The heart is like a garden

The heart is like a garden: it can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?
Jack Kornfield
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the heart is fertile ground
it that place that makes us who we are
it is the place where Sacred moves
or fails to move

it is that place where things collect
and multiply

I cannot control what comes my way
but I can control
what I allow to be at home
in the good earth of my soul

I can choose what seeds
I will allow to rest
and germinate
and bloom

I choose forgiveness
I choose compassion
I choose acceptance
I choose love

In our heart space

Many have described prayer as bringing your thinking down into your heart. Next time a resentment, negativity, or irritation comes into your mind, and you are tempted to play it out or attach to it, instead move that thought or person into your heart space–literally. There, surround this negativity with silence (which is much easier to do in the heart) and your pumping blood (which will often feel warm like coals). In this place, it is almost impossible to comment, judge, create story lines, or remain antagonistic. You are in a place that does not create or feed on contraries but is the natural organ of life, embodiment, and love. Love lives and thrives in the heart space.

This practice has kept me from wanting to hurt people who have hurt me. It keeps me from obsessive, repetitive, or compulsive head games. It can make the difference between being happy and being miserable and negative.

Could this be what we are really doing when we pray for someone? Yes, we are holding them in our heart space.
Richard Rohr
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Who do I need to hold in my heart Lord?
Who do I need to surround with the warm rhythm of love

I have a long list
of people I resent
and toward whom I feel anger

politicians
home made militia men and women
haters
judgers
abusers
people who hoard resources, and let the vulnerable die

I could go on an on
(and on and on and on)

People there are those people I would comfort
who face the world at its worst
whose bodies are failing
whose heart are weak
whose lives are chaos
whose minds just don’t work, quit right

who are lost and lonely, and afraid

But perhaps Lord
the first person I need to hold in my heart space
is me

perhaps I need to be at peace with this
hater, judger
this flawed but beautiful person
this person, in pain

perhaps I need to enlarge this heart
and let love thrive
here
and surround me

so that I might then hold others
in a warm embrace

Those who cannot be lost

May you know that absence is full of tender presence and
that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.
May the absence in your life be full of eternal echo.
John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes

there are empty places
in my soul
where people were

once alive
now gone
once close
now distant

people I loved
people who loved me

loneliness
echoes in the spaces
where warmth
and love once lived

and yet hallowed
presence remains
ghostly wraiths

of moments captured
touches remembered
of faces
and smiles

eternal echoes
of those
who cannot be lost
to
the
heart
_____________________

For all the Saints, Who from their labors rest

Heart Songs

What we feel matters much more than what we know. –
George Moore
_______________________________________________

There is something precious about a feeling
There is also something dangerous

A feeling comes from the heart
dredged up from a deep place in the soul
wild and unbidden

raging

wild

tragic or ecstatic

driving us into action
for good or ill

it often matters little what we know
logic often has little to do with it

sometimes we wish
our heart songs
would simply fade away
into the dull anonymity of our thoughts

but the song goes on
piercing us with
pain or
joy

and making us
truly
alive

Finding the True Self

I do not think that violence and negativity are natural to us. I believe you are made for love, that your natural abiding place is love, and that you in fact are love. Your absolute foundation is communion with God and others. This is the “deepest me” to which you must return before you act. From this foundation, you know you must act and you will act, but now from a place of positive, loving energy. You must start from a deep place of “yes.”
Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation 10.19.15

we come from love (God)
we were created to love (love one another)
not just others
but also ourselves

no matter how blurred the divine image
this is who we are

when we hate
when we judge, and exclude
we are not ourselves

and we violate
our very being

we become people of “no”
(just look at congress)

we say “no” to Sacred
“no” to ourselves
“no” to others
our hearts and souls wither

we bury our true selves,
and compassion and giving
and so much that is good,
dies

it is time to find our way
to intimacy,
with God and ourselves,
that we might become
the people of
yes

Just Be You

being is more important than doing,
the heart is more important than the mind, and ….
caring together is better than caring alone.
Henri Nouwen

Sometimes
I think
I have to create my own value

I have to establish my own place

I am a cipher
a deficit
in my own eyes
desperate to prove myself
to others
and to myself

and so I become a doer
and I try to show off my mind (it doesn’t really work)
and I try to be
the savior of the world!

Ok that is a bit much
but I try to be the one
people turn to
look to
listen to

and admire

ah
it is this that sacred practice
requires me to release

I must move
from frantic striving
and with open heart

learn to simply
be
me

for that is enough
that is more
than
enough

child of God

Whatever we love we are

This is a subtle truth
Whatever you love you are
Rumi
_____________________________

what do we love?

whatever it is
it shows

whatever it is, it makes a difference
in what we say and do

what does it say
about where our heart is
when we hate
when we exclude and reject
and judge

what does it say when open carry is a priority
and feeding the hungry isn’t?

I suspect such things not only say something
about what we love

but who we love

if we love God
who is love
we should

what?

the subject today is love

A Path with Heart

In undertaking a spiritual life, what matters is simple:
We must make certain our path is connected with our heart
Jack Kornfield, A Path with a Heart, p. 11

There are so many paths
The path to success
The path to power
The path to wealth

But if we would find joy
and peace
and hope
and the Sacred

the only path that counts
is the path with a heart

on this path the primary question is simply this
“Did I love well?”

if your path has a heart
your life will be “flavored with goodness” (Kornfield)

and it will be littered
with “small deeds done in love” (Mother Theresa(

if not
well
it is
just
the
wrong
path

Let sacred power flow

Look at
The nature of a river
Its size, strength, and ability to give
Are often gauged by its width
And current.

God
Too moves between our poles, our depth.
He flows and gathers power between
Our heart’s range of
forgiveness and
compassion.
Hafiz (The Gift, p.253)

I watch the river flow
Fed by strangely warm rains
And melting snow
It rushes
Gurgling
At times roaring

Powerful
It wraps it strength around the boulders
Tumbling and rolling them before it

Eating away at the feeble banks
Which cannot contain

My eyes unfocused
I am lost
In the rolling waters

How I long for Sacred power to
Flow from my soul

Rushing forth
to carry before it
all pain and hurt
and erode all hate and fear

Gathering power
From the great values
Which give it focus
And strength
Forgiveness
And
compassion

The cry of the heart

The
Heart is right to cry

Even when the smallest drop of light
Of love
Is taken away

Perhaps you may kick, moan, scream
In a dignified
Silence

But you are so right
To do so in any fashion

Until God returns
To

You
Hafiz

the heart
cannot help but cry
when Sacred love seems absent

it screams
most oft
in dignified silence

this cry of the heart
rending and tearing
the fabric of the soul

hidden behind
every day tasks
and genial exchanges
with people similarly torn

is the Sacred gone?
absent

no
the Sacred is always within
patiently waiting for us
to stop our
desperate protests
and notice

that she
had never
left

and taste
the smallest drop
of
love