How to Follow Your Heart: Part 2

Start with a cup of coffee.  Fast from coffee altogether.

But pay attention, and let words mean something.  To pay requires cost.

Be quiet.  Find the quiet in the noise.   If no quiet can be found, then sleep, and dream of it.

Breathe.   Oxygen and its life are rarely overrated.   Holding breath does nothing but turn you blue.

Listen.   At the very least, speak more softly.   Not always, but sometimes.   Spirits tend to hover when ears are attuned.

Read.  More.   Take things in.  Discern.  Keep.  Throw away.  And leave the trash alone; digging in it stinks.

Walk.   Go for walks.   Houses, sidewalks, and skies hide masterpieces in plain sight.

Look.  Don’t comment, just look.  See not what you want to see, but what’s there.

Bite your tongue when destruction’s on its tip.

Don’t forget what music moves you.  And once you’ve remembered, don’t fail to turn it on.

Write songs.  Even if you can’t sing, and know nothing of music.

Don’t forget that poems need not rhyme.  But they do need to stand.   Or at least walk a bit.

Dance.  Deny yourself that, even at parent’s insistence (they may be dead, after all), and you forfeit muscle, tone, and grace.  Not to mention joy.

Syllogize.  Make up words for that matter.   If “A” cannot be “non-A”, don’t force it.

Think.   When cognitive dissonance is unbearable, bear it, and think.

When walking in rain, release the muscles and slow down.  Tension is no umbrella.

Give.   Money burns, and is mostly too expensive.   Hoarding is a synonym for fear.

Pray.   Forget it working…talk with God.  Be frank, and let that be enough.

Obey.   The conscience is there.  Ignore it at your heart’s peril.   Authority must be given somewhere.

Delight.   Each one’s good is a gift.   Delight in it as it sustains you and those you love.

Weep.    Don’t be afraid to crack wide open.   What bleeds through is that heart you’re looking for.

Choose.  Life and death result, neither of which are abstractions.

Act.   Passivity is decay, though patience is needed.   Still…move.

Trust.   Who are we to think we arrive knowing anything?   God help us.   He will.

Love.   The greatest of these is love.   True.   What does love mean?  How do I do it?   Will I ever find it?

That answer lies at the end of long journeys along roads I think of as the heart to follow.

His is the heart to follow, to find my own.

Rest.

Do again.