Sister Doreen’s Reflections
The September Anglican Church of Canada Calendar scripture reflection is “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop” (Luke 8:15).
The words that jumped out for me were “A Noble and Good Heart” and psalm one came to my mind as I pondered the words ‘a noble and good heart’. “Happiness comes to those who reject the path of violence … to those who delight in the God’s law day and night.” The psalm lays out two very clear paths to life’s journey, two contrasting paths or ways to live and what they teach us: the way of the righteous and good and the way of the mean and unrighteous. The two paths are like the seed being sown on very different kinds of ground. In the parable of the Sower and in the Psalm, we understand that God is present and absent in both or all situations in surprising ways. Our journey through life is a challenge to explore and to discern how both paths exist inside us and what kind of message or whispers they suggest for the way to live. Both the parable and the psalm stretch out before us in our life journey a crossroad, or a fork in the road, and ask the question, which way will you take?
God is both with us and seemingly absent from us which ever choice we make, for God will never leave us or forsake us, though we are often absent from God. In my own life journey, I know that I have walked down each of the paths from time to time. I have been ‘seed’ that fell on the good ground and ‘seed’ that was choked by the cares and worries of life; I have delighted in God and I have also been like the chaff which the wind blows away; I have been the righteous and I have been the unrighteous. I know where my desire, my longing is in choosing the fork in the road will I take. I know the road that I want to take leads to someone who delights in God, someone planted by streams of living water, someone with a noble and good heart, a righteous person who hears the word, retains it, and by persevering produces a life given wholly to God.
Then ending of psalm 139 becomes my prayer, the expression of my deepest desire: “Search me out, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my restless thoughts. Look well whether there be any wickedness in me and lead me in the way that is everlasting.” (NRSV translation) “Investigate my life, O God, find out everything about me; cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what I’m about; see for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong – then guide me on the road to eternal life.” (Message Translation)
When I begin to think about a good and noble heart, and my own heart, I ponder words like compassion and understanding, life-giving and complex. It is a symbol of love, is often known as the seat of emotions, and is synonymous with affection. The good and noble heart seems to correspond to living in the right relationship to everything. It’s a life that finds harmony and balance, goodness and peace within everything that is – God, oneself, others, the earth and all creation. A person with a noble heart has honorable qualities, is upright, and merciful, and is willing to help in any way they can. They take risks sometimes just to prove how much they care.
If we persevere in being the kind of good ground that enables a noble and good heart, if we keep getting back up when we fall down, and if we hang on tightly to God’s hand, then we will find ourselves open in new ways to becoming co-creators with God in healing this world we live in. In the book “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy we hear a conversation between the Boy and the Horse: “What is the bravest thing you’ve ever said?” asked the boy. “Help” said the horse. “When have you been at your strongest?” asked the boy. “When I have dared to show my weakness. Asking for help isn’t giving up,” said the horse. “It’s refusing to give up.” We need each other, and together with that compassionate and tenacious unconditional love of God, we can do unimaginable and extraordinary things!
Macrina Wiederkehr in her book “The Song of the Seed” wrote the following: “There is something in me that is not content to hang about directionless along the edge of the path. There is a thirst in me so deep it will move aside the rocks, seeking moisture. There is a yearning that is intense in its desire to put God first. It may take a lifetime, but I have no doubt this unnamable mystery within, the seed that fell at the beginning of creation, will finally crowd out the thorns. Yes, there is One who believes in me enough to continue singing up the country of my heart. The seeds sown in our lives are, in reality, seeds of our potential. They are sparks of the divine. They must take root in the earthiness of our lives and grow. It is essential for us to remember that the Sower in our parable did not experience only obstacles. Some of the seed fell into good soil and yielded fruit a hundredfold.” We need to focus on our good soil, our willingness to ask for help. God can do wonders in a heart that is open.
The September quote about a good and noble heart took me back to a task I set for myself a couple of years ago on my 80th birthday. As I walked along the shores of Lake Ontario on my 80th birthday, a very bitterly cold day when the water and snow in the water had turned the lake into a kind of thick sludge, I thought about my own life, the sludge that sometimes gathers, and decided it was time to go back in memory twenty-five years to my own heart attacks and bypass surgery and the meditations I wrote and saved. The experience of open-heart surgery, the trauma and the aftermath of that and journey towards healing gave me time back then to ponder ‘my heart’ and the many kinds of heart moments in my life, the treasures of the heart. I found myself pondering an open heart, a listening heart, a waiting heart, a searching heart, a seeing heart, an attentive heart, a broken heart, and the mirror of the heart. It was a long journey of healing, a walk from Exodus to the Promised Land – from slavery to freedom – the blessings of which are still being discovered today with new experiences and new seasons in my own life, and I expect it will be so all the days of my life. I had saved those meditations, and now it was time to take them out and see them anew. I have changed and been changed; it is time to live them again in the year 2024.
So, I thought I would share my meditations remembered from the past – I called them My Heart Meditations – over the next weeks. Perhaps they will be helpful ponderings as we journey together through life.
The picture is taken from the internet – Getty Images: image depot pro
