Home in the Heart

"You will discover an order and a familiarity which deepens your longing to stay at home."
With Open Hands

"The spiritual life is a journey to the center, the center in which we come in touch with the pain of God as well as with the love of God, the pain of our world as well as the hope for our world, the pains of our own lives as well as the light that breaks into our darkness. It is a journey in which we resist the many distractions that pull us away from the center with an endless number of things that quite literally 'occupy' us. And it is a journey of prayer in which we stand in the presence of God with a listening heart.

"The heart means the core of our being. It includes the deep recesses of our psyche, our moods and feelings, our emotions and passions, and also our intuitions, insights, and visions. The heart is the place where we are most human. A listening heart therefore means a heart in which we stand open to God with all we are and have. That is a great act of trust and confidence.

"An undistracted life is one in which we want to lead all we see, all we hear, and all we do to the center. Or to say it better, to the heart. It is the ongoing discipline of taking things to heart. But the heart to which we lead all things is not simply our heart. It is God's heart as well. When we take our world to the center, to the heart, we will find that the heart is the place where we meet God. From there all is transformed continuously into the image of him who is the suffering servant of Yahweh.

"God is not in the distant heavens or in the hidden depths of the future, but here and now. God has pitched a tent among us. Even more than that, God has made a home in us so that we can make God's home our home.

"We find our way home to the heart by following Jesus."