...With Your Whole Heart

 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind (Deut.6).

"How is this even possible?" I wondered.  Given the lives we lead, with multiple interests, responsibilities, a variety of people with whom to interact......how is it possible to be that focused on God?  Maybe the desert fathers might have been able to be that centered, but what about those of us living in the 21st century?

As happens often, almost as soon as I ask the question, the answer appears.  I asked the question last week in a group, and this morning, I began reading an excerpt from John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love:

The center of the soul is God. When the soul shall have reached Him, according to its essence, and according to the power of its operations, it will then have attained to its ultimate and deepest center in God. This will be when the soul shall love Him, comprehend Him, and enjoy Him with all its strength.

Reading this passage, it began to dawn on me that I had been thinking about God as another object in the universe -- Someone "out there," outside of myself, another Person to whom I had to relate, along with all the other relationships I had.  Someone Else who claimed my attention, along with all the other responsibilities in my life. 

My mornings begin each day with two cats demanding to be fed, brushed, watered, attended to -- not to mention the neighborhood cat who waits on the porch at 4:00 am to be fed.  Of course, there is no comparison here to the mother of three or four who must attend to multiple demands of her children from morning to night, and even through the night.  And then, possibly go to work and face the demands of her boss and perhaps customers throughout the day.  At night, her goal is only to make sure the children are tucked safely into bed before she falls exhausted into sleep herself.  Where, then, is the time and energy to fulfill the command to "Love the Lord your God with all your .... strength?"

If we follow the thinking of John of the Cross, however, we do not have to add God to our list of "things to do and people to see."  Rather, since the center of our soul is God, we can find ourselves attending to our very center -- the place from which we do all these other things outside of ourselves.  In other words, "with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind" refer to the center of our daily operations.  One of the great saints said, "My me is You!"  (My translation:  My heart is You! My soul is You! My strength is You! My mind is You!)  

As John said, "...according to its essence, and according to the power of its operations...."

Where is the center out of which we operate and face the day's demands?  What is the strength that enables us to survive, to greet others, to order our small universe with peace and harmony?  From whence do we draw wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to solve the problems of each day? Where is the center......"according to the power of our operations"?

If our center is ourselves, our own knowledge and wisdom, our own strength and endurance, our own minds and hearts, we are poor indeed and most unlikely to survive very long at all in the face of difficulties.  If our center is indeed God Himself, if we draw from Him the powers we need to face each day, we draw closer to Him as we rely on His knowledge, wisdom, and strength.  

We don't need to look outside of ourselves to love God with all our hearts, minds, and souls.  We need only look within, at our very center.  And when we discover His Light at the center of our being, His Love becoming the Source of our love, His wisdom addressing our problems ----- then we will indeed love Him with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, and our whole strength.