"I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." (Song of Songs 6: 3)
Policy proposals from candidates for public office are expected and necessary. But in our current condition of collective psychic fracture, that which we are in dire need of is a general -- and personal -- renewal of heart: without which, every word is inconsequential... But more, without a renewal of heart, every word is an invitation to increase every divide...
How to "renew the heart"? I'll get to that, but first let me ask you, whom do you see in the image above? Your answer is, or is not, the pathway to the renewal of the heart...
Every heart has a, if you will, a "technical function": it works in a vital union with the brain to keep the body alive, right? But did you know that the heart also has a "spiritual function"? Of course you did...
On a very dear and personal level, each one of us "hungers" to give our heart away... and to receive in return, the heart of another, right? This yearning for the fulfillment of "romantic" love, for sexual union and delight, and for the comforts of "home", of "place", of "purpose", and of "being wanted" is the stuff of poetry, literature, and of every art. It fills the annals of film making as it fills our fantasies and day dreams... Romantic love is an important step in the development of the heart's "spiritual function", indeed, romantic love is integral to the deepest realms of spirituality...
Without the experience of romantic love, it is nearly, though not impossible, to "sink" into the spiritual heart... The modern mystic, author, and priest Matthew Fox counsels us to "fall in love everyday"... Rev. Fox has, like mystics before him, experienced the absolute necessity of loving our way into the deepest realms of the heart: that is, in fact, the only way to get there... Loving is either deeply personal or it is just a vapid, pointless, mindless theory... sort of like what is passing for religion these days (perhaps for all days)...
Now, back to the photograph. If you immediately see in it the face of the young Madonna and Her Son, then your heart is giving evidence of having moved into longing... This longing is the key to the door of the heart: that door only opens by means of the Key of Compassion. There is no other route into the heart besides that of an activated compassion... Yeshua the Poet of Nazareth ("Yeshua" is "Jesus" in his native language of Aramaic) clearly and concisely articulated this Key -- and instructed in its use...
For I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in... Truly I tell you, inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me...
So, there you have both the Key of Compassion and all that need initially be a policy proposal from a candidate for public office. 1) Adequate nutrition for every person on this precious blue Planet; 2) Adequate clean water for every person on this precious blue Planet; and 3) The welcomed safety of "home" for every person on this precious blue Planet. These most basic human needs are linked to every other human need -- and the needs of every human who will be alive seven generations from now...
You can choose to be anxious about anything, or about anyone: that's pretty simple, right? You can be anxious about a gay man being elected President, or a black woman, or about an immigrant knocking on your door asking for safe refuge. You can also forget about Flint, Michigan, or children in cages, or whatever. Our minds our fantastic instruments useful for either blessing or cursing. But!
But! But, if you want to entertain the better angels of your heart (you do, right?), then you simply have to be about the renewal of your heart! As already written, the door to the heart only opens by means of the Key of Compassion... After opening your heart, you need to intentionally cultivate compassion through falling -- deeper and deeper and deeper -- into loving... loving this person, loving that person, loving all the way into loving everyone and everything: why? Because you have been delightfully made in the Image and Likeness of the Divine Beloved Who is Always Love-Without-Limits... You can "consciously descend" into your heart through contemplative prayer... You can gaze upon an Icon of the Beloved and come to Identify as Oneness with the Beloved...
When you have, finally, taken up "residence" in your heart, you will be home... The Beloved is There... And now go ahead and laugh yourself silly with the great revelation: so is everyone and everything else! You didn't know it, but your little-bitty heart holds within it the entire universe. How could it be otherwise? You are your beloved's and your beloved is yours...
I am neither priest nor candidate for any political office. All that I am and have are the years of living-dying-living on the Chinatown Streets of Salinas... My heart has been shattered so often and deeply that my wife has wondered how it manages to keep on going... This is what matters, today and everyday, to dive again and again, into the heart: though it be broken many times over and just a leaking machine, loving awareness is the Home of the Beloved... and so one just sleeps and awakens into opportunities to keep the loving-flowing... that's it and that's everything...
Policy proposals from candidates for public office are expected and necessary. But in our current condition of collective psychic fracture, that which we are in dire need of is a general -- and personal -- renewal of heart: without which, every word is inconsequential... But more, without a renewal of heart, every word is an invitation to increase every divide...
How to "renew the heart"? I'll get to that, but first let me ask you, whom do you see in the image above? Your answer is, or is not, the pathway to the renewal of the heart...
Every heart has a, if you will, a "technical function": it works in a vital union with the brain to keep the body alive, right? But did you know that the heart also has a "spiritual function"? Of course you did...
On a very dear and personal level, each one of us "hungers" to give our heart away... and to receive in return, the heart of another, right? This yearning for the fulfillment of "romantic" love, for sexual union and delight, and for the comforts of "home", of "place", of "purpose", and of "being wanted" is the stuff of poetry, literature, and of every art. It fills the annals of film making as it fills our fantasies and day dreams... Romantic love is an important step in the development of the heart's "spiritual function", indeed, romantic love is integral to the deepest realms of spirituality...
Without the experience of romantic love, it is nearly, though not impossible, to "sink" into the spiritual heart... The modern mystic, author, and priest Matthew Fox counsels us to "fall in love everyday"... Rev. Fox has, like mystics before him, experienced the absolute necessity of loving our way into the deepest realms of the heart: that is, in fact, the only way to get there... Loving is either deeply personal or it is just a vapid, pointless, mindless theory... sort of like what is passing for religion these days (perhaps for all days)...
Now, back to the photograph. If you immediately see in it the face of the young Madonna and Her Son, then your heart is giving evidence of having moved into longing... This longing is the key to the door of the heart: that door only opens by means of the Key of Compassion. There is no other route into the heart besides that of an activated compassion... Yeshua the Poet of Nazareth ("Yeshua" is "Jesus" in his native language of Aramaic) clearly and concisely articulated this Key -- and instructed in its use...
For I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in... Truly I tell you, inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me...
So, there you have both the Key of Compassion and all that need initially be a policy proposal from a candidate for public office. 1) Adequate nutrition for every person on this precious blue Planet; 2) Adequate clean water for every person on this precious blue Planet; and 3) The welcomed safety of "home" for every person on this precious blue Planet. These most basic human needs are linked to every other human need -- and the needs of every human who will be alive seven generations from now...
You can choose to be anxious about anything, or about anyone: that's pretty simple, right? You can be anxious about a gay man being elected President, or a black woman, or about an immigrant knocking on your door asking for safe refuge. You can also forget about Flint, Michigan, or children in cages, or whatever. Our minds our fantastic instruments useful for either blessing or cursing. But!
But! But, if you want to entertain the better angels of your heart (you do, right?), then you simply have to be about the renewal of your heart! As already written, the door to the heart only opens by means of the Key of Compassion... After opening your heart, you need to intentionally cultivate compassion through falling -- deeper and deeper and deeper -- into loving... loving this person, loving that person, loving all the way into loving everyone and everything: why? Because you have been delightfully made in the Image and Likeness of the Divine Beloved Who is Always Love-Without-Limits... You can "consciously descend" into your heart through contemplative prayer... You can gaze upon an Icon of the Beloved and come to Identify as Oneness with the Beloved...
When you have, finally, taken up "residence" in your heart, you will be home... The Beloved is There... And now go ahead and laugh yourself silly with the great revelation: so is everyone and everything else! You didn't know it, but your little-bitty heart holds within it the entire universe. How could it be otherwise? You are your beloved's and your beloved is yours...
I am neither priest nor candidate for any political office. All that I am and have are the years of living-dying-living on the Chinatown Streets of Salinas... My heart has been shattered so often and deeply that my wife has wondered how it manages to keep on going... This is what matters, today and everyday, to dive again and again, into the heart: though it be broken many times over and just a leaking machine, loving awareness is the Home of the Beloved... and so one just sleeps and awakens into opportunities to keep the loving-flowing... that's it and that's everything...
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