Listen With Your Heart ...



Any ordinary favor we do for someone or any compassionate reaching out may seem to be going nowhere at first, but may be planting a seed we can't see right now. Sometimes we need to just do the best we can and then trust in an unfolding we can't design or ordain.

- Sharon Salzberg 

All things have value, seen and unseen.  Sometimes we are blessed by immediate understanding of a thought, word, or deed while other times we must just trust that all will be as it needs to be. 

We must not let negative ego chatter talk us out of our authentic desires to be open hearted.  Gestures of kindness committed in private or public, prompted by heartfelt goodness will hit the bulls eye in good speed.  Stepping through vulnerabilities and weakness, overcoming personal fear, our confidence, dignity, and integrity soar.

With an open heart, we overhear Divine guidance prompting spontaneous actions.  Once I was told 'gut feelings' were authentic responses not having time to be censored by the mind.  When we allow our selves to be open to opportunities to assist others, Spirit can move us around where we need to be. 

We must broaden the concept of giving.  Giving is not limited to charity.   Treating fellow human beings in the brightest light possible enrichens our own lives as well as others.  It feels good to give!

When we were a family of six traveling to my parents home down south, we stopped at a small town cafe for our lunch.  The four children squabbled over who would sit where, and my then husband and myself sat where seats were remaining.  As we gathered around the round table, the locals looked us up one side and then down the other, finally turning their gazes back to their meals.

When our food came, none too soon for the fidgiting children, we all held hands and sang our family blessing as quietly as we could.  "Oh the Lord is good to us, and so we thank the Lord, for giving us the things we need, the sun, the rain, and the apple seed.  The Lord is good to us! Amen." 

An older man approached our table.  He said he wanted to buy our meal as we had reminded him so much of his years as a young father with family gathered around his table.  He had tears in his eyes and told us he had been touched seeing a family in prayer.  We kindly accepted this man's offer and invited him to sit with us as we finished our meal.

This was not charity.  We easily could afford our meal, but it meant so much to this local man it would have been rude to refuse.  It allowed him to connect with old memories and to feel good about his gesture.  So he was enhanced by his kindness, just as we were touched by his gesture.  And the seed ... the seed was planted that day in my children to sprout perhaps one day when they themselves are old and lonely. 

Listen to your heart.

Plant the seed, seen or unseen.

Trust in the unfolding.