"You can't preach to a community you don't know"

[CONCLUSION:  See yesterday, please]

       Once the community is known, once the dialogue and exchange is real, something can be imparted.

       In his book The Essential Rumi, Coleman Barks tells of his introduction to Sufi ways and understandings.  For a number of years, Barks had contact and interaction with a Sufi sheikh, which helped him in doing his eloquent versions of Rumi’s poetry.
 
       At one point Barks asked Bawa Muhaiyaddeen “if what I saw in his eyes could someday come up behind my eyes and look out.”   Barks says the sheikh began speaking of the subtle relationship between a teacher and a community, “Not until the I becomes we.”