Keeping an Open Heart
Just a few days ago, I read this excerpt in Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott, and I've re-read it several times: "We try to do our best, and then a whole snowy hillside buries a thousand people. Life is eruptions, spasms, just as in our families. If you keep your heart open, these traumas beat you down. But against all odds, something emerges from the wreckage in our hearts, so we can bear witness... Love falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. Love pulls people back to their feet. Bodies and souls are fed. Bones and lives heal. New blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises." If we keep our hearts open, we will be hurt. But, if we keep them closed, we never truly live or experience the joy of loving... I remember thinking in my mid 40's, that I had done a pretty good job avoiding severe pain in my life. Up until then, I thought I had lived a pretty easy and charmed existence. Not that I had ne...