“Spirituality is the tuning of the inner person with the great mysteries and secrets that are around us.”
- U Thant
The great Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel, suggests that the reward for such inner tuning is a sense of peace, and that by finding and inhabiting our place in the ever-changing universe, we strengthen the fabric of life itself:
By being what we are…by attuning our own yearning to the lonely holiness in this world, we will aid humanity more than any particular service we may render.
Herschel implies that the world is not complete until fitted with our yearning, that just as the Earth would be barren without trees, plants, vegetables and flowers, the holiness of the world, waiting just below the surface, will stay barren without the spirited growth of our dreams, creativity, generosity and love.
It seems that the first destiny of being here is to root our being in the world, that the world needs this as much as we need each other.
When fully here, we touch what is before us - life-force to life-force, essence to essence. When asleep or numb or moving too fast, we only touch surface to surface. And without the glow of life-force, that glow of essence, things just get in the way.
At the deepest level, the most essential level, listening entails a constant effort to feel that moment where everything touches everything else. It seems that the feel of truth and meaning waits below the surface, and it’s the heart of listening that allows the life-force in all things to touch us.
This fundamental listening invokes a commitment to keep what is true before us. Such listening opens us to the never-ending art of tuning our inner person to the mysteries that surround us. We do this through the work of honouring what we experience, with honouring every bit of life we encounter.
I HONOUR YOU
At the deepest level, when I say I honour you, this means that, when I become conscious or aware of you, I make a commitment to keep that truth visible from that moment forward. To honour you means that what I’ve learned about you becomes part of our geography. It means that what has become visible and true will not become invisible again.
I HONOUR MYSELF
To honour myself, then means that, as I grow, I will not ignore or hide the parts of my soul and humanness that become more present in me and the world. To honour myself means that I make a commitment to keep the truth of who I am visible; that I will not let the truth of my being become invisible again. Or if it does, I will stay devoted to retrieving it.
I HONOUR GOD
To honour God means that we vow to keep all that we become aware of in view; that we will not pretend to be ignorant of things we know to be true or holy. And if we forget or get distracted or derailed, we will stay devoted to retrieving the ever-present sense of the sacred.
- Mark Nepo, “Seven Thousand Ways To Listen”
“Stay devoted to moving beyond the literal fact of things. For waiting under the surface, like an inner sun, the life-force or heartbeat of the Universe will reveal itself and connect us to the sheer power of what is vital in life.”
- Mark Nepo
The Heart Knows
All of us are musicians
whether we have been trained to read music or not.
All of us are musicians through the virtue of being born
like the petals opening on the rose
or the robin making her nest
we humans, too, know how to listen to the impulse of life
to attune our instrument to that of the orchestra.
Our hearts know.
And our journey, as humans,
is to remember.
- Patti Wardlaw
