You may have noticed that these days any religious believer who does not conform is labelled “pink religious.”

For those who use the phrase, the colour pink refers to a feminine quality which, within their misogynistic outlook, is intended as an insult toward the religiosity of believers for whom introspection and compassion are the fundamental essence of faith and a way of life.

That they assume a godlike position from which to judge the colour and purity of other people’s faith reveals a form of thought and belief that, through bloodied hands and eyes, sees white as pink while remaining blind to its own colour-blindness.

It calls to mind the depth of these enduring verses of Rumi:

You learned the principles of religion, but now
look to your own principle and see whether it is good.

The principle within you is more important than those principles;
know your own foundation, O great man.

You know what is permitted and what is forbidden,
but are you yourself permissible or impermissible? Look carefully.

You have learned auspicious and inauspicious signs,
yet do you not look to see whether you yourself are fortunate or unwashed?

You know a hundred thousand virtues of the sciences,
yet that unjust soul does not know itself.

Its blind eye cannot see
even a particle of its own fault, though it searches for faults in others.

It knows the property of every substance,
yet in describing its own substance it is like a donkey.

It says: “People have kept me from my work,”
while its soul is drowned up to the throat in idleness.

Rumi