With practice, we can learn everything is love, lover, and beloved. Dissonance and grace; the New York Philharmonic and the Santa Paula High School band—It’s all the sound of wings. It’s all Ishq Allāh ma’būd lillāh. Everything is intoxicated rapture calling us home—home to heaven on earth, precisely, where we belong.