warrior heart

Today I began reading Jack Kornfield's book, A Path With Heart. A member of my congregration gave it to me as a going away gift...and today I made myself choose to read it rather than the junky novels I have been feasting upon. Somehow, in someway, I have been lightly avoiding my spiritual path, which has been fine...because it is where I have been in my heart.

But, I long for more now...and truly want to be able to use this liminal space time to deepen my heart, to be honest with myself, and to focus on this precious life I get to live between birth and death. (an idea from Kornfield.)

In any case, the first chapter is a story of his personal journey of meditation and learning from his teachers and asking the questions readers might be asking: "how can we bring our spiritual practise to flower everyday?" (p. 5) He spoke of learning a way of life, a lifelong practise of
awakening..attention...surrender...commitment...and that our difficulties, whatever they may be (I would call them life challenges/themes) are a part of our practise.
awakening...
attention...
surrender...
commitment...

these are concepts...practises I need to learn...I live my spiritual practise in spits and starts and blotches...and maybe that is how I will always be...but I do want to be more awake, which I think is embracing honesty about oneself....and then, coming face to face with the good, the bad, the ugly and the wondrous....to simply watch it...pay attention...ask questions....probe deeper...listen....and then surrender it all....and commit. Commit to being on the journey, without a destination, without a prayer, but within a prayer....

Kornfield says we need to have warrior spirits to engage on the spiritual practise of life.....to embrace courage, to be embodied in our hearts...to not only mentally show up, but to bodily and emotionally show up...for everyday....everymoment...(my spin on that...)

This window is me. The soft blurs of tattered curtains open out in to a yard of color, of metal and earth, of sun and wind and possibilities in what is beyond what I can see...I pray to embrace the warrior heart in me, to have the courage and spirit and soul to move into that yard of elemental life, beckoning, calling, questioning....
Amen.