A Heart Open and Enlarged

 

February 27, 2024

National Catholic Register

Hi! How is each and every one? Childlikeness is a virtue that characterizes the natural way children acquire and cultivate their knowledge about things, persons and events.  Children are curious, and they use all their five senses- touch, smell, taste, hearing, sight- to experience and know the truth. They also ask a lot of questions and they really can be persistent and insistent and eager to receive answers to their battery of questions.  They ask why, why, and why? They ask questions why and what about persons, things and events. Simultaneously they judge and confirm what is true, what is good, and what is right. They connect what they actually see and experience with the answers they receive.  Gullible as they are in asking they are equally gullible in receiving the answers.  It is indeed important that we, adults, take their questions seriously and give them true and sincere answers, protecting their innocence and their intelligence.  Nurturing such a disposition will also make us cultivate childlikeness that is crucial in the search for truth and defending it in our own life.

 Following is the continuation of the steps in achieving a transformation (From Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 3).

Openness   

 

OCSDNet

Openness is the second quality that makes transformation possible.  It is the opposite of close-mindedness.  While engaging our curiosity enables us to ask questions about our motivations, being open helps us to receive, with an open heart, the answers that come to us.  In the preceding case study, Jimmy struggled with openness.  When the memories of his behavior during the time of his brother’s illness emerged, he told himself that he was just being stupid and making excuses.  God had to nudge Jimmy through that initial close-mindedness so that Jimmy would be willing to meditate on what God was trying to reveal to him.

 

I often encounter this close-mindedness in my clients.  Memories or insights come forward and they bat them out of the way.  “That’s ridiculous!” they’ll say.  Or “That couldn’t have anything to do with this!”  They may even be right.  But being unwilling to consider the possibility that God is revealing something to us is simply foolish.  Before we reject a memory or insight, we should at least take it to prayer.  Our minds are not random.  They are orderly.  They recall things for a reason.  If I am prompted to recall a thought, insight, or memory while I am prayerfully reflecting on some struggle in my life, then it is worth meditating on whether there is at least a tenuous connection.  It can be helpful to pray further about those connections even if we ultimately reject them as irrelevant.  Being open does not require us to accept, as gospel, every silly thought that pops into our heads, but it does require us to admit that there might be more to our initial thoughts than meets the eye.  Our prayerful openness gives God the chance to develop the pictures that begin to emerge under the light of his grace.

Acceptance

Acceptance is the third quality that facilitates spiritual transformation.  Although acceptance is the opposite of self-criticism, it is not the same thing as approval.  Imagine that you are a service technician called to repair a broken piece of complicated machinery.  You arrive at the job site and take it all in.  When you see what is wrong, how do you react?  Do you take it personally?  Of course not.  Instead, you accept things for what they are and patiently set about addressing the problem.  You know the more impatient you are, the more likely it is you’ll just end up breaking something else and making the job harder. 

When we are refocusing on the process of repairing ourselves, acceptance is the quality by which we trust that “God’s grace is sufficient” and rest in him when we find our efforts are not up to the task at hand.  Yes, of course we have to make what changes we can in our life, but, like the service technician, we must realize that the job takes what it takes.  Any attempt to rush things just mucks up the process.

Acceptance does not mean that we rejoice in our brokenness as the addict does.  It simply means that we are willing to take, at face value, what appears to be wrong and what needs to be done to address it.  We address what we can, and we rejoice in what we find ourselves unable to do, knowing that God’s infinite mercy will make up the difference.

Yes, an open mind and an open heart are ready to welcome new and fresh ideas, information towards what is true and what is good;  enlightens and activates the mind and heart to decisions and judgments that are equally true and good  leading to joyful and hopeful acceptance.

Oh! Before I say adieu, may I share with you the idea I am contemplating on.  I would like to message each one of you to ask you for feedback, comments, and suggestions regarding the posts so far published and the ones you hope to see and read forward on. I am still asking around how to make it easy for each one of you to do so by sending you an evaluation form of some kind. I am curious, open and ready to accept whatever you speak with your heart and mind.  I will try my utmost best to fit in accordingly. My birthday wish on the coming month.

See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,                    

Guadalupinky