Stewardship Column
March 2008
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...to uphold this congregation of the United Methodist Church by our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service. Each quarter of the liturgical year First Church focuses its attention on one area of stewardship. Stewardship is the act of recognizing that all that we have and all that we are is a gift of God, and using those gifts as caretakers of God’s kingdom here on earth. This quarter we focus on Prayer. |
Open Heart
-Marily Good (Director of Stewardship)
Several years ago author Larry McMurtry wrote about his heart surgery. He had a lot of trouble recovering mentally, because he felt as if he had been violated by the opening up of his heart. The action did, of course, save his life, but the value of that tradeoff was not immediately apparent to him.
We do cling to our hardened hearts. What are the results? What keeps us there? Enclosed in our protective vision, we don’t experience what is, but what appears to be through the veneer of our defense. Our reasoning is affected as we rationalize to make reality fit our skewed perceptions. We are in a prison of our own perceptions. We can’t allow mystery or awe or wonder or anything that would cast doubt on our point of view, because to allow one crack in the veneer risks the whole thing breaking, and we don’t know what
would happen then.
Opening the heart can be scary. But isn’t that why we go on carnival rides? We humans like risk and danger. The open heart takes us into sacred space where transformation takes place. In his book, Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr says that in sacred space “the old world is left behind, but we’re not sure of the new one yet. That’s a good space. Get there often and stay as long as you can. For a while, this reshuffling of normalcy may leave us out of center, askew. You may find yourself a man or woman without a country. That’s where I want you to be so you can find the country of God. Actually, this pattern of falling apart precedes every transition to a new level of faith. If one is not prepared to live in that temporary chaos, one never moves to deeper levels of faith or prayer or relationship with God.” He points out that in the Bible nearly every revelation of God begins with the warning, be not afraid.
To live with an open heart is to be alive to wonder, to joy, to the excitement of the unexpected. An open heart is also open to all of the suffering of ourselves and others. But an open heart holds that suffering in compassion and love, and through that love, heals the world. We can rename our fear, excitement; our entitlement, gratitude; and our bondage, freedom.
