Sister Doreen’s Reflections
Last week’s reflection of a good and noble heart opened the door to thinking more deeply about the role of the heart in our experiences. Despite quantum physics and other fields, we meaningfully continue believing that the heart is the storehouse for our thoughts, wisdom and emotional experiences. It is true that the heart is the rich, active, and keenly responsive inner world that is so important for us in today’s world. It gives rise to ask the question “where is the heart and the love in the way we are living now?”. By that question I do not mean the romantic heart defined by personal love or one-to-one attachments, but the love that represents a more enduring, timeless source of real connection. Perhaps coining a new word helps – ‘companionable love’: caring, compassion, affection for each other. It is that love in action that takes away indifference and empty resistance which is the opposite of love.
The heart is the core of ourselves, touching all that we are. Eastern Orthodox writers tell us “Let your mind descend into your heart”. “Find a place in your heart”, implores Theophan the Recluse, “and speak there with God. It is God’s reception room.” There is so much that is being said in our world and in our hearts that deserves silent attention: some of it is the music of beauty and awe and wonder; and some of it is the lamentation of grief and anger, sadness and sorrow. All of it deserves our listening. Our world’s beauty and health and diversity – our own beauty and health and diversity depends on what we choose to do with our hearts.
Today as I look back to my experience in 1999 of open-heart surgery, and the meditations – the heart meditations – that were part of my spiritual journey then – what is clearer to me today is a deeper knowledge of my heart as a treasure chest. The particular treasures I discovered with an open heart, a listening heart, a waiting heart, a searching heart, a seeing heart, an attentive heart and a broken heart – were all different treasures that were mined by the hard work of being attentive to what was happening in my life, and through the experiences, the gems, I discovered became treasures to hold on to, to share, and to remember. The heart also became a mirror, a reflection of both the strength and the weakness of how I held on to and shared with others the gems / treasures I had been blessed with.
I know that in that storehouse it is as Matthew 12: 35 – 37 says: “ … our words flow from the fullness of our heart (it is your heart that gives meaning to your words): a good person brings good things out of a good storehouse; a bad person brings bad things out of a bad storehouse. Let me tell you something, every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you … words are powerful, take them seriously …” (NRSV + Message translation)
A good and noble heart produces from its treasure chest the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), words of love, words of joy, words of peace, words of longsuffering, words of kindness, words of goodness, words of faithfulness, words of gentleness and words of sell-control. The treasures of the heart are precious, and for us to bring help, hope, and healing to ourselves, to others, and to the world in which we live.
In our own Rule of Life in our Community I find the very hopeful words “As each sister grows in the Holy Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, self-control) will become increasingly manifest in her life.” And so, as the years go by of falling down and getting back up, of seeking to grow and change within the forgiving, unconditional and tenacious love of God, and each other, I believe that within the treasures of the heart, those treasures stored in the bad storehouse will hopefully find their way to the surface less and less. The anger, resentment, anxiety, bitterness, all the treasures that I can do without may slowly have less control in my life.
Throughout the seasons of my own life, I have also found that there are different treasures in the heart and different treasures need in the heart for whatever particular season or circumstance I might be experiencing. Always my longing for God is the magnet that draws me into the caverns of my heart, while at the same time draws me into the company and community of others, seeking God, who alone can help me discover the treasures that I need.
We need, I believe, to learn once more, to live in the present (perhaps this is an ongoing lifetime invitation!), to be awake to the now of daily living. If we can let go and cleanse our hearts, let go of our attachments, learn to listen deeply, we can open the door to hope both for ourselves, for others, and for the world. To listen with gratitude, to grow in reverence and wonder, and to leave behind our ‘taking for granted’ usher in a joy that overflows our life into the lives of others and the world. To listen into the contradictions and differences and questions so deeply that they can kind of ‘melt together’, this can begin to work to integrate all that is not one, and in this great ‘one-ing’ we can recover community and celebration, justice-making and healing. This is the blessing of the treasures of the heart and the place of celebration and gratitude and reverence for all.
The treasures of the heart invite us to enter the mystery of our life with the quest to understand and move beyond where we are, what we are, and who we are.
Sister Beryl reminded me of a song that she remembered from her childhood days and Sunday School on the farm on the prairies, and when I looked it up on google, I found it still around after more than 80 years later! (a blog posted by clydesburn.blogspot.com/2023/10 wee-Sunday-school-songs.html)
“Root them out, get them gone
All the little rabbits in the field of corn
Envy, jealousy, malice, pride
They must never in my heart abide.”
With them gone, would there be more room for the treasures of the fruit of the Spirit?
