The reward for love is closeness, a treasure that can’t be bought or stolen or achieved. It is a law of the living: care leads to intimacy. Often we discover our dearest friends when stopping to help another or when someone is kind enough to carry us when we have fallen. There is no substitute for going through things together. There is no way to language what two whales share who swim around the world together or what binds two friends who climb through a forest of years in each other’s steps. Kindness itself is a way of life. There will always be those who wait for others to lift the heavy load, those who count on you or me to make the extra effort. Do not begrudge them. For though they suffer, they have not suffered enough. When you lend a hand, you open a way for your heart to touch the heart of everything. While those we help may leave or die or simply grow into their own beauty and be loved by others, the closeness uncovered by kindness turns to light in the body, until the closeness generated by kindness makes a lamp of the heart…..Mark Nepo

no matter the deep grooves of hurt we collect in our lifetime, this is the one great thing we can lean on…..to love and to be loved….to be fully alive is to honor these grooves of hurt and then to still offer a kindness….the way of the heart is a tough journey indeed….

falling through to your heart….

Take the time to pray-

it is the sweet oil that eases the hinge into the garden

so the doorway can swing open easily.

You can always go there.

Consider yourself blessed.

These stones that break your bones

will build the altar of your love.

Your home is the garden.

Carry its odor, hidden in you, into the city.

Suddenly your enemies will buy seed packets

and fall to their knees to plant flowers

in the dirt by the road.

They’ll call you Friend

and honor your passing among them.

When asked, ‘Who was that? they will say.

‘Oh, that one has been beloved by us

since before time began.’

This from people who would have trampled over you

to maintain their advantage.

Give everything away except your garden,

Your worry, your fear, your small-mindedness.

Your garden can never be taken from you.

……Lynn Park

may you be blessed with the secret truths of the sacred warrior…when we find the place where we can love, we unravel into wholeness…we become ourselves and have a tremendous amount of life to offer others…..