Rev. Meg Anzalone 1 Thought for Contemplation: You that come to birth and bring the mysteries, Your voice thunder makes us very happy. Roar, lion of the heart, and TEAR ME OPEN! Rumi Reading: Openness of Heart the Reverend Meg Anzalone First Parish in Cambridge Mysteries, Four of the Simple Ones - by Mary Oliver March 1, 2009 What is this heart of ours at the central core of our being, beating beneath our breast? This strong and soft muscle supports and sustains us, while even remembering to rest for us in between every single heartbeat. In his book Born for Love, Leo Buscaglia tells us, The heart is the place where we live our passions. It is frail and easily broken, but wonderfully resilient. There is no point in trying to deceive the heart. It depends upon our honesty for its survival. 1 Some indigenous cultures believe that the heart is the bridge between Father Sky and Mother Earth. 2 I share their belief that openness of heart is at the source for sustaining both spiritual and emotional health for all people. I also believe that when we take time to sit in silence, both our minds and hearts will open naturally. Clarity and silence of mind and openness of heart are expressions of our own true nature. 1 Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love 2 Angeles Arrien, The Four Fold Way, p.50.
Rev. Meg Anzalone 2 Deep in our hearts we store our hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, loves and losses, dreams and despair. The heart is the chamber within ourselves, where we hold all our emotions and desires, a place of emptiness and fullness! In the chambers of our hearts we bless ourselves and we curse ourselves. It is where we listen to music, seek to find what is lost, meditate in silence, grope in despair, search for truth and meaning, cry without sound, a place to rest, a place to practice love and compassion, a place to practice courage, a place to hide, a place to emerge from! The heart is the place we choose to constrict or awaken, responding to the mysteries as they present themselves to us! When we answer the call of love in our lives we pay attention to what has heart and meaning for us. The journey of life coaxes us to love ourselves and others, and so we probe deeper into the sinews of our hearts, and begin to ask ourselves the deeper questions. How can we cultivate openness in our lives? What emotional memories need healing? How can we soften the closed places and reopen those chambers in our heart for the betterment of ourselves and our world? What pictures and stories do our hearts hold? Which of these stories have or have not been told? How do we maintain a stance of openness to life and learn to embrace the principle of paying attention to what has heart and meaning for us? Healers of every tradition recognize the power of love. Opening our hearts we try to live our own lives with truth and intention. Taking an excerpt from the book the Little Prince, It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. For that which is essential is invisible to the eye. 3 3 Antoine de Saint.. Exupery, The Little Prince
Rev. Meg Anzalone 3 Openness of heart connects us to life and helps us to embrace the wider world, holding our hands in love, while at the same time holding on to what is essential for ourselves. When we choose to open our hearts and hold our hands open wide, embracing our call of love in the world, and when we do carefully pay attention to what has heart and meaning for us, instead of ignoring it, or passing it off as trivial, we begin to understand the mystery of ourselves a little more, and we gain strength to risk the opening. Opening our hearts allows us to know and to be known, and gives us the power to love ourselves and others, and we find joy! When love happens we feel accepted and valued for who we really are. We can even begin to seek the happiness we desire! In the center of our hearts we find the balance of our bodies and our spirits, unconditional love, and vulnerability. Openness of heart is a risky business! As C.S. Lewis reminds us: Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in the casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. 4 As human beings in the natural world, we are surrounded by an immense universe worthy of our attention. From the starry skies, to the running rivers, the freely, floating clouds, and dusty deserts, animal creatures, great and small, and other humans of every size, color, shape, and variety. We are part of the web of life. 4 C. S. Lewis, Four Loves.
Rev. Meg Anzalone 4 We cannot be truly ourselves in any adequate manner without all our companion beings throughout the earth. This larger community constitutes our greater self. 5 Even when our hearts are constricted and filled with fear, we are creatures of connection. We make each other possible! Do we go against the grain of our own true nature, escaping from ourselves and our fears, instead of probing truthfully, discovering that our fears are not what we imagined them to be? How can we run away from our own inner nature, our own divine heritage? 6 The more we bury our fears and run away from them, the more powerful they become. In the blink of an eye, our molehill turns into a mountain! The tendency is to want to find the answers outside. We think we are the only one left in the dark, and that everyone else has all the answers! In the deep places of the heart we may sometimes be alone feeling sad, even depressed, uncertain, isolated. Our fears constrict our hearts, keeping them closed. Even in those times when we experience the dark places, we can find the wisdom of our hearts! Being alive and awake in the midst of our fears, we can examine, and ask ourselves where we experience inner conflict? Paying attention to our fears, even learning to befriend them, free us to move beyond them. When we are able to embrace our fears, we begin to envision all of life differently. We stop running away, allowing ourselves to sit still. Opening our hearts to ourselves first, we find that our fear diminishes. We experience freedom. By opening our hearts, we choose love over fear, mystery over misery, desire over dread, and compassion over complacency! 5 Thomas Berry, Loneliness and Presence, Evening Thoughts Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community 6 Peter & Maria Kingsley, The Dark Places of Wisdom
Rev. Meg Anzalone 5 Opening our hearts gives us a way of expanding our horizons, transforming ourselves and the world with love! Children help us to focus on such openness of heart. They keep our sense of wonder alive and teach us to look honestly at ourselves and our world. Innately, they recognize our primordial need for relationships with nature, with animals, with one another, and in their pure simplicity, sensitivity and innocence, they encourage us to stay open, that crisp clarity that breaks our hearts open to the world! With hearts open to the world we are not quite the same as we used to be. We might even find our hearts burning with desire, or even wanting to make meaning in our suffering. With Thich Nhat Hanh we say: Peace is every step. The shining red sun is my heart. Each flower smiles with me. How green, how fresh all that grows. How cool the wind blows. Peace is every step. It turns the endless path to joy. 7 Our hearts are strong and soft, closed and changeable, steadfast and stubborn, rigid and relaxed, tender and turbulent, imaginative and ignorant, patient and passionate, cowardly and courageous, frozen and fervent. And this is just any day at the edge of the pond, or is it? The seed-grain turn into wheat, the heron opens his wings, little catbirds emerge breaking open their eggs, the river discovers what she had been looking for was already inside her, and the turtle leaves her eggs for the world to take care of? 8 7 Maura D. Shaw, in Thich Nhat Hanh Buddhism in Action, p. 24. 8 Mary Oliver, Mysteries, Four of the Simple Ones in New and Selected Poems, Volume Two, P.9
Rev. Meg Anzalone 6 When we pay attention to what has heart and meaning for us, we discover like Helen Keller did that The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart. 9 Indeed, there is a deep connection between our inner and outer worlds. As we listened to and experienced the words of the Anthem, so beautifully sung by the choir this morning, In the heart of the world there is only found, only a song of peace and it sings for everyone in the heart of the world for as long as it takes. (Bob Chilcott, In the Heart of the World ) May we find peace, hope and love deep within recognizing that the human heart, at whatever age, opens to the heart that opens in return. 10 In the heart of the world we bring peace, hope, and love. We already have everything we need to know, deep in the darkness inside ourselves. And our longing, if we dare to follow it all the way, is what turns us inside out, until we find the sun and the moon and the stars inside. 11 As our opening hearts turn inside out, we find ourselves at the edge of the pond in the heart of the world! Roar, lion of the heart, and tear me open. 12 What else can we do when the mysteries present themselves? 13 9 Helen Keller, U.S. Blind and Deaf Educator (1880 1968) 10 Maria Edgeworth, Castle Rackrent (1800) 11 Peter Kingsley, The Dark Places of Wisdom 12 Coleman Barks, The Illuminated Rumi, p.45 13 Mary Oliver, Mysteries, Four of the Simple Ones in New and Selected Poems, Volume Two,
Rev. Meg Anzalone 7 (Pause) Please join me in singing. Wake now my senses