I love it when I find what I least expect, Spirit just sounding off with a gem in moments when I’m doing something seemingly non-spiritual in nature! Like deciding to spend an hour in leisure reading, then picking up a novel by Michael Connelly, titled “Lost Light” (even the synchronicity of its title initially escaped me) and coming upon this opening page offered before the beginning of the first chapter.
“There is no end of things in the heart.
Somebody once told me that. She said it came from a poem she believed in. She understood it to mean that if you took something to heart, really brought it inside those red velvet folds, then it would always be there waiting. No matter what happened, it would be there waiting. She said this could mean a person, a place, a dream. A mission. Anything sacred. She told me that it is all connected in those secret folds. Always. It is all part of the same and will always be there, carrying the same beat as your heart.
I am fifty-two years old and I believe it. At night when I try to sleep but can’t, that is when I know it. It is when all the pathways seem to connect and I see people I have loved and hated and helped and hurt. I see hands that reach for me. I hear the beat and see and understand what I must do. I know my mission and I know there is no turning away or turning back. And it is in those moments that I know there is no end of things of the heart.”
Coming upon this has caused a shift in how I will, from this point on, think about Michael Connolly; he is no longer just a great writer of suspense/thriller fiction. I will also see him as a spiritually-grounded man whose calling just happens to be to write page-turning fiction about characters the reader comes to love and care about.
And this experience has prompted me to write this blog which has for its center the question: Am I always open to the unexpected? And you know by now, if you’ve been reading my previous blogs, I write them for you as well, to join in with this process of self-reflection, compassionate curiosity, and greater self-awareness, all in the interests of perhaps becoming more aligned with who we truly are, connected with our heart space and all that supports our realization of who we’ve come here to be.
Looking back and scrolling through memories from my recent past, I can easily recall times when I have allowed myself to step into old ways of seeing dear friends because I haven’t heard from them as often as I wanted/needed. I was entertaining ego thoughts like “I/We don’t matter,” only to then receive a call from them, wanting to chat or asking if they could drop by and visit us for a while.
“Silly me! There I go again!” * See note about this at the end of this blog.
Or I’m beginning to feel “put upon” by requests of my time or support by my wife and while I may begrudgingly give in and do what she has asked, I still quietly carry my grudge around in my head, a grudge that also includes in the package some judgments about her. “She doesn’t really love me” or “my plans for how I was going to spend my day don’t matter!” So, when she leaves to run some errands and comes back with a pair of shorts or a shirt for me, I feel…you guessed it…stupid!
“Silly me! There I go again!”
I wonder just how many other times in my life have I been closed down and unable to see an opportunity, a blessing, right there before me, if I had only opened my heart and been receptive to claim it? How often do I still have my head down and my mind so focused on the “DO-ing” that I miss the most important aspect of living: BE-ing!
How about you? Are you always open to the unexpected? Can you envision how your life might be different if you lifted your view a little higher and allowed the horizon to be wider, more inclusive? What if nothing remained in the way of your experiencing the fulfillment of the unlimited possibilities that await you? Can you catch a glimpse of it? Can you see what’s in the way and are you ready to take whatever action your heart is whispering for you to take?
I hope so!
Love & Light, Steven
* For any of you who aren’t familiar with this exclamation, it’s something I say to myself when I’ve jumped to an erroneous or false belief or judgment about myself or someone else; it’s a reminder for me to be compassionate with myself for “being human.” On a good day, I catch myself before I say or do anything I’ll regret.)