Aligning with Grace

This is the time of year many of us go on vacation... We begin to slow down.... My favorite places to visit are religious or spiritual in nature - mostly connected to a spiritual titan of the past. I relish walking the same land and perhaps the same path that someone I hold in high esteem for their thoughts or insightful writings once walked. But don't get me wrong, I like a beach trip or a European trip as much as much as anyone else as well! For several years, at least before the pandemic, I loved going to Florida, where I went to college, to visit many friends, and relatives that live there. But I've especially enjoyed exploring places - or journeying deep inside of myself just as much as getting on a plane. Yes, I call it - taking a journey of the heart... Whether you go away this summer, or whether you are unable to venture forth, go on a pilgrimage of the heart, It doesn't take much or cost anything. Just some quiet time is all that is needed. And some stillness. A go...

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...