“And Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” ₁

How does my heart keep anything?  Does my heart keep anything?

Do I have any experience at pondering?  With my mind, perhaps, holding an idea?  But how about feelings?  When I have a strong emotional experience, or a difficulty involving my feelings, what does the mind do?

Do I have a practice where the mind and the feelings ponder things of the heart?

I have the sense that there is something that I can practice, to soften my heart, but I do not know what that might be.

Today, let us try something simple, something that seems almost unrelated to feeling, something in the direction of pondering in the heart:

I take a weakness that I have: maybe small, maybe great; whichever one comes to mind first.  I hold it.  I don’t think about it, or fantasize about it.  I don’t move it around or turn it over.  I hold it.

I take a weight on my heart, a stone: perhaps a pebble, perhaps a boulder.  Like the weakness, I hold that, too.  Now I am holding two things.

I take a person who bothers me.  I could like them a lot or dislike them.  Whoever comes to mind first, I hold.

Now, the mind has a task as well: to remember.  It remembers that I am holding a weakness, a weight, a person—-perhaps in my body.  It guards against thoughts and pictures of these things I hold.

If I have not clearly got these three to hold, or if the task falls apart, I find a quiet place to re-initiate.

I hold these three things.

What will happen?

I don’t know.

That’s wonderful.

_{.                                                                                              1} Luke 2:19

Lou Gottlieb                    4/29/2009