Opening My Heart

Comment now » // August 10th, 2009

This morning I attended the church I’ve been going to lately. (More about my search for a spiritual home in later posts.) There was a guest minister giving the sermon and the theme of the service was ‘The Spiritual Landscape of the Heart’. During the “passing of the peace” portion of the service the minister invited the congregation to say to one another “I offer you my heart” rather than the traditional “Peace be with you”.

The minister had led into this suggestion by talking about the Buddhist practice of taking refuge in the sanga, meaning the spiritual community. As I turned to those in beside me in the pew and stood up to shake the hands of those in the pews around me I could see that the invitation to offer others our hearts made many of us, including myself, a bit shy. It was an exercise in vulnerability. I haven’t been going to this church for very long, and I don’t know many people there, so to look a relative stranger in the eye and say, “I offer you my heart” required a bit of courage. Those who weren’t comfortable offering their hearts simply said “Peace be with you”.

On my walk home from the service this made me reflect on having an open heart. Since I left the cult I was involved with it hasn’t been easy to open my heart. I have often noticed during my recovery that when I’m in a spiritual community I feel the twin feelings of longing to belong to a group of like-minded people and the fear that I feel associated with that.

There is a tremendous amount of risk involved for a cult survivor to join a spiritual community. At least, that’s been my experience. I want my heart to be open to this community yet I’m afraid. Afraid of rejection and betrayal and manipulation and all the other painful things that happened with the last community I belonged to.

I gave my whole heart to the cult, as so many of us do. I knew nothing then about healthy boundaries or measured inquiry. I simply threw myself, body and soul, into a way of life that seemed to have the answers to so many of the questions I had. I fell in love with the guru and with her other followers. They were my friends, my family, my confidantes. That community became everything to me.

Now, 20 years and a lot of heartbreak and therapy later, I feel such a deep sense of longing for spiritual community, yet it feels like a longing I cannot satisfy. I can’t risk belonging because I’m afraid I’ll be duped again. I’m afraid to open my heart and have it broken…again. So I am cautious to the point of being closed off. I go to the church with all those lovely people who offer me their hearts, and yet I remain an outsider because I’m desperately afraid.

…I’m not sure what to do about this. I’m not sure how to safely open my heart up again. Maybe there is no safe way. Maybe with vulnerability there is always risk.

If I didn’t feel the longing, the pull toward a spiritual community, then it wouldn’t matter. But the longing, the need for connection, calls me to address my fear. I can either remain afraid and live with the nagging sense of longing or I can face this fear and see what gifts it has to offer me.

Yikes! Stay tuned.