Starting Point The heart has moving parts
By JAMES STEPHEN BEHRENS
Two friends traveled far to visit me here at the monastery. Anne
and Pat are from New Jersey. They have been blessed with a warm, enduring
friendship and easily share that gift.
One night we sat on the porch of the retreat house. Pat was
talking about life and how with a turn to the right or left such momentous
things can happen. That first meeting of ones life mate may well have
been the result of the taking of another road. The fanciful decision to turn
and pick another spot on the beach offers a new friend. The loss of a ticket
means a new reservation and a new days travel and the meeting of new
people.
Any day is an infinite variety of turns, from radio dials to those
left and right movements our feet must make on streets, grocery store aisles,
the sands of beaches, the sands of time.
It can get dizzying. Looking back, I think about all the roads I
could have taken and did not, all the people I could have met and did not. All
the things that could have happened and did not -- all because I went left
instead of right, or right instead of left, or took a new turn in a road, a new
twist to a day.
So there we were just a few nights ago engaged in the warmth of a
conversation the likes of which can only happen between friends who have shared
years and good times and some painful ones. We spoke of these, too: those turns
that hit us from the outside and hurt. But such pain, I think now, has made us
turn to each other. That is good and beautiful, even sacred.
I have read that the universe is moving. The whole thing is headed
somewhere. I do not know if it turns. The earth, I know, does. It revolves
through this much larger movement of the cosmos. I do not think that our hearts
are all that attuned to such vast turns and fantastic journeys through time and
space. But God has designed everything with moving parts, including the
heart.
I think back to a few nights ago, to the turn of events on a porch
in a place of rest and peace. Amidst all the changes the three of us have gone
through, there has been and is a definite and loving turn to our years and
hearts. There has been a steady and yet chosen path all these years. My friends
turned south and came here. And I turn my heart and words toward them this
early morning.
Time to get moving and start my day. Lots of turns ahead. Lots of
turns behind me. I trust in a loving God who lives in each and every turn: the
big ones and, more important, the kind friends talk about on porches.
Theyre the best turns on any road.
Trappist Fr. James Stephen Behrens lives at Holy Spirit
Monastery in Conyers, Ga.
National Catholic Reporter, July 27,
2001
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