Aligning with Grace

Recently, I came across these questions posited by Henri Nouwen, who was one of my favorite spiritual writers from the seventies, in addition to Thomas Merton, whose centenary happens to be today. Both of these prolific writers, teachers, priests and mystics, exerted a deep influence on my spirituality. I read and reflected on these questions, finding them to be quite powerful and a useful tool, and so I saved them, because they are truly perennial questions - meant to be asked over and over again - scrutinized, masticated, authentically pondered, and even verbalized out loud, until they become so deeply internalized that they become part of the fabric of our minds, our prayers, our hearts, and our spirituality. I can think of no better questions to ask myself at the end of my day as I take time to review  events experienced and encountered, before drifting off to sleep or finishing my night prayers. As I close out the first month of this still, fairly new year, I commit...

I enter softly into a sacred week - a Holy Week... This is a week sacred to many - with Passover and Holy Week intertwined... Holy Week is ushered in with Palm Sunday, on a magnificent weekend coinciding with the peaking of cherry blossoms, resplendent in every way, all over the city... I walk under an exquisite canopy of blossoms, enveloped in their beauty, as they "rain" their petals on my head, anointing me... In these moments, I feel a sense of oneness and presence that borders on pure ecstasy.  For over a year I have prayed and made the request - "Create a clean heart in me," (Psalm 51) seeking to embody the way and path of the heart... And this sacred season, I have sought to reflect its essence even more deeply... "The converted person does not say that nothing matters anymore, but that everything that is, happens in God and that God is the dwelling place where we come to know the true order of things... The converted person says: 'All ...

Nearly halfway through this Lenten season, I am reminded that it has been a journey of the heart, every step of the way - a journey of breaking the heart wide open! Every single day, I come across a reading, or  a quote that speaks of the primacy of the heart in all things... ... Psalms that proclaim the cleansing and creation of new hearts, or readings by a desert Christian monk speaking of the necessary circumcision of hearts, or other passages extolling the opening - or healing of hearts, the rending and mending of hearts, and the tilling of the fertile soil within hearts, culminating in the eventual reconciliation of the heart. Just this morning I read this passage: "If you open your heart, love opens your mind." ~ Charles John Quarto If your heart opens - it heals, it transforms and transmutes all things, as difficult as this seemingly unending journey can at times be ... "O that today you would listen to God's voice! Harden not your heart...

Everything can be a blessing, if you have the eyes to see - and the ears to hear... Everything can be a blessing - even life's greatest challenges, come bearing blessings... In meditation, and deepest prayer, I review the many blessings of my week... I begin the week by giving two dear ones, a blessing... That night, I attentively listen to a talk during a retreat, with the theme of blessing... In this talk one priest shares his ministry to a Hispanic community that blesses him every day. He is blessed, to be "blessed" so often! And I remember being blessed by my grandmother and mother on so many occasions... Yes, life - and every experience within it is a blessing. A blessing is hidden everywhere... At this retreat, we bless each other. My favorite priest blesses me in a beautiful way, and then I hold a bowl of water while strangers bless each other - with many of them deciding to impart an extra blessing on me. I, am visibly moved. I began my day by impartin...

"There is no fear in love;  but perfect love casts out fear,  because fear involves punishment,  and the one who fears  is not perfected in love." ~ 1 John 4:18 Perfect love, casts out all fear... If we choose perfect love, then fear cannot reside within us... I recall a dream, I had 25 years ago or more, where medieval monks in hooded robes, danced in a circle, holding hands, chanting over and over again: "Perfect love, casts out all fear!" I woke with a start, somewhat fearful - ironically - not knowing why I had that dream... Perhaps it was meant to unfold with time, and it has... When we have perfect love, we live from the heart. We can choose to live from this place, even when fear stubbornly wants to hold fast onto our souls... Every day, we can choose perfect love over fear. We can choose to see love in everyone we meet, and in every situation that comes our way. Today, and every day - choose love. Choose perfect love...

A few days ago, my eyes glanced upon a book I had read back in the early eighties. I pulled The Way of the Heart, by Henri Nouwen down from my bookshelf, and flipped through it, looking at what I had chosen to underline or make a note of then. What enables us to go more deeply into the heart? This is the question I posed to my yoga students this morning... What is the way of the heart? When we go into the heart - what do we experience there? Different responses were given: love, wonder, compassion, and so forth. I noted, that when we go into the heart and live from there - we experience oneness. Nityananda, the sage of the Siddha Yoga lineage, once said: "The heart is the hub of all sacred places. Go there and roam!" We must go into our hearts to experience oneness. But the experience of oneness, also leads us back into our hearts. Our practices lead us to experience oneness - and unity in diversity. It is in the heart that we know that we belong to each other. Our practic...

There is a reason for this season, no matter what tradition we observe or celebrate... This is a time of preparation, and delving more deeply within ourselves, as we journey into the heart of winter... But, it is also a time for waiting... What a lesson this is, in a culture of instant gratification - where everything occurs instantly - where no one truly knows how to wait - or acknowledge its quiet lessons and the fruits born of its practice... For many of us, and most particularly Christians, this time of Advent ushers in the Christmas season. We prepare our hearts and home - we await with joyful expectation, exercising hospitality, generosity, and being generally of good cheer. We are pregnant with possibilities... As Mary was... Yes, anything is possible... What a positive message this is for us to digest and embody during a year that has seen much strife and negativity. But even in the midst of all of that, the promise, the seeds, and the possibility of love blooms, everywhere, mo...

I woke up this morning to a virtual winter wonderland, even though we had a very lean blanket of snow covering the ground. Still, the sun was rising in a cloudless sky, and tree branches were heavy with glistening snow. And the birds, were chirping their little hearts out! And so, I decided to make my way down to the river before meditating - which is really a "no, no" for me. But alas, only workers of the park were allowed in, so I turned back. I guess that is what I get for not meditating first! I taught yoga to a lovely student, working her edge a little more deeply, and then went to see my acupuncturist. She worked on my lungs and my "Earth" element, which she noted, are related to grief. And while I have experienced grief recently on several fronts - involving the loss of friends and so forth, my acupuncturist wisely observed that many of her clients were reacting to the tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords , and the others who lost their lives ...