the cathedral of your soul

i once heard the human body described as a cathedral: beautiful, often ornate, but--chiefly--empty.

what fills the cathedral of the human heart?

Love.

or rather, that is how it should be.

too often, instead of allowing the Wind of love to blow freely through these lofty, inner spaces and refresh us (and through us, the world), we fill these halls with stuff.

clothes, shoes, computers, video games, music, friends, food . . . whatever the fashion of the day dictates.

because, as humans, we know we have these inner spaces. we know they were designed to be filled.

most of us just don't know with what.

so we may start with a television tucked unobtrusively in the corner. but it's impossible to stop there: before you know it, there's a stack of dvds a mile high and a mile wide blocking the windows and preventing the Wind of love--of God--from blowing through us.

sensing the empty space, the stillness in our soul, we just want more and more.

eventually, our heart becomes simultaneously full of stuff while lacking a single ounce of substance.


and, instead of feeling Love, we become inwardly unhappy--whether we realize it or not.

(i could go on and on about the problems that rise from this unhappiness--from depression to divorce--but i will allow you to draw those conclusions on your own.)

my point is this: clean yourself--your heart--out.

there is a reason Jesus' ministry was mobile: He was so full of Love, so blown with the Wind, that (i think) He was almost physically incapable of material possession--being instead compelled to spread the Love as far as He could.

"again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." -matthew 19:24

take only what you need and leave the rest.

close your eyes and imagine your inner cathedral (mine looks like the hagia sophia ;) ).

what do you see there?

mentally remove the junk. empty your heart out until there remains only you, alone in that cavernous and holy space, kneeling humbly at the altar.

stay there in that (mental) position of surrender until you can feel the gentle Breeze on your cheek. embrace it, listen to it. wait for it to grow to a deafening, howling Wind that you cannot ignore.

follow that Wind wherever it leads you, and there--in that journey--you will find true happiness . . . and true Love.