Rumi, a great Muslim Scholar said it this way: “You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”
Dalai Lama from the Buddhist tradition, says it this way: “An open heart is an open mind.”
Hebrew Scriptures say it this way via the Prophet Micah: “This is what Yahweh asks of you..to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God”.
Christian Scriptures say it this way in the Letter to the Ephesians: ” I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know the hope to which God has called you.”
Jesus says it this way: “A new command, I give you, love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
So, what’s the problem? On some levels, it’s quite simple….we need to start listening with hearts that are broken open by pain and promise, to think with a mind that is both open and reflective, to act in ways that reflect justice and tenderness (compassion) and to walk that walk with our Creator and one another, to seek the hope that we are all called to, and to love one another!!!!! And YES, it was quite easy to weave all the above quotes from the major traditions reflected herein, into a coherent, consistent thought, a call to a way of life and a way of relating to others. The more difficult part is “living it”. That reality is borne out all over our world today and sometimes there seems to be more suffering and pain and hatred than our hearts can hold.
We hear it in our daily news, we see and hear it over and over and over again. It would be so easy to give up HOPE, yet that is precisely what those who walk in darkness, want us to do. If we give up, if we stop being “who we claim to be regardless of our religious or spiritual traditions”, then darkness wins!.
So, as we journey in the days and weeks and months ahead, let’s just try to rediscover who we say we are and be people of hope and compassion, of justice and tenderness, of open minds and open hearts.
May our hearts be opened…and may we live and be HOPE today and every day.
Sr. Debbie Blow